Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson (born 6 January 1960) is an English journalist, food writer, and television presenter.

• The trouble with modern cooking is that the mood it induces in the cook is one of skin-of-the-teeth efficiency, all briskness and little pleasure.
  • How to be a Domestic Goddess (2000), quoted by Hadley Freeman in "Nigella Lawson: 'I didn't think I’d be a mended person, but I am'", The Guardian (10 October 2020).

• There are two Christmas traditions I've inherited from my mother. One is the feeling that Christmas isn't complete if you haven't got a ham as well as a turkey. It means that the leftovers are much better. And in a curious way, despite the fact that we're talking about Christmas and ham, it's a very Jewish thing to want to provide a huge spread. I always cook for eight, but make enough to feed 30...
  • As quoted by Harriet Lane "An angel at our table", The Guardian (17 December 2000)

• While I am sure there are a number of women who secretly wonder whether they are lesbian, most simply have, somewhere, a fantasy about having sex, in a non-defining, non-exclusive way, with other women.
  • "Sapphism is more than designer-dykery", The Guardian (31 December 2000)

• My sister lives in New York and she was struck by how class-ridden the reviews were. Everyone had to mention that I'm posh. British people are obsessed by that. I said to John, 'I'm not posh.' Is my voice posh?"
  • As quoted by Alex Bilmes in "Say What You Like About Nigella Lawson", Q Magazine (January 2001)

• It’s true that I wouldn’t have written the first book had my sister and mother been alive. It was my way of continuing our conversation. It's also this Jewish thing of naming and remembering people, and I think there is a sense of keeping that side of life going.
  • As quoted by Joe Dolc in "England's It Girl", Gourmet (April 2001)

• The thing I liked about writing about food when I started it was that I felt I was writing about food in a different way. Not like a food writer.
• I used to refer to myself as Typhoid Mary. It wasn't that I was jinxed, I just seemed to bring ill fortune to anybody I was close to.
  • As quoted by Simon Hattenstone in "Reality bites", The Guardian (2 September 2002)

• Cooking aside, I am what you'd call a domestic slut. Cooking is really the only domestic activity I enjoy. I would do anything not to do the normal bits of household work - it's not one of my strong points.
• It's like I can never watch myself on TV unless I have to do some editing before a show comes out. It's like hearing your voice back on a tape recorder and I'm sure you know how horrible that is. I always look for the worst things in myself - criticising my hair and stuff. I'm very self-conscious about it all.
  • As quoted by James Ellis in "Nigella Lawson", Metro (4 September 2002)

• [A]ll food images, if they are successful, have the power to arouse appetite. They should be luscious and sexy. I have no embarrassment about the culinary come-on. But that's the limit of my erotic intent. I am always surprised when people read double entendres into my innocuous babble.
  • As quoted in "You Ask The Questions", The Independent (12 September 2002), p. 7

• I think cooking should be about fun and family. [...] I'm not a trained chef. I don't pretend to be and I think part of my appeal is that my approach to cooking is really relaxed and not rigid. There are no rules in my kitchen.
• I think sometimes that people assume because I'm on television I'm an expert, but I think the whole point of what I do is that I'm not and I don't have any training. [...] My approach isn't about a fancy ingredient or style. I cook what I love to eat.
  • As quoted by Beth Cooney in "British sensation Lawson says cooking should be about fun, family", Oakland Tribune (4 June 2003)

• I always wanted to be called Caroline [...] Carolines were always very nice in books.
  • After being asked about growing up with the feminine form of her father's first name, as cited in Sally Vincent "Nigella Lawson: Who'd be a goddess?", The Guardian (16 October 2004)

Quotes from "A woman of extremes" by Nigel Farndale in The Daily Telegraph (May 2001)

• I don't wear anything in bed. But I'm not ready for a nude scene quite yet.

• I took a fortnight off. But I'm not a great believer in breaks. I don't want to be rattling around inside my own head. I did feel I was spiralling into a Kathy Burke character and tried going out, but I prefer it here. Filming keeps me busy. It absorbs me.
  • Regarding the death of her husband, John Diamond.

• I was shy as a child. Now I'm not really shy any more, unless I'm with shy people. I find it contagious and I don't know what to say. But I don't think shyness is something one should feel apologetic about.

• I am greedy. I eat under stress. When you are eating, the rest of the world is tuned out. And when you tune back in you feel guilty about having been greedy and the rest of the world is still there, so you have to carry on eating!

• I don't take criticisms personally, which must be very annoying for people who mean them personally.

• Some people did take the domestic goddess title literally rather than ironically. It was about the pleasures of feeling like one rather than actually being one.
  • Regarding her second book, How to be a Domestic Goddess.

• I lurch from chaos to chaos. I can’t find my driving licence and my clothes are everywhere – cooking is the neatest thing I do.
  • As quoted by Jane Warren in "Envy, Lust and Gluttony - The Perfect Recipe", Daily Express (20 September 2007)

• But I do think that women who spend all their lives on a diet probably have a miserable sex life: if your body is the enemy, how can you relax and take pleasure? Everything is about control, rather than relaxing, about holding everything in.
  • As quoted by Shane Watson in "The big issue", The Times (2 December 2007)

Quotes from "60 seconds: Nigella Lawson" by Andrew Williams in Metro (5 December 2006)

• It's not meant to be flirtatious. Listen, I don't have a presenting style, I'm just me. I don't have the talent to adopt a different persona. It's intimate, not flirtatious.

• It wasn't really a chat show, it was a magazine show. I looked at it as a summer job. As long as no one makes me interview a celeb again, I'll be happy. It wasn't what I signed up for but, of course, nowadays everyone likes celebs. I'm pretty bored of them, though. I wasn't interested and couldn't be bothered to pretend I was.

• [O]besity isn’t caused by those who adore food. People tend not to put on weight through eating meals. I’d say it’s people who eat non-stop.

• Everybody likes to think cooks are nurturing, but maybe we're just controlling – controlling what people eat.
• Sometimes I think food preoccupies me too much. [...] The only thing that keeps me going at the theatre is thinking about what I'll eat afterwards, although now I bring sandwiches because I can't bear it
  • Quoted by Hadley Freeman in "Nigella Lawson: 'I didn't think I’d be a mended person, but I am'", The Guardian (10 October 2020).

• [Asked if cookery writing is a form of intimacy] I think there both is and isn't. I feel that writing about food allows one to be utterly honest, and personal, and in no way guarded. But, in some sense, it's a metaphor for the personal, rather than being actually personal. It's not revelatory, I would say. It's personal without being confessional. That's the kind of personal that I feel more comfortable with.
  • Quoted by Helen Rosner in "Nigella Lawson Wants to Talk to People", The New Yorker (14 April 2021)

• I have long been convinced that Nigella's iconic status has less to do with her abilities than a desire on the part of her admirers to invest in what she represents.
  • Charlotte Raven "A half-baked fantasy", The Guardian (3 October 2000)

• If you looked up 'multi-tasking' in the dictionary, the words 'Nigella Lawson' would probably appear alongside.
  • Harriet Lane "An angel at our table", The Guardian] (17 December 2000)

• No doubt there can be a shy, reserved side to Nigella Lawson - and some people interpret this as coldness - but it is not in evidence today. She seems flamboyant, if anything, and perhaps this is a persona she can slip in and out of (John Diamond once described her as 'a gay man trapped in a woman's body').
  • Nigel Farndale "A woman of extremes", The Daily Telegraph (14 May 2001).
  • John Diamond was Lawson's first husband.

• Nigella inhabits a strange world of extremes: she has experienced extreme tragedy, extreme success and has the advantage of extreme beauty.
  • Nigel Farndale "A woman of extremes", The Daily Telegraph (14 May 2001).

• Lawson's sexy roundness mixed with her speed-demon technique, makes cooking dinner with Nigella look like a prelude to an orgy.
  • Lynn Hirschberg "Hot Dish", The New York Times (18 November 2001)

• Her descriptions of food can be a tangle of adjectives.
  • Amanda Hesser "Culinary Critique; Sex and the Kitchen", The New York Times (9 January 2002)

• She has flawless skin, perfect white teeth, a voluptuous body, ample height and lots of lush, brown hair. And then there are those cookbooks, which have become international best sellers. She has become enough of an icon stateside to be profiled last year in People and Vanity Fair.
  • Beth Cooney "British sensation Lawson says cooking should be about fun, family", Oakland Tribune (4 June 2003)

• Nigella Lawson – Britain’s only true "surname unnecessary" global celebrity since Princess Diana – is feeding everyone.
  • Hadley Freeman "Nigella Lawson: 'I didn't think I'd be a mended person, but I am'", The Guardian (10 October 2020)

• Nigella Lawson's official website
• Nigella Lawson on IMDb