Nigella....at my table

Anniebach I felt exactly the same disappointment when I discovered Daniel Baremboim was living with and fathered a child with another woman while Jacqueline du Pré was dying from MS.

He's still my favourite conductor though and our son is named after him because DH and I used to get up early when I was pregnant and watch Baremboim's master class on Beethoven's piano concertos on our little black and white telly.

To err is human to forgive etc., etc,

Annie I remember that well, and reading John Diamond's heart-rending column when he knew his cancer had come back. I'm sure it was hard for N. but even so..

I didn’t know she was having an affair while her first husband was dying, That is shocking, I agree.

merlotgran, I was very upset by Daniel Barenboim’s behaviour, too.

Could either of these affairs be excused just a little because of the extreme stress of the home situations? A need to escape?

Oh chewbacca What I do is, get up at about 5am, wash me bits, clean my teeth, then put on a full face of makeup together with false eye lashes etc. Change from my smelly old pj's into a sexy little silk number, spray some irresistible perfume and then get back into bed and pretend DH has just woken me up when he gets up. Then I sit up looking all ravishing when he brings me my cuppa.

What a coincidence Gillybob! Almost a mirror image of my own morning routine! Do you sneak down to your kitchen, dressed only in your little silk number of course; stick your pretty little head in the fridge and pull out something delectable, whilst looking provocatively at no one in particular? I do. All the time. probably why I'm so damned overweight

I think Nigella is in love with herself.

Yes Chewbacca I do exactly that, not forgetting to suck my fingers in a "oooh look at me sucking my fingers sort of way"
We must've done the same open university course on "how to seduce a man"


with 3 husbands under my belt maybe I should've done it sooner

Gilly, Spot on. I wander around at 5am, quite fetching when I drink my cuppa.

Apparently Nigella doesn't snack in real life, not even at night. It is all for the TV image of her.

Does she not prance about in the middle of the night in a silk negligee, with full slap and false eye lashes in real life too? No, thought not! me and *gillybob do though

well, she did prance around Bondi beach in a ridiculous outfit - but has stopped midnight snacking since then and lost weight.
Oh, apparently she lost the weight from cutting out
Oh yeah?

anyone know if lipsuction counteracts snacking?

sorry - liposuction

(not lipsuction - lipclosing could counteract snacking of course)

I really like watching Nigella, she seems to really enjoy food, I like watching Jamie Oliver for the same reason. Why shouldn't she look glamorous while she does it?
Who cares whether it's her own kitchen?
it's just a TV show.
Her private life is her own affair.

Oh come on you don't really think she is enjoying the food do you? She doesn't eat it really. She doesn't cook it either, or do the clearing up. There's an army of assistants who do the work. She's just posing and pouting. It's not just the kitchen that's a fake.

Come back Delia!

The woman pretends to have a 'chilli cupboard' that she says she 'loves' tidying, and in one episode said the best way to cut a sandwich was straight across with a knife- gods preserve us !!!

Delia's recipes work!!

I must say that I did try Nigella's avocado on toast. A very, very difficult recipe to accomplish unless you are a trained chef and the kitchen was in chaos afterwards - I needed to call in all the staff to clear it up for me.

basically just an avo sanger (toast the bread, that's the hard part)

Yes I enjoyed watching Delia - especially her Christmas programmes. I never made my own mincemeat, put cloves into diamonds on a piece of glazed gammon or baked and iced a beautiful Christmas cake but it felt Christmassy to watch her do it!

I find Nigella's posturing quite entertaining and enjoy it even though I feel cynical about all the artificial posing. It's quite amusing. And I did try the chicken and frozen peas recipe and it was o.k. I had to adapt it as I had no leeks so used an onion, and no vermouth so used stock. And I cooked it for one hour and 10 minutes. It was o.k., not exciting, but edible. I probably would not cook it again.
But, hey ho, I love cookery programmes.

We tried the chicken and pea traybake yesterday and I don't think I would ever serve it to family or friends unless we'd all been down the pub and fancied a pea eating competition. Why on earth would anyone want to eat all those peas in one meal?

I halved the quantities as there were only two of us but still had loads of peas left over. The chicken was tasty though.

I reduced the cooking time a little as we had half the amount of chicken thighs. They look a little pale in the photo because the sun was streaming through the kitchen window. They WERE cooked.

Sorry, Nigella. I won't be doing this one again.

Why won't the photo upload?

I keep forgetting that she'd been married to John Diamond.

put cloves into diamonds on a piece of glazed gammon I did that one year, put it back into the oven and forgot it so the 'diamonds' were more like 'black diamonds' by the time I remembered it.

I have also made Delia's Christmas cake using her recipe and also from a box containing most of the ingredients, so no weighing or wasting most of a tin of treacle.
It's quite good but I like Tamasin Day-Lewis's recipe best (it could be borrowed from Jane or Sophie Grigson).