In Conversation with Nigella Lawson

[Music] [Applause] [Music] so without further ado I'd like to welcome you tonight jela Lawson and Rosana Kara Thank You Allison for that introduction and Nigel and I were talking earlier because we were both in New York this weekend and we both almost didn't make it back to Toronto so she beat me to it actually she got in last night due to the ice storm and I got in just this afternoon if you could believe it so we're both here and I'm really looking forward to to interviewing Nigella tonight so it's my great pleasure to be here so I know and yours I'd like to start just with a little bit about your background obviously everybody in the room knows and loves you but it'd be great to know how you got started in the industry I know that cooking was always kind of something in your background if you actually graduated as a journalist I did I didn't graduate I mean I as a journalist I graduated in medieval and modern languages that's close to journals but you know the thing is in a way I feel I'm a bit of a fraud because I am not really part of the industry I you know I've I mean I eat and I eat and I like thinking about food I like writing about food I like cooking but I haven't I haven't had training and I did fall into this world by accident and I I always stress that I'm not a chef because well you know I'm somewhere where people have spent a lot of time training and learning a profession learning enormous amounts of skills and I want to make it quite clear that I don't pretend to have any of those skills I appreciate what they do and I'm inspired by what they do and I think you know talking to chef outside earlier I think we'd all agree that there's room for us all and different sorts of cooks but I came to this by accident and even because after all I'd had a quite a long career as a journalist by the time I wrote my first book and I didn't I never I didn't really know it was going to have recipes in it I thought it was going to it was going to be a book about my thoughts about food and a lot of it are my thoughts about food always happy to pontificate or what really Witter on and so I I did that and then at the course of writing that I had an idea for my second book the ironically titled how to be a domestic goddess because I came to baking then I never really baked I'd always cooked I mean it from I've cooked from like the age of six so I I lurched I mean all the important things in life that happens one I think happened by accidents and and this was a happy accident and I and I do enjoy it and I've learned a lot by doing it but I but I've regard myself as a passionate amateur rather than as a professional right so did you I know you did something you were a restaurant critic so yeah well I was a restaurant critic for a while and it was at a very interesting time in London because it I started I was quite young it was 1985 and it was the beginning of the sort of so-called culinary Renaissance so in other words slightly overdone a sort of shadow of nouvelle cuisine but it was interesting in it you know you as all of us know when we cook in our own home sometimes you need you you need a certain amount of unbridled excess before you learn what works and what doesn't and that was really that that was the stage that the restaurants were going to and then and it was changing food was changing now every now and then people would say but you know you know what do you know you know why you've seen these things you're not you know and I used to say the day you take money just from people who are chefs in your restaurants is the day that an ordinary person's view is irrelevant and I think that when it you know whoever whoever is cooking you're there to give pleasure and delight to everyone and I think that it's a bit you know you you shouldn't need to get a menu explained to you in order to like the food if someone needs to say you know we thought this will be interesting and the real truth is is that in my experiences talented chefs are not like that it's the ones who don't have the talent who feel they want to do what they read about they want to they want to be ready reds epi and they're not but generally speaking you know I think all of us chefs all cooks eaters we're united in a love of food and that really is what matters but I certainly feel you don't need any more than you know you don't need to have a doctorate in literature to be able to read a novel you certainly don't need any sort of training in writing to write a novel I mean imagine telling Dickens that or Shakespeare so the reality is that I think I always when I wrote about restaurant just like when I write about cooking I'm trying to give an indication of what what if what it might have felt like that might eat in that restaurant and that's there many things that go into a restaurant experience whether it's too noisy whether someone smiles at you the minute you walk in with the most important thing I think in a restaurant and whether you know whether leaven matters we know like whether you cook or when you bring a dish to a table it doesn't matter if you make a mistake you could be charming and apologize when people get defensive it doesn't work so all those things I always want to get and wanted to give an account this is what it feels like because when people are deciding whether they go to a restaurant or not yeah of course they're thinking about the food but they're also thinking about the night out they're having and whether it's worth then paying hard earned cash on it and I think that should be respected and not you know not that you only have a view if you're a chef and I saw I suppose that's what interested me always and I think that's coming at it a bit from as an outsider so your food is very approachable you know when you look at your cookbooks the recipes are very approachable they're uncomplicated I think that's what people really enjoy about your food as well that you know it gives pleasure as you said what motivates that philosophy for you I mean when you're choosing to put a cookbook together what kind of dishes are really fueling your well it happens really the other way around which is I cook and some of the things I cook morph into recipes with my help and some just become more that was that's great you know it's something to do is it is it really a recipe I don't know and sometimes I put those is it a recipe I don't know recipes in as well as suggestions but when I cook first I'm not weighing or measuring or timing and then I found that because I'm just seeing I mean I obviously I'm paying attention but I'm not looking it at my watch or setting a timer I'm just seeing what happens and then from that it becomes a recipe and I think of that really worked I like that mixture of ingredients I might have been clearing out my fridge and then I like this and so then I grate mode but of course and then it then it seems to become a recipe and I think that in a way in common with I suppose a lot of home cooks and certainly the food I eat it on the people's homes and the food I make in my own is that it's not technique heavy so it relies on the flavor and flavor as we all know also relies on texture so you know you're using you are making judgments about how you want to go but it you're not actually being so systematic about those judgments I'm not I'm not always aware of what criteria I'm applying so you're going really by the heart I'm going by the heart and and also I sometimes I can tell which what I am p-ting what I'm what I have to return to and that tells me something and I'm often inspired by by going out you know I always say about how cooks and chefs are different but I'm very inspired by going out and I might eat something and it might open my eyes to a particular way of cooking which when I'm in my own home I have to do differently because we're all aware that in a restaurant there there's a whole team of people whereas it at home you know it's just me and also I'm I don't want I don't want to add a normalcy to the washing up so I feel I don't know order the shopping so I'm really trying to think there was something there that speaks to me as well as a home cook that I really that I really love and how can I make it work at home and and that and I enjoy that do you start off with a theme no no I did but I once did when I did Nigel yzma I knew I want to do a book of all serve Italian inspired recipes but generally I don't have a theme but you know so I will explain to you for example how I will turn things when I was in Melbourne no I was Melbourne recently when I was there the time before I went to a restaurant called Ghazi where I had these incredible chips fries fat fries and they were fried in garlic oil with dried oregano tossed in dried oregano and crumbled feta and they were really really hot everybody's getting hungry I can and so when I wanted to that was thinking about when I was at home although I have cooked you know I have cooked rice and in fact I was inspired by some Italian Italian restaurant fries once of my Tuscan fries things when I cooked them with herbs and with whole cloves of garlic but I wanted to use those flavors in a way that was just easier for me at home and I chopped the potatoes and roast them in in cubes with garlic and dried oregano and then when they come out of the oven i crumbled feta and use some fresh oregano so as far as I can see these are very different sorts of dishes and yet they're related and one is manageable in the course of making they lunch and one isn't and you know in a way I I mean I do too I will deep fry have occasion but really for me you know if I go to a restaurant there's anything deep-fried on the menu that's mine and in fact what I really want to do is I want I I want to get from of those are me catering tents so that I can deep-fry in my garden because that I live in a kind of open plan space so deep frying you have to be you have to go all in because that's it the cushion covers everything for a week she's a woman after our hurts you relate to your cookbooks more as not more as a manual but more as a collection of stories and emotions and memories and you've written eleven of them as we've heard is there a special food memory that you can share with us from any of those books that really stands out for you when I suppose I'd have to talk about my mother's praise chicken in kitchen it's on my website if anyone wants the recipe but it's a it's it's I cooked it for so many years before it even occurred to me to put it in a books it's not really I mean you me know when you cook something so repeatedly it doesn't seem like special and my mother died very young when she was 48 and this was something we used to have most Saturday lunch times which it was chicken cooked in a pot with water on the stove with leeks and carrots and then we'd always have it with a rice on the side and she used to make sometimes an egg lemon sauce but otherwise it was but it's very intense play but I changed it a bit I put dry white vermouth or white wine in it which year didn't and I put a lot of peppercorns and it is it's it's not chicken soup and it's not a chicken stew I mean I always say that I call it praised because it's it's a kind of a mixture between braised and poached and both cooking it and eating it they're an act of devotion but I love it and I love it and why it means a lot to me as well is that you know it's the way that my children can get to eat my mother's food and I think food home cooking is a you see and we're either evoke memories or we're creating new ones and that to me is is immensely important but you're right to say you know I do you know I I think you're a good cookbook has to be many things I think it has to be wholly reliable manual I think every recipe has to work and it has to be very easy to follow but it also should give you pleasure weeding it as you would read any other book and for me that's as important but but the what no one part overshadows the other there's no point loving a book and it makes you want to eat and then you follow a recipe and it doesn't work so you have a fondness for Italian cuisine I do um what drove that well I lived in Italy for a year when I was 19 and I've been back almost every year since and I was quite shy I'm a very shy really try out yes I'm you know I can't be shy not just because I you know that well it's not you know I mean if I'm with shy people as well it I get it's contagious I get it back again but I am Who I am which I but when I think going to Italy made a real difference because I some when I spoke a different language I became a slightly different person in Italian I wasn't a shine Italian I was much more outgoing and I I write in a way you it's also very relaxing I think to go liberating to go somewhere where you're just you afresh because when you're young the chances are you always meet people who know your parents and your family and your siblings and you always seen in that way and then you go and you have to you know I had a living make a name for being me just Denis and I was independent and I also I always cooked I cooked from a very young age I was brought up in the name which was very Francophile in French cooking was what everyone inspired to but then I went to Italy and it changed everything for me and it was the sort of food I liked eating I think that's where you get the approachability of the food because Italian cuisine I mean I'm Italian you know born and raised it's very approachable you know it's it's not fancy but it's very very good and it's very sustainable I think you know that I always say that I'm sure it was a French person who you know Italian person who said this but it's true that something I said one of my programs which the French French food draws attention to the cook and the chef and Italian food draws attention to the food and I think there is some truth in that not entirely not perhaps importer our French cooking but certainly an oak cuisine and I think the the the real truth is is that the food that is just there about the flavors on the plate is a wonderful thing and you don't feel intimidated before you start and there's that that's important you don't feel intimidated as the cook you don't feel intimidated as the eater you feel that there's a generosity in that plate that people want you to to share and to join in and and I loved it you know and I I I learned to cook there quite a bit and I mean a lot of things I don't know whereabouts in Italy or from but you're from the south say you're I learned from a northern and you know they're you know I was but everyone always writes down no no it happens don't use butter well count you know that's very because most people you know a lot of people have only encountered stuff in Italian sure dude yeah and it is they are different but I mean all Italian food I think and wherever it is has a vibrancy and an honesty that just makes me smile thinking of it that's great that's why you like it so much um there's obviously a lot of interest on food these days whether the Food Network has driven that or people's sophistication more travel there's also a lot of talk more about healthier foods um how do you feel about the whole healthy food trend movement in terms of it you know is that something that is sustainable or is that just kind of a trend of the day well I mean no one actually wants to be unhealthy I mean clearly however I think that there is a lot a lot of mumbo-jumbo spoken and I feel that people have a terribly extreme I mean I sort of feel for example sometimes you know I put cream in a recipe and get people are like so much cream you think there's a third of a cup of cream there are six people eating I mean get it get it get a grip you know and also I think that it doesn't seem to me to make sense to keep removing whole food groups from from your diet you need a bit of everything I and also I mean I read quite a lot of food science and what and what is regarded as healthy and it changes all the time I mean I've read recently I don't know how many of you've read a book called big fat surprise by Nina Tycho's I think she's called and it actually the papers on really on actually eating you know meat I mean obviously it's pence how its raised meat and butter actually jeez you actually and not bad for you and I have to say and this is not the it does not make sense to me that the food the human beings have been eating for so long are going to be worse for you than the food that's created in a factory I mean actually you know vegetable fats that we cook with I think they were invented in 1911 and they're it's an industrial process how can that be better for you you know and so it seems to me that you can make any study say more or less anything you wanted to and of course we all hang on to the truths that serve our desires most agreeably but and then you know for example I think there are many many arguments for being vegan but maybe health isn't uppermost because you know there are you is very easy to be deficient in iron and in vitamin b12 and also nowadays that a lot of vegan food seems to be processed now I've great I'm a great believer in vegetables and I think as I say there are very good arguments for being vegan you could hit the any ecological argument and you can take just strictly in the argument that you don't wish to kill animals now certainly in terms of as human beings the teeth we have and the way and the way our intestines are we are designed to eat meat that doesn't mean to say we have to I don't know that I can give a moral argument for eating meat but I do eat meat but I certainly feel that I want to eat meat that is and I'm in a privileged position that I can that is you know you know grass-fed that is in that is healthy that is not read intensively and that's the thing and I I have a balanced diet I always say I you know I do eat health care does eat not for five healthy people but the thing is that you know we do live an age of fat so I do think that a lot of so-called healthy eating is a cover-up for an eating disorder and I think people persecute themselves for what they do eat or what they don't eat I I notice as well just anecdotally that friends of mine who deny themselves certain foods does tend to binge on it well that's true and they always say to me I don't know how you live with so much chocolate in your house and I say because I don't prevent myself from eating it I know it's there and just like when I travel I came I came away with eight bars of chocolate of course I knew I was going to be away for a while and I know that if I were one of those people who didn't allow themselves to eat chocolate they'd all have been eaten by now as it is I think I've only eaten two and a half bars just I've got enough for the remaining two weeks she's she's got a great psychology to the song so do you think we're hung up about food yes today I think we are I think maybe it's also the privilege if you like to call it or the the perhaps decadent corollary of having too much to eat I mean yes and I do think as well but I do think there is a reason why we worry I think we are we are worried and we quite rightly so we are unsure of what's happened what's behind the food in the supermarkets and I do think we we feel we're not being told about what chemicals are being put in the food in the earth and we do feel that the world is not safe and so why shouldn't we worry and I think people do worry and that that doesn't mean to say the steps that are taken they're always the right ones but who knows what the right ones are I don't think any of us does so how about local food I mean there's been a real big movement in the last decade with local food and everybody is really into it these days you have a different kind of view on local food and that maybe we're being a little too elitist with it I do two things I think that that well in your big countries a big country's notion of what local food is is not what a small country's nation so your you know your idea of what local food is takes in a great deal of the British Isles you know so it's so what I would say is this is that also if you come from a small grey island if you eat seasonally and locally you're gonna have parsnips and cabbages and not part cells all the time how you gonna have a cup of tea or a cup of coffee you know people forget that and also that it's a I do think sometimes people in the food world are not so much in the food world there's people generally try and they create such a hierarchy so in the olden days the the peasant class ate seasoning locally and the rich would send people out to far away - come back with pineapples and pineapple trees and build glass houses and that was considered the chic thing to do and now that reverse people can get there's air travel and supermarkets will sell you beans from Kenya when it's in the dead of winter it's considered the chic thing to do is only have you know roots and tubers grown locally and expensively with a lot of mud clinging to them and the real thing is is that making a fetish out of any way of eating isn't helpful I know that when I get back to England and it's asparagus season I will be eating every bit of asparagus I can get how are we going to the farmers market and you know getting the canned asparagus and I'll be eating a lot but that doesn't mean to say that I you know you know won't eat won't get a pomegranate that's flown in from California I do and I it's not and I'm proud of it but I don't want to lie about what I do and and I think we all you know we eat food have to be from all over and so I don't know what the I said you didn't have the answer because I perhaps I'm too much for hedonist and I see something I want it and I know it'll taste good so I have it there are certain things you know things that that I don't that I suppose I don't make me a bit squeamish well gras makes the idea of that I don't like I remember going to in one of those goose farms in France and actually seeing it but in a way you know I do you know as I say I'm not I'm not a vegan so where does you know yes but I suppose in a way the people who change things are the unrealistic types right but I'm not really here to change things and I and I suppose I feel I'm I just can't talk about what I do and son as it changes I think that I used to be a bit more militantly anti seasonal and perhaps that where I was slightly doing it on purpose to sort of nudge people but and now I've now I'm not and I do I feel much more grateful for eating food when it's in seeds but it's also true that because one has access I mean I don't know quite what sort of food wasteland I'm shortly going to live in in post brexit Britain but thank goodness for travel I can travel around eating seasonally and locally so I'd be remiss and not asking about how you feel about this whole me - movement that has happened in the last year and how it impacts on women in this industry and food service and hospitality obviously it's a huge subject everywhere in every industry what do you think the restaurant industry has to do to empower women to be more in control of what they want to do in working in this industry whether as a cook or a chef I know you were in New York this weekend and you were speaking it yes I'd love to hear what you well it's it's a very difficult thing I mean obviously I think that the me - movement has highlighted many practices which are disturbing and as someone I can remember who and probably many people have remarked that those restaurants where they're so careful about how thoughtful they are about the food and you know the how well treated the animals are sometimes their staff and not treated as well I I don't I think you know that historically the hospitality industry has not actually always been a very comfortable place for workers generally and something has to be done about that and I also think that this also includes paying people properly of course and when I was in New York I went to one restaurant and it when they put you know what gratuity you might you know you could voluntarily paternally but and it started as 18% suggested and it went up to 22 now if you're asking people to pay 22% which is getting on a quarter you're not paying yourself properly and that actually is not a gratuity and you know that that it makes it in people can't afford to go out it is not an honest way of doing it you know in Australia they do pay people more and you're on it's for that yes people say yes Australia is expensive but I mean you only get things to be very to be cheap if if you're under paying people and this you know the same it's true in lots of areas no I'm not I can't really speak to the me tooth Minh me to move vertically in in restaurants because it's not my it's not my field it's not my world and I always think that you know that I think that everyone has to bit to take responsibility but I think where you have people not being paid properly and being scared they're you know in their jobs and I think in hotels it must be worse I think it must be absolutely awful chamber mates in hotels I hate to think of what happens there and I don't suppose a lot of them get much of a chance to talk and or a frightened to because I don't know whether you know what documentation they're on when they're working and all these things matter an awful lot but everyone has to take responsibility and I think that means the customer as well because I think we know when we go to restaurants if we think we don't always know if if people aren't being made properly if I mean I often say when I see a tip added on I will often ask the the waitstaff is it does this go to you and if it doesn't I will give cash because I think that you know it's disgraceful if that is what happens so I think it's I think it's got a the hospitality business has got to tidy up a bit definitely and but it's but it's a hard one because I mean just like no one ever likes to say about when they talk about their great age of you know democracies that you know whether they were you know the Greek or the British Empire and what they do say you know it's all built on slavery and that's how it works because people are exploited and abused and I'm afraid to say that a lot things work in a financial way because the people are exploited and abused and so you can't you know you that's what makes things cheap and we whether we've got if we want to be complicit in that and carry on making sure you know and we often are you know people don't want what they want who wants to pay more than they need I mean no one in their right mind so I'm not saying it but it it's everyone is involved in this so you've written an essay I believe on just the role of women as home cooks and the fact that sometimes when we look at you know home cuisine we downgrade it we don't think it's as important as restaurant food and a lot of the food that's being created in the home has been traditionally done by women and you seem to have made that connection well I think that you know things on the whole in society there are two things which make effort valued and one is if it's done by a male and a corollary to this is also if it's paid for and and traditionally cooking has been done by women unpaid in the home so therefore it's it's seen as it often is it's valued sentimentally but it it hasn't been recorded certain models respect but obviously you know all labor is honorable and in a way I do think home cooks are creative cooks I think that we we look to the top we compare the everyday home cook with the absolute top echelon of restaurant chefs where we think they're creative they do all these extraordinary things but the reality is in a restaurant you are actually having to be pretty formulaic and in a home use you can be a bit more anarchic I think I think you can sort of do what you want a bit more you you you can you can change your recipe a bit depending on what you've got because you haven't got people coming in expecting to have something it's conformity conformity is very very important and rightfully so you know in a restaurant kitchen whereas actually conformity is not that important at home and that's I think most people's memories of home food would be that you know it's a bit of this a bit of that and no one's really counting it doesn't have to be it doesn't have to be exactly the same but as I say it's it's a you know we're not we don't compare like would like when we compare restaurant chefs and home cooks and both their part as I said there's no point it's the wrong way of looking at it do you think there's a risk of home cooking changing now that we have more of the Millennials coming on board who maybe aren't as interested in cooking at home and I think that's I think that's wrong I am stunned by how many young people cook and I yes I really am I think young people cook a lot and I think that young men cook just as much as young women and not in the way that when I was young if a man cooked it was whether you know an awful lot supplies not a lot of washing up and now I do think that's changed a lot I'm what I see of young people and I see quite a lot of them that's interesting so you don't think that's gonna it's gonna be on the decline I don't but you know what can I say there are two things which have I have been told to be normally decline ever since I was very young one is books and the other is cooking and you know what they may continue thank God yay as a woman who's built a bit of an empire you have a loving cookbook you say an empire I haven't actually built an empire I have wished no load of books as I made some TV programs but I don't have I don't know how I mean I don't know what you went to have as an empire and I only got one full-time person hard times I don't know if it counts as an empire I mean I think an empire has to carry on if you're just lying if you're just lying around you know eating a grape by I around you feel great that's it read it more than gabino's I mean what advice would you give to women who are struggling to do a lot of different things in terms of finding balance and still being able to have a great career I thought this would be to women or men I mean because everyone needs balance in their lives I mean I don't feel I think you can mix a lot of things I mean just you can't try and do everything I think maybe that's that's the point I mean I remember when I was pregnant with my first child a friend of mine said this is but I don't want to press any young people here but anyway my friend of mine said you can have two lives but you can't have three you couldn't go out and have children or you can work and have children or you can work and you can go out but what you can't do is go out have children and work and largely speaking that's true I mean you've got a bit but but so you if you want to be someone who's going to endless courses and going to classes one night and going to a you know some course another night and then to parties and then doing all that thing and traveling and you want to have children anyone a job you're never going to do all that so but you just got to choose one you know just leave out one sphere and for me go leaving the going out sphere has been the most enjoyable but you know how everyone always talks about FOMO and Oliver Batman I hope he coined the phrase Oliver Bettencourt jomo which is joy of missing out failure like that how I just I think I'm like good and what you're going out now well going out now we just you know are you uh you know so I so I don't have that and when I feel that it helped that I did an awful lot when I was young but I I sort of feel that maybe maybe I don't know you know I don't my I don't live my life on Instagram I like posting food pictures and looking at other people's food pictures but I but if I look at a lot of people in a room and a bar I don't want to be there do you think we're missing out on something with everything having to be Instagram well like are we focusing too much on that and I'm gonna think about I think like everything else it depends how you use it it can magnify your pleasure because I honestly believe in enthusiasm shared is intensified or it can stop you being in the moment because you're so worried about you know whether it looks right but I can I just hold my hands out there but I Drive my children completely mad because I won't let them eat until I've taken a poacher picture so I'm it's like is this very very odd role reversal so I am that bad person however and if but if I can't get it and it doesn't right I don't carry on with it but I but it's but I have actually I took protocols for eight in the old days when you had to take you know the film to the cameras to be developed so I don't know so I say it just depends I mean I think right it's much more about what is difficult about that whole world is you've always got chatter in your head if you if you have it on I turn my play and my phone onto airplane mode quite a bit because somehow if I just have it there I can sort of feel it's there but it once as I uploaded I feel it's kind of remote and it buys me a bit of time because I do think it's that it's being crowded out and that's what I like about cooking and eating is that somehow you're you're focused on the food so what advice would you give people in the audience who you know wanting to aspire to being a good home cook and take note of your cookbook says as a way to get there um well it depends I mean it depends what stage right if you're at a very beginning stage I always say to everyone just cook for yourself because the difficulty is a lot of people get enthusiastic and they don't really cook in the everyday for themselves and then they suddenly want to cook you know a big dinner and it's very stressful and they don't really know you know how food reacts when you know heat is applied or they don't know what adings no no I don't mean that dinner it what I mean is is that you know think different things do happen you add you know you add something acid and it will but I even surf away and you sort of have to do it from experience so I think that if you cook for yourself you things it doesn't you're not that worried about things going wrong and that gives you more freedom and also me it means you're on you're not distressing about that you're just actually paying attention I just say you have to pay attention to what you like you have to cook for your own palate because that's the only way you can do it for tasting and I also think and this is an odd thing I've written so many recipes you just mustn't repeat you must you must repeat recipes no you mustn't you know everyone always says I don't get in a rut get in a bit of a rut you know first because I think when you repeat recipes you get to know them so well that you don't really regard them as recipes and indeed you start adding different things because you just know exactly if an understanding of what that dish is and so I think that's very important and that's certainly what I do with my children and I and I think that makes it and then of course do other things and add to that but I but I do think you can't feel that every time you cook you're cooking something different that would be unrelaxed thing and it wouldn't teach you anything so if we were to open your fridge and that's what people teach at school isn't it I mean you're it's you're repeating things you're going over and over action I don't aspire to but if we were going to open your French what would we find in there what do you like to prepare at home well in my fridge I would hope there would be theirs I hope there would always be something a lot of leftovers from whatever I've been cooking I am someone who might cook a lot I like yes I do I mean when I'm trying to think on my fridge I mean it does there are certain things that are always there but I it changes because I again I suppose what's what's around I'm certainly planning my fridge for when I get back there's nearly always I nearly always have Greek yogurt I didn't why I find that's you know good in all sorts of cooking and incidents sauce I have bacon always have bacon have eggs but I don't normally keep in the fridge but I have so many of them I have to have some there we don't keep free eggs in the fridge in England no we don't and I really can't be talking to people who keep tomatoes in the fridge right nobody's gonna admit that now and I think potatoes don't recover much if even when they've been cooked you put them in the fridge it does something to them that they never they go Vic grainy I mean sometimes you have to if it's very hot I don't have that problem very often but I'm trying to think what I would have to start off with and I think as long as I've got garlic ginger chilies shallots banana shallots I'm a great believer in it's much easier to peel the long ones of scallion than the sort of thing spring onions that's my sort of base basic thing I would go to you know butter ghee fat lard dripping and I think from there yes and you know frozen peas in the deep freeze and lots of vegetables in the vegetable basket I think I can really do it very good tinned sardines in the cupboard can can tomatoes I think everybody's getting I think that's always a chicken about the place well we want to give everybody in the audience an opportunity to ask some questions yep got it I got it I'm actually so glad that you mentioned fries because now my question won't seem so odd but if you could have potatoes one way for the rest of your life if I could have potatoes one way what can I just ask you people what is it always with questions that you always wanted you want to minimize the potential for pleasure but that's never how many wonderful ways can you eat potatoes what is one way I'm going to reduce it everyone always asked that like is one thing if you could only have one ingredient okay what one way of having potatoes yes one minute or two I don't know thanks I you know what I think there is well I'm gonna do two now you see you've given me you've given me a bit of an amazing okay ah we have inning and we have Jersey Royals new potatoes and they are extraordinary or there are some anywhere they just taste soil they grow it is so wonderful and for me steamed new potatoes just plain steamed with butter and maybe some fresh mint that's how did you just mint oh that is wonderful but sawdust butter and some some butter salt and white pepper and sometimes you have them ones that grow near seaweed and they are just extraordinary and otherwise if I'm having that then I suppose I would have to have chips fries but I I'm a great believer in maybe it's heroes proper roast potatoes I think that's no surprise proper roast potatoes in goose fat or duck fat of course thank you okay I'm just very curious as a mother and as someone who loves food and with with sadly with I think the fact that we're eating more in takeaways rather than you know at the family dinner table do you think that that's unfortunately the future or do you think that we might be able to get back to a point where we all sit down as a family and eat more often well that's set fingers in a way because I think you can sit down as a family but that doesn't necessarily mean everything has been cooked from scratch and I think it is important to sit down together if you can I mean I just but I don't think it's always possible for people to sit down and have a home-cooked meal from scratch every night I think lives are very busy and it's for a lot of people actually you know it is an expensive option because you need a lot of time if you need much more time if you're going to cook things which cost less I think so I think it's possible to cook some meals from scratch for people and not everything but I do think that it's I think it'd be better to have some you know to sit around together and eat and I would maybe start putting the emphasis there rather than sort of making people who are bad about what they can't manage in the in terms of fitting in with cooking thank you hello my first encounter with you was on one of your TV programmes and I boys you'd you as a food celebrity as more of a that sort of thing how does that happen how did it happen for you your first show your first because you're amazing on TV you have a wonderful personality as opposed to be going the restaurant route okay I was so I when I I did when I did my first book I didn't I mean at that time I'd been a print journalist and I had done radio but I'd never really wanted to do TV much I've done the odd thing about books or politics but I didn't really you know TV wasn't I didn't want to do it I met my first book in there was civilized in magazines and I was asked to do a TV series about it and I said of course not you know I don't want how would I do that and then I thought about it and I thought well I'll give it a go so I said well if I can do it without being scripted and and I can do it at home oh okay I'll you know I'll try and I did and I found it was a bit awkward at first and then I found my way out but it didn't occur to me to be in a restaurant cuz I couldn't have and I've washed up and I've been waited tables but I you know I I don't think I don't have the skills to work in a restaurant and it's the morning one yes but it's but why would I want to have something that means you have to stay up until 1:00 in the morning I mean and and you know it for me that's not you know I like going to restaurants but it's not how I that's not the connections I make with people I mean if I had summers of dream place it was very very small and you felt you knew the people there that would be different so I didn't I was surprised I wanted to do the TV or it worked but it's only because I just open my mouth and blather like I am now but it feels like me but if I had if I were called upon to perform and memorize something or but and all that that I'd find that difficult I was just wondering what is one of the most cherished recipes that you've learned my Tara says well I've sort of talked about my mother's chicken so I don't really know in terms of cherished recipes I mean I feel that for me it's a simple recipe just making pancakes and it always reminds me of you know making pancakes with my children and although now I have moved on to the waffle but and you know there is very few finer meals than waffles with maple syrup I have to say and I actually make the waffles Nunavut and in my deep freeze so I have them they're ready at a moment's notice and I think sometimes I can you know earlier I was saying I'm not always to put the emphasis on whether what you're cooking from scratch and the same is true with memories sometimes it's just that thing you know I rather loved us hanging out of my children and we're eating something and I really yes I love cooking what they love and I like and I enjoy that but actually it is just that thing of sharing something and it's cozy and it just feels that you're home and that you've created that little safe force field around you at the table I like like that feeling thank you I'll try and be faster if I can read it can we open two if I promise to be quick yes yes and I will project as well one of the things I love about this city is that the whole world is in Toronto we have access to a whole world of ingredients in your opinion is there a particular type of cuisine that you think is undervalued and you'd like to see people incorporate more into their daily lives um uh well actually I I haven't traveled well enough to know that I'm not in the privileged position of doing that I do think people what is quite interesting is that every oh it's not I don't you know I'm not desperate I'm not going to the barricades on this one but the first one that comes to mind and there may be many others is German food everyone thinks that's a kind of joke and it really isn't it especially German baking is wonderful and I think that northern European food has always been slightly the unglamorous the glamorous sort of a part of culinary culture and then the Nordic cuisine has got their moment where as you know I do think that sort of Dutch and German sort of baking and cooking are really interesting it's just that we dream of the cooking of warmer climates so I feel Alison looking like we're very warm here hi there oh it's fine no weird you like to go on vacation well let's go on vacation well I love Italy I I'd love to do a bit more of Southeast Asia but um you know what I haven't I'm not brilliant at vacations it's not my song it's not the thing I'm best bet you you recently wrote for Lenny which was alluded to and said to disparage an activity because it's traditionally female isn't itself to be anti-feminist yes and we're so lucky to have your books to inspire women and men who cook at home to do so with pride who were here mentors or people who inspired you to have your self proclaimed title home cook and well you know my mother inspired me a lot although I have to say I'm also against the ideal Asian idealization of a home cook my mother bad-tempered a lot and impatient and I also feel that I know from my experience that home cooks aren't just these wonderful nurturing creatures we like working with people who like to exert a certain amount of control so I think that you know it's gonna be careful about you know the glorification but there are many though there are wonderful food writers that have inspired me you know Jane Grigson is one of them Anna del Conte I think there's you know that and a lot more and I'm very inspired now by the young women that I do I see I think that if you can't learn from your youngers your you know you're in a pretty poor position she was so excited earlier night to meet Nigella when you were younger were you a picky eater and if so what did you do to stop that okay I was an incredibly picky eater I didn't like eating whatsoever am i easy but I really hated mealtimes and I found the more I cooked myself the more I enjoyed food so I think the way to do it this make him be going back to the control issue I mentioned really picky eater so yeah well that's fine so just cook a bit more and you will you know and also your tastes do change over time so just enjoy what you enjoy but do be always try the rule I gave to my children is you don't have to eat everything but you have to try everything hi so welcome to Canadian spring what's your favorite beer to drink or to cook with my favorite beer oh you know you're I'm the wrong person to ask I have had some wonderful Belgian beer well right you know when I have been doing my tours of the Low Countries and but I haven't used didn't you know and also me I don't know enough that's shot there's the answer I mean Guinness I use but I got the Guinness chop cake and I use it in soda bread sometimes - and I've got a Guinness gingerbread but I mean it you you're not speaking to a connoisseur here okay I just have to know what you like well you have to try a bit more find out there may be many other things to like - okay so no one else is allowed to come up she's exerting her control through your I would say documentary that you do yes but an Adele Conti what influence did she have on you besides olive oil and Mediterranean salt in the water she or she's an atoll contest one who taught me when these years in decades ago you know always to use some of the pasta cooking liquid when you make a sauce and she but she's a home cook who is so erudite and so interesting about what you know the how food has come to be in Italian food and I think also she her first books I found that they were so illuminating but very practical they'd always told you how far ahead you could cook something and I thought she she taught me that balance hello I'm a big Baker and I learned how to bake for my grandmother my mom and you what got you baking and what is your favorite dessert okay well what got me baking is that I had always thought that bakers and cooks were very different I was a cook and not a baker they Baker's just well they like doing very complicated things to a formula and cooks with a spontaneous you know free creatures but then I when I was writing my first book I overthought but in its gonna have a chapter on basic so I've got to get to grips with the basics and I realized I love baking and I realized also was a bit of a scam it's not very complicated it's not one thing you've got one thing going in the oven you haven't got you know five different things going on at once and you have to time them so I like that I don't have a favourite dessert I'm very fond of the pavlova I think that for me that's you know but it you know I have very many many I love a lemon meringue pie I don't make a good one but I love one thank you last question I'm gonna keep it really short you're a wonderful writer and you speak so well I just wanted to ask you somebody who's interested in cooking and eating and wants to be a food writer what what route should they take what would you suggest what should they be thinking um well all writers have to read you cannot write unless you read a lot and you don't necessarily have to read you don't need to read about food I think you need to get the taste of sentences in your mouth and you then despite the fact that you're reading a lot other people's sentences you've got to be very assured about your own because you've got to speak in your voice right in your voice so you have to write a lot and you have to read a lot and just put these days you can put it out there there's so many ways of doing that but that's okay that's what I would say don't read someone and think I want to write like that obviously you know it's impossible to read someone without letting that style slightly rub rub off but nevertheless just do enough and find your own voice my pleasure [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: The Centre for Hospitality and Culinary Arts at George Brown College

Views: 71,898

Keywords: Nigella Lawson, Nigela Lawson, George Brown College, GBC, George Brown, Domestic Goddess, Centre for Hospitality and Culinar Arts, Center for Hospitality and Culinar Arts, Cooking, Home Cooking, Culinary Arts, Culinary, Chef, Home Chef

Id: 1acSgiCJVYk

Length: 59min 2sec (3542 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 25 2018