Nigella bites some more!
To skip the intro spiel and jump straight to a review of Nigella's cookbooks, click on one of:-
Fed up with yob cooking from Essex boys? Why not go upmarket to Pimlico or holidaying in Tuscany? Nigella's methods are geared to busy meejah types who aren't fussy for frills but like a bit of zest and colour on the table. She could be called the Matisse of the culinary world, but then again she's very fond of Italian cooking and there's more than a hint of kosher. Expect plenty of rich green coriander, bright red chilies, salmon pinks, purple aubergine and egg-yolk yellows. And don't bring any calory anxieties with you. There's gooey chocolate pudding for dessert.
The original Channel 4 Series was unashamed gastronomic hedonism. And why not? Through those chic good looks, Nigella is very much a man's cook. Practical rather than precise. Anyone who can advise you to 'just bung it all in the pan' gets my vote straight away.
Delia can show us how to cook good food, but she won't tell you how to eat it, and let's face it her writing style is hardly bedside reading. With Nigella, we get it all. Great recipes easy to prepare, hints on how to serve it up plus a smattering of jokes and good humour to help entertain your guests while they're dribbling over the risotto. Guests? What about family? Suppose you're on your own? No problem. Nothing is too humble to escape this lady's witty attention. You'll find recipes for marmite sandwiches and eggy bread, and even the occasional one-line gem like affogato: "put vanilla icecream in a bowl, pour on espresso coffee".
Sorry, you'll have to go elsewhere for most of the animal products or fresh herbs but if you're in the Northampton area, why not call in to Daily Bread Co-operative for some basic commodities? We'll certainly fix you up with pasta and cous-cous.
Nigella Lawson is the bestselling author of How to Eat, How to be a Domestic Goddess and Nigella Bites and a TV star. She has been the food writer for Vogue and originated the restaurant column in The Spectator. She writes regularly for Sainsbury’s Magazine, the Observer and other publications. She has two children and lives in London.
Kitchen: Recipes from the Heart of the Home (2010 hb)
Her latest release. I'm always a bit suspicious of the follow-up cook book, fearing it might just be a re-hash of "something I prepared earlier". But Nigella is full of pleasant surprises. My wife Jo received this as a Christmas present, so I've been delving in to recapture that Nigella gift for giving us true comfort food. This one is no disappointment. Even the pictures are comforting. When you're not drooling over a tempting picture of San Francisco fish stew, you can be amusingly entertained by Nigella's witty asides or smiling over advice to "spoon this soft, gloopy, gloom-banishing mixture...". And how could any man resist a recipe for Slut's Spaghetti? A must for marmite lovers.
Click HERE to buy a copy of Kitchen: Recipes in £'s, with the usual excellent Amazon discounts.
Nigella Express (2009 pb)
Released 2009, another nail in the coffin for healthy eating! Great stuff for pasta lovers.
Click HERE to buy a copy of Nigella Express in £'s, with the usual excellent Amazon discounts or HERE for a hardback version.
Feast: Food that Celebrates Life! (2009 pb)
A great book for anyone contemplating Come Dine With Me.
Click HERE to buy a copy of FEAST (paperback) in £'s, with the usual excellent Amazon discounts, or HERE for a hardback version (different cover design).
Nigella Christmas (2008 hb)
released 2008, still relevant even in these straigthened times.
Click HERE to buy a copy of Nigella Christmas: Food, Family, Friends, Festivities in £'s, with the usual excellent Amazon discounts.
Forever Summer
Fresh, innovative, versatile and delicious, it's summer all year round and from around the world with Nigella. With all the style and class of her earlier books, and a whole new concept, this is an irresistible and wide-ranging book of summery recipes which can be eaten at any time - from scrumptious Italian antipasti and Greek mezze to Spanish cuisine, from barbecues to beach picnics, from Moroccan roast lamb to Mauritian prawn curry, from the traditional strawberries-and-cream feel of an English summer afternoon to Indian-summer evenings at home, from light lunches to seductive suppers; and with a selection of unusual icecreams and melt-in-the-mouth puddings to die for. Summer cooking is relaxed cooking, for days when we want to conjure up a mood of sunny expansiveness even in the darkest months. Easy cooking, easy eating. No one wants to slave over a hot stove for hours: the keynote is simplicity, freshness, enjoyment. It's a way of celebrating summer not only while it lasts, but extending it through the year. This gorgeous book, written with all Nigella's characteristic flair and passion, ties in with her new Channel 4 TV series and contains 40 or so additional recipes added exclusively for the book. Another groundbreaking design, ravishingly illustrated in full colour throughout.
Click HERE to buy a copy of Forever Summer in £'s, with the usual excellent Amazon discounts.
Nigella Bites
When it showed on Channel 4, the new series retained much of that Nigella magic we saw in the first round. Nigella has since become a household name, symbolising all that is best, most pleasurable and least fussy about the place of good food--making it and eating it--in our lives. This ravishing book was produced to accompany the new series of Nigella Bites.
Full of mouth-watering recipes, it offers some recipes based on her popular Vogue columns, others which are new and different, and all of them characteristic of Nigella and the ethos of her TV series--uncomplicated, original, fresh and perfect for the way we live today. They're easy to produce after a busy day at the office, fun to linger over at weekends or to make with the kids, delectable to read about, dreamy to look at and delicious to eat. Recipes include Late Breakfasts, Party Food, TV Dinners, Trailer Trash Munches, Big Lunches, Simple Suppers and a host of other daily delights. Nigella wants her readers and her viewers to enjoy the pleasures of eating and cooking. How could anyone resist?
We now know that her husband, the late John Diamond, was close to death when this series was made. Considering the strain that must have placed on the home and family, perhaps it's surprising this series was finished at all, never mind that she went on to be a phenomenal success across the Atlantic. The book itself still draws a loyal following from her fans. You can click HERE to order and pay for a copy in £'s, with the usual excellent Amazon discounts.
How to Eat
Nigella's first cookbook took England by a storm. A visual, literary and culinary tour de force. You can click HERE to buy a copy in £'s, with the usual excellent Amazon discounts. You should also be able to get a paperback version by clicking HERE. For a $ edition with completely different cover design and sub-title 'The Pleasures and Principles Good Food', click HERE
How to be a Domestic Goddess: Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking (2000)
"This is a book about baking, but not a Baking Book. The trouble with much modern cooking is not that the food it produces is not good, but that the mood it induces in the cook is one of skin-of-the-teeth efficiency, all briskness and little pleasure. Sometimes that's the best we can manage but, at other times, we don't want to feel stressed and overstretched, but like a domestic goddess, trailing nutmeggy fumes of baking pie in her languorous wake... "
How to be a Domestic Goddess is not about being a goddess, but about feeling like one. What this deliciously reassuring and mouthwatering cookbook demonstrates is that it's not actually hard to bake a tray of muffins, or a sponge layer cake, but that the appreciation and satisfaction they bring are disproportionately high. The "domestic goddess" has to maintain her (or his) cool when faced with pastry, too, of course--but with Nigella Lawson's guidance even puff pastry can be pain-free.
Here at last is the book which understands our anxieties, feeds our fantasies and puts cakes, pies, pastries, preserves, puddings, breads and biscuits back into our own kitchens. This is the art of baking and comfort cooking made simple and alluring for the modern cook. It has everything from cup cakes to certosino, from brownies to bagels, from peach cream pie to pizza, chewy amaretti to blueberry boy-bait, from rhubarb tart to Barbie cake, not to mention children's cooking, festive foods and family treats.
Click HERE to order and pay for your Amazon copy in UK£'s, or HERE for a US$ version.
Harry's Bar Cookbook
Over a period of 50 years, Harry's Bar has become a Venetian landmark, and a favourite haunt of stars such as Orson Welles, Hemingway, Noel Coward and Richard Burton. This cookery book replicates the recipes that have made Harry's Bar what it is, along with colour photographs and anecdotes from the bar's owner, Arrigo Cipriani. The bar's risottos and pasta dishes are its speciality, but other simple country food such as polenta, squid and beans are transformed into elegant dishes; and this volume provides recipes for making the bar's cocktails too, including the celebrated Bellini. Foreword by Nigella Lawson.
You can click HERE to order and pay for a copy in £'s, with the usual excellent Amazon discounts.
The Musée Imaginaire of Pasta
This book seems to be available in America but we've so far been unable to find out anything about it, except that Nigella had a hand in it and it's expensive ($60).
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