#40 I’m Just Pleased To See You
18/11/20 12:02
There was a moment in the last couple of weeks when I thought it might actually all be OK. It wasn’t when I was watching CNN and Biden edged over the 270 mark, though that was pretty special. It wasn’t when the BBC announced the Pfizer vaccine was 90% effective, though that was a profound relief. No, it was when Nigella appreciated the moist cracks in her own chocolate tahini pudding. Something in me just let go. God, I love her.
All of us were watching, weren’t we, with slack jaws, drool pooling. And that’s just at her delectable house. Not her house, obviously – somebody’s house, who-cares-whose house, wish-it-was-my house, film-set house, softly illuminated, tucked down a little mews that looks like something out of Notting Hill meets Paddington 2, drawn by Disney. Like Bedford Falls, it is always Christmas here. The Lawson version of London looks fit AF, all red buses, romantic bridges and idly rolling London Eye. I want to live in Nigella’s world, where leopard print knives rattle in the cutlery drawer, measuring cups are made of the shiniest brass, and eating a ton of butter and cream leaves you elegantly replete and dewy-cheeked instead of gassy and lard-arsed.
Alas, I live in mine, one week into a teetotal lockdown, trying to resist the dubious stash of Halloween chocolate as I regretfully delete garlic bread from the Ocado order. But this TV temptress doesn’t do denial – she just indulges, gleefully, unrepentantly, and looks finger-lickin’ good on it. It’s a lesson we could all learn as we attempt to clamber out of our 2020 pits of despair and stagger towards a faintly glowing horizon.
But one thing I will not do is eat banana skins. No ma’am. Lockdown has obviously sent Nige as doolally as the rest of us, because she’s out of her tree if she thinks that this is the new cranberry. I’m going out on a limb here and predicting that compost cuisine will not take off. And as for the fish finger curry… U ok hun? Aside from the obviously batshit ingredients, what also emerged is that Nigella likes it HOT. She was sprinkling those chillies around like a PA rinsing an expense account. And I take her ‘pinch of salt’ with a pinch of salt. That soggy noodle thing with lamb would have me up all night putting the repeat in Cook, Eat, Repeat, but Nigella doesn’t go to the toilet because she’s too refined. If she did go to the toilet, she would eat a delicious little snack on it. God, I love her.
Anyway, I did wet my lips at her moist cracks, and would def have had a go on that oozing sponge. Sorry, I can’t help myself, but let’s be fair, neither can she. Nigella puts in the ‘In You’ in Innuendo, and then some. It’s enough to make an innocent blogger blush, listening to all those double entendres, so seductively whispered, as she smirks down at her pink Le Creuset, being all naughty. She’s such a bad girl. God, I love her.
Another idiosyncrasy of my Queen is that she talks like she swallowed a dictionary. Lord, that woman loves a mouthful. No one in real life speaks like that; so… wordy. Or, as Nigella might put it, sentences so loaded with juicy adjectives that they’re the oratorical equivalent of a teetering Croquembouche. She is silver-tongued, you might say. Oh, stop it. As the proud owner of all her recipe books, I can tell you that’s how she writes – a mouth-wateringly descriptive pile-up that leaves you breathless, and hungry. I’m glad she speaks like that too – I wouldn’t want her to talk in an ordinary way, like us mere mortals. She is a Goddess, and every utterance should reflect that. God(dess), I love her.
I felt sad at the end, because a deity deserves company, preferably a ragingly liberal elite candlelit dinner party in that gorgeous courtyard garden, where every trust-funded artist and trusted journalist in her circle can toast her and sample her spiced meat. But it was not to be. Thanks to dastardly Covid, Nigella dines alone, the lascivious lip-smacking echoing around her producer’s empty, fairy-light festooned kitchen.
So, when this is all over, let us go to Her. Climb into Her melting pot, and allow ourselves to dissolve in Her glorious goo. I will gladly sacrifice my own flesh to one of Her dishes, and by the next series, perhaps She will be crazy enough to go there. Let’s hope so.
In the meantime, fuck it, I’ve got an old banana lying around somewhere, maybe I’ll give it a go.
All of us were watching, weren’t we, with slack jaws, drool pooling. And that’s just at her delectable house. Not her house, obviously – somebody’s house, who-cares-whose house, wish-it-was-my house, film-set house, softly illuminated, tucked down a little mews that looks like something out of Notting Hill meets Paddington 2, drawn by Disney. Like Bedford Falls, it is always Christmas here. The Lawson version of London looks fit AF, all red buses, romantic bridges and idly rolling London Eye. I want to live in Nigella’s world, where leopard print knives rattle in the cutlery drawer, measuring cups are made of the shiniest brass, and eating a ton of butter and cream leaves you elegantly replete and dewy-cheeked instead of gassy and lard-arsed.
Alas, I live in mine, one week into a teetotal lockdown, trying to resist the dubious stash of Halloween chocolate as I regretfully delete garlic bread from the Ocado order. But this TV temptress doesn’t do denial – she just indulges, gleefully, unrepentantly, and looks finger-lickin’ good on it. It’s a lesson we could all learn as we attempt to clamber out of our 2020 pits of despair and stagger towards a faintly glowing horizon.
But one thing I will not do is eat banana skins. No ma’am. Lockdown has obviously sent Nige as doolally as the rest of us, because she’s out of her tree if she thinks that this is the new cranberry. I’m going out on a limb here and predicting that compost cuisine will not take off. And as for the fish finger curry… U ok hun? Aside from the obviously batshit ingredients, what also emerged is that Nigella likes it HOT. She was sprinkling those chillies around like a PA rinsing an expense account. And I take her ‘pinch of salt’ with a pinch of salt. That soggy noodle thing with lamb would have me up all night putting the repeat in Cook, Eat, Repeat, but Nigella doesn’t go to the toilet because she’s too refined. If she did go to the toilet, she would eat a delicious little snack on it. God, I love her.
Anyway, I did wet my lips at her moist cracks, and would def have had a go on that oozing sponge. Sorry, I can’t help myself, but let’s be fair, neither can she. Nigella puts in the ‘In You’ in Innuendo, and then some. It’s enough to make an innocent blogger blush, listening to all those double entendres, so seductively whispered, as she smirks down at her pink Le Creuset, being all naughty. She’s such a bad girl. God, I love her.
Another idiosyncrasy of my Queen is that she talks like she swallowed a dictionary. Lord, that woman loves a mouthful. No one in real life speaks like that; so… wordy. Or, as Nigella might put it, sentences so loaded with juicy adjectives that they’re the oratorical equivalent of a teetering Croquembouche. She is silver-tongued, you might say. Oh, stop it. As the proud owner of all her recipe books, I can tell you that’s how she writes – a mouth-wateringly descriptive pile-up that leaves you breathless, and hungry. I’m glad she speaks like that too – I wouldn’t want her to talk in an ordinary way, like us mere mortals. She is a Goddess, and every utterance should reflect that. God(dess), I love her.
I felt sad at the end, because a deity deserves company, preferably a ragingly liberal elite candlelit dinner party in that gorgeous courtyard garden, where every trust-funded artist and trusted journalist in her circle can toast her and sample her spiced meat. But it was not to be. Thanks to dastardly Covid, Nigella dines alone, the lascivious lip-smacking echoing around her producer’s empty, fairy-light festooned kitchen.
So, when this is all over, let us go to Her. Climb into Her melting pot, and allow ourselves to dissolve in Her glorious goo. I will gladly sacrifice my own flesh to one of Her dishes, and by the next series, perhaps She will be crazy enough to go there. Let’s hope so.
In the meantime, fuck it, I’ve got an old banana lying around somewhere, maybe I’ll give it a go.
- Nigella’s Cook, Eat, Repeat – 6 episodes plus Christmas special (!), BBC Two
