I watched Nigella Lawson’s new tv show last night where she makes food very quickly by opening tins and packets and sprinkling grated chocolate on the contents.
In the old days when my straight male friends rather fancied the fat Tory chancellor’s daughter I too used to like Nigella. Like most people I enjoyed watching her ooh and aah over roast chickens and pies and puddings, stews and soups; I loved the way how she talked about how she was the greediest person she knew and couldn’t stop eating and yet had the figure of a streamlined Marilyn Monroe; I loved the way she felated wooden spoons and other kitchen equipment (although thankfully not the Moulinex on full speed) and I simply adored the way there was always time in the show to demonstrate how la Nigella puts on lipstick and how her shoes are an utter and terrible muddle but somehow the Minolos are always on top. Then of course the guests arrived as seen through the wistfulness of a Vaseline-smeared lens and they all laughed and noshed off the tableware and talked about lipstick and shoes and how fat they all were. It was spellbinding.
This new series seems to have lost the magic somehow. For one thing Nigella doesn’t now look like Nigella. Not simply because she’s older but because she moves about. I realise in the past we never saw our hostess do much in the way of shifting her arse. There was the occasional arm lifting up to crush the oozy, creamy slice of cake into her pouting lips and she would – when necessary – slide a bowl along the counter all the time talking about how she likes saving on the washing up as if we’re expected to believe that when tea was finished her kids rushed into the front room to watch EastEnders while she had not only the dishes to do but had their packed lunches to make as well. Probably with a JPS hanging from her lips the while.
In this new series, we are invited to watch her as she exits Sloane Square station for no obvious televisual reason, how she rides an old London routemaster bus (curious indeed as no one else living in London can) and I sat there slack-jawed with excitement while a excruciatingly bizarre scene played out of her picking up her strange Tadzio-type son from a swanky mews house, bundling him into a cab, and then softly chiding him for not doing his homework. She explained somewhat mysteriously that it wouldn’t take him long as she was cooking a three-course lunch for six and that would only take half-an-hour. Do you see. We then jumped to watch freaky little Tadzio skateboarding around the street outside his mum’s house in Eaton Square in his pink drainpipe jeans just like any other kid, apart from the fact that it was in the most expensive square in London and it’s just occurred to me that he’s the spit of that odd boy with the hair like a blond walnut whip who used to turn up on shows like Wogan in the 1980s and talk about antiques and is now a woman called Margueritte or something and runs a firm selling dog cleaning products from near Godalming.
But mostly, the problem with this show is that the food looks vile. She fried a steak which is fine but then served it with what looked like a pound of tile grouting; her Thai chicken curry slopped about like watered down stew and was the colour of the National Theatre in a downpour. Her chocolate mousse had all the allure of a Sarah Lee cake. Why would anybody want to know how to make this gunge? Let alone eat it.
I presume the idea is that for those people who live on prepared meals here is a way of spending the same amount of time as you would on removing some packaging, pricking the cellophane and slinging your frozen lasagne in the microwave but you produce something delicious and homemade instead. Sadly, the results aren’t remotely convincing.
Why don’t you come over to mine where you can watch me riffle through my collection of old Camper shoes, then rub Camomile lotion into my currently rather flaky and sunburnt ears before I astound you with a feast of beans on toast? Ooh tempting.
