Burnt Toast Podcast
Nigella Lawson Doesn't Entertain (& What Else We Learned From Meeting Her)
Nigella Lawson doesn't entertain. She also makes up words. Listen to this week's podcast episode as we go beyond the charming cooking shows and the 9 books (but yes, we'll talk about those to).
Last week, I talked to the domestic goddess herself (me while sitting across from her in the studio). Listen to Nigella Lawson on cooking as necessity over therapy, how she doesn't entertain with a "capital E," and learn why she started up making up her own words.
Play the episode above, find it on iTunes, or listen to it using your favorite podcatcher. (Don't have one yet? We're fans of Stitcher.)
Inspired to cook some of Nigella's food? Here are two of our favorite recipes:
Written by: Kenzi Wilbur
Popular on Food52
1 Comment
Transcendancing
March 16, 2016
What a gorgeous episode and interview! This is one of the loveliest things - I just want to gush. And cook. Especially from Nigella's work. I really appreciate a lot of her her approaches to food and cooking and the ideas behind it. I'm so pleased at her success in particular because she's a home cook and seeks (and has always sought) authenticity and groundedness in her cooking through books and television, not because it was 'the thing' (I think she's right in that for a long time it hasn't been, that's more recent), but because it was self expression and part of that conversation around food and cooking she mentions. I thought she articulated a bunch of those ideas so beautifully.
I think that right now the emphasis on home cooking and what that looks like, the range involved in that on any given day - simple, complicated, ambitious, need-it-on-the-table-now, is so important. I see a number of sites that seem to focus on the new thing, the trendy thing, or these beautiful looking but complicated or... overly wanky I guess... recipes. I love challenges, I love something that's a bit over the top and for a special occasion (cultural or made up on the spot), but also love the emphasis that sometimes you just need the easiest way of getting a tasty dinner on the table that your kids will eat, that won't take forever, that cleaning up after isn't a chore.
I love that Food52 recognises the breadth of that involved in home cooking - I want to be challenged, I want to be extended, I want to try things out of my comfort zone (last year it was brines for meat), but I also want inspiration for what I can cook for dinner, after work or university when I'm so very tired, uninspired, and done in, or broke. Or all of the above. There also seems to be something of an unspoken almost recognition here in this community that sometimes cooking is about necessity and not pleasure, but making the best of it. I think that it's one of those things that is a bit invisible and is interesting to shine some light on, and I also think in many ways it can be gendered - based on household division of labour and the way roles tend to play out etc, not always but I think there's enough for consideration to be applied in this area.
If you don't have the option to just 'not' cook dinner, what do you do - how do you do it, and how do you repeat it day after day. That conversation happens not just around food and cooking of course, that's just one example of where these concepts show up, but they're interesting to examine. Perhaps especially so for me today having listened to three different interviews on food and cooking via this podcast, but also because as a cultural theorist and feminist, my mind is always turning over these questions and poking at them a bit deeper.
I think that right now the emphasis on home cooking and what that looks like, the range involved in that on any given day - simple, complicated, ambitious, need-it-on-the-table-now, is so important. I see a number of sites that seem to focus on the new thing, the trendy thing, or these beautiful looking but complicated or... overly wanky I guess... recipes. I love challenges, I love something that's a bit over the top and for a special occasion (cultural or made up on the spot), but also love the emphasis that sometimes you just need the easiest way of getting a tasty dinner on the table that your kids will eat, that won't take forever, that cleaning up after isn't a chore.
I love that Food52 recognises the breadth of that involved in home cooking - I want to be challenged, I want to be extended, I want to try things out of my comfort zone (last year it was brines for meat), but I also want inspiration for what I can cook for dinner, after work or university when I'm so very tired, uninspired, and done in, or broke. Or all of the above. There also seems to be something of an unspoken almost recognition here in this community that sometimes cooking is about necessity and not pleasure, but making the best of it. I think that it's one of those things that is a bit invisible and is interesting to shine some light on, and I also think in many ways it can be gendered - based on household division of labour and the way roles tend to play out etc, not always but I think there's enough for consideration to be applied in this area.
If you don't have the option to just 'not' cook dinner, what do you do - how do you do it, and how do you repeat it day after day. That conversation happens not just around food and cooking of course, that's just one example of where these concepts show up, but they're interesting to examine. Perhaps especially so for me today having listened to three different interviews on food and cooking via this podcast, but also because as a cultural theorist and feminist, my mind is always turning over these questions and poking at them a bit deeper.
See what other Food52 readers are saying.