Which brings me back to sex and food and the other reason that Nigella works: For the past 20 years, Britain’s reigning food goddess has been Delia Smith. Delia is a very popular and wonderful cook who was the first to invite viewers into her country kitchen, where she’d hold up a green sprig and painstakingly explain to the British masses that this grassy herb is called tarragon and it goes well with chicken. Her recipes are infallible, and her style is matronly, lacking anything resembling sex appeal.
The British airwaves have since been populated with greater and lesser personalities. Some are restaurant chefs; some are TV cooks; some are amusing and have spiked hair; others are deadly serious. Almost all are men.
So along comes a raven-haired beauty with a posh accent who speaks in complete sentences, who fearlessly proclaims her age (she’s 41) and her weight fluctuations (all praise to the Atkins Diet!!), who doesn’t parody herself à la Two Fat Ladies, who tells you that turbinado sugar is the best you can buy but that in a pinch white will do, and who invites you into her grunge-deluxe home, where you see a refrigerator plastered with kids’ drawings and PTA schedules, and Nigella rushing around whipping up great meals and inviting her well-connected friends to dinner. If you’re a woman, this is the life you’d like to be living. If you’re a straight man, this is the woman you’d like to be living it with. If you’re a gay man, you know she’ll get your jokes.
A few mornings later, Nigella and John are having a spat. He thinks it would be hilarious if she were to bring some cakes to the taping of Have I Got News for You.
“No, darling,” she says, her tone indicating irritation. “I don’t want that. It’s not what I’m about.”
Silence.
“Thank you.”
John presses his case. “But it’s such a boys’ club—have a little fun with it.”
“I’ll think about it,” she says, turning to the stove and addressing me. “I didn’t have breakfast, and I’m not a girl suited to going without meals.”
Conversation over.
In a taxi to 11 Downing Street, the residence of Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer (where she’s been pressed into service to deliver 60 cupcakes to a children’s charity), Nigella explains that she’s tired because John came home at 4 a.m. and woke her up. “I cannot not fight with John because he has a terminal illness. That’s one of the good things about our relationship. Everything is expressed.”
I take this opening to get personal.
Me: How is it knowing you’re doing some of the things John would like to have been doing if he hadn’t gotten ill?
Nigella: Sometimes I feel guilty. John was always the open, noisy one, and I was the anxious, introverted one. But suddenly, from being John’s voice and having to translate for him, I’ve had to become more voluble. John says he feels covetous rather than jealous. I think that’s natural.
Me: Do you ever feel guilty about spending so much time away from the kids?
Nigella:John and I have always worked from home, so we still see the kids much more than other parents. It became difficult when the taping started. The kids couldn’t run a bath because the microphone picks up the water running through the pipes. But I asked them if they wanted to be in the first series, because I want them to be a part of what I’m doing. Of course, the only part they were interested in watching was the part they were in.
Me: Are you surprised that Goddess could inspire such controversy?
Nigella: Food isn’t just food. I wouldn’t have written this book if it were just about two eggs and a cup of sugar. Food is crucial to how we see ourselves and how we live. Recipes are a form of social history. How you eat says more about culture than other, more highfalutin things. It does annoy me when people think I’m saying you have to spin sugar for ten hours and then put on your party dress.
Me: How do you answer your critics?
Nigella: I take the charitable view that I’ve been willfully misunderstood. It’s not about getting the woman out of the workplace and into the kitchen. People want balance in their lives. In cooking, the rewards are high compared to the effort expended. I would never advocate reinventing yourself as a kitchen-bound vision of womanhood.
Me: What about the photos of women in aprons on the inside of the book?
Nigella: How can those photos not be considered ironic? Wasn’t it Mencken who said there should be a typeface slanting left for irony?
Me: How do you feel when your defenders imply that you’re the next Diana?
Nigella: I preferred it when I was being attacked. I don’t like it when they try to make me sound like a good person because of John’s illness. John’s illness is nothing to do with my work.
At which point the phone rings. It’s her pal, advertising mogul Charles Saatchi, informing her that some poll has voted her the third most beautiful woman in the world, just after teen singer Andrea Corrs and actress Catherine Zeta-Jones. “Liz will be gutted,” he says, referring to Elizabeth Hurley, and for the first time, I see Nigella really let loose and cackle.
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