10 Questions for Nigella Lawson

hi I'm Belinda Luscombe I'm an editor at large at time Nigella Lawson is a journalist cook a cookbook writer and the star of several cooking shows on TV she's here to talk about her ninth cookbook Nigella simmer am I saying that right anywhere works for me yes thanks for coming Nigella so this book Nigel is myrrh is easy Italian inspired recipes if you happen to come across a the opposite of a domestic goddess like a domestic I'm not sure that would be what would be the first recipe you would start I mean before you so I have to say when I wrote a book called how to be a domestic goddess it was meant ironically and also it was written from the perspective of someone who wasn't right otherwise why why they need to write such a book I feel all my recipes have to work for people who've never cooked before even a cake recipe there's a chocolate olive oil cake which is pretty easy for anyone simply because you don't need machinery to make it it's pouring and stirring you pour and you stir and then you pour and bake and that's it I mean one of the advantages of not having any training myself is that when I write a recipe I go through the same possible panic areas anyone else will do so I will know to say look don't worry if the sauce looks like it's thinning now it will thicken later whereas someone who actually had some technique wouldn't be worrying about the thinning sauce because they'd know it was thickened later well you used to you this is your ninth cookbook and you do still I believe insist on calling yourself a cook yet been on TV now we've got cooking shows you're like when do you graduate to chef never and most people call them selfs and not chefs classically a chef is in charge of other chefs and is you know he is he's he or she is in command I am NOT in command and I have no one to command and I'm I cook in my kitchen now in the book in your books you write a lot about the you know the character of foods what they mean to you what is their food that's that is most emotional for you most emotionally resonant I suppose it goes go back to a chicken really because I feel that is the something listen this again is I feel that so much of what we said it's really appalling for vegetarians and I did once say it to a vegetarian host but whether we like it or not animal sacrifice has been part of human culture since the Bible and before and I think maybe why people often feel this sense of that it's an important family meal and there's a chicken there is because you do have a sense of it being the animal I don't know of course most people would be horrified to think like that and I don't think it's conscious because I think consciously it's shocking but I think beneath that that there is that something so fundamental to being human I mean I have emotional connections to all sorts of food but it's more to do with what I've eaten when right then than the actual food stuff and I suppose I associate the fact that we often had chicken a Saturday lunch and as a child your signature actually is to be quite relaxed about cooking and entertaining and we've discussed this I don't do entertaining with the capital e I see so what do you do when something doesn't work out one of the things you're serving anyway like people say it depends I mean if it's over salted I can't that's the only thing you can't rectify anything else works what are the one of the things I always tell other people our own less good about doing myself but I do try is not to apologize there's something very unrelaxed about interrupting people saying yes they have somehow it worked out when I did it last time it was better it's like people who have Gardens they always say you should have seen it last month it's so don't be that person in savory things if it doesn't look right there's very little that can't be saved without lots of you know freshly chopped parsley and sweet things there's nothing like a bit of you know powdered sugar put through a tea strainer most things are made alright by either now you are on a show in on American TV Atlanta called the taste and you are the only female charge on the taste now women now women have traditionally been for many years the cooks why why is it that it seems like it's profession well it's very difficult without making generalizations which are dangerous I would say that there are many very many conflict driven women but the particular aggressive conflict driven mania that you need to have to be a good chef suits men often better but most of all it's really about it's not really about what type of person you are I chose domesticity and if you don't you can be a chef but if you do it is very difficult to have a working life if you have a family if you have children that means you're up at the crack of dawn go to market and you don't get back till 4:00 in the morning and I would find that very difficult I would find it monotonous because the difficulty is if you if you're a chef yes you there is this one creative spirit there who comes up with new ideas but for everyone else you may as well work in a factory because you're just reproducing the same recipe every time whereas the liberation of home cooking is that you use whatever herbs you have in your fridge at that time or whatever vegetables what you've got what is your what you consider your sort of guilty worst cooking habit like licking the spoon and putting it back like I'm afraid to say I'm not big on guilt I didn't want enough when I taste things I do say my mother's juice if I'm stirring with a wooden spoon she always it's funny I suppose ease things she would then to taste dip in the other end and then lick back that tastes mostly though I feed my children so for example I feel I grew up the people often say to me you don't wear your hair up your net and all that in a restaurant you have to think of other people I cook for my children I grew up eating my mother's hair and I don't see why they can't grow up to eating mine and if they have to have some of my spit in their food you know family germs so be it do you observe the five-second rule in your household I will eat something myself if it's been on the floor but I would some I would be nervous about making someone else when I was right because it would be just embarrassing to you know just give someone food poisoning whatever business you know the business Nigella thanks so much okay

Channel: TIME

Views: 205,621

Keywords: nigella lawson, abc, how to be a domestic goddess, recipes, the taste, Nigellissima, food, youtube, Time.com, cooking, Chefs, restaurants, time magazine, 10 Questions, Bus, Chef, Jam, Kitchen, Recipe, Restaurant, Session

Id: LLEhMsmyIgQ

Length: 6min 46sec (406 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 21 2013