Simply Nigella,
ABC TV, 8pm Tuesdays
GRAB your black treacle (lots and lots of black treacle) and shimmy your way into the kitchen – Nigella Lawson is back, back in the kitchen and back in good form – “tossing things colourfully together” and cooking up a storm.
The new series “Simply Nigella” sees her back to her most Nigellaness, casting aside her marriage break-up, and returning to her kitchen beautifully verbose, cooking up a storm of gorgeous food and yes she still chops vegies like your mum and not with the skill of Jamie Oliver or a Master Chef contestant.
The new series started in late November but it’s the Christmas episode next Tuesday night.
As usual most of the food is wildly inappropriate for an Australian summer (though I’m thinking of giving her Christmas Slaw, at least one of her bundt cakes and her ham glaze a bit of a go!)
But there is something almost of a tradition now of sitting around watching Nigella preparing a Christmas party for friends and family in a house dripping in candles and fairy lights.
You can almost forget that her power bill would be astronomical and that any candles here would probably liquefy before you could light them. But that’s not the point really.
In an hour-long special, to the sounds of Christmassy music Nigella flits from one side of the Atlantic to the other enjoying the sights and food of Kansas City – apparently fairylight capital of the world at Christmas time and then back home to London to effortlessly cook up a feast for a squillion guests.
Yes it does feel a little like something from (to quote the Simpsons) Better Homes Than Yours but lets face it everybody needs a little bit of fun and fantasy at Christmas.
– Tania Phillips
