Words Dept.: entry

I watched Nigella Lawson on the telly earlier tonight. It was pretty funny, the way she kept going on about how busy and stressed out she is. Well, it must be really tough presenting TV programmes and writing the odd recipe book for a living. Especially when your husband is the multimillionaire art collector Charles Saatchi (sample quote: “I think it’s fair to say I don’t ever think about money, so obviously in that sense I’m fantastically rich.”) Those kids looked like a real handful as well, what with their impish tendency to sit in bed reading a book before the babysitter even turns up. How does she cope?

Anyway, the solution to all this awful rushing around, according to Nidgey, is to cook very quick meals. Some of these were sort of middle-class fodder you might expect – pork chops in a cider sauce with gnocchi, roast poussin with sweet potatoes, etc – but then things rapidly degenerated.

After serving her mate a meal comprising deep fried squid and half a jar of mayonnaise, Nige then made something involving stale croissants (they have to be stale) drowned in sugar, eggs, cream and bourbon. She devoured this, apparently as a main course, and was then filmed supposedly sneaking to the fridge for a midnight snack, which involved pouring cream on top of the soggy pastry mess, before shoving it into her grinning mouth. She does like to grin. A lot.

I suppose it makes a change from the holier-than-thou crowd led by Jamie Oliver and I must confess I’m wondering what delights will be served up next week. A salt and vinegar crisp sandwich seems likely (perhaps with a week-old Kraft cheese slice between the margerine and the crisps). Or how about four packets of Maltesers, mashed up, melted in the microwave and served on top of – I don’t know – a jam doughnut? And I do hope we get to see that classic British dish: naan bread with a Tikka Masala Pot Noodle tipped on top of it.

Mmm. Naan.