A brilliant BBC series from 2007. Nigella Lawson is such a fun enthusiastic presenter in this show, it's like meeting Jane Austen's Emma Woodhouse. Nigella, always smiling, guides us effortlessly through a series of mouth watering recipes. Some of my favourites include the double chocolate chips cookies and the chocolate mousse made with mini marshmallows instead of eggs. There's also several pasta dishes I love. Nigella's love of food and cooking seems boundless, she makes cooking fun and genuinely seems to enjoy tasting it at the end.
Where the show perhaps unwittingly becomes gold is the segments of Nigella trying to link the recipes to situations in real life. We see her sat in front of a laptop with a quirky smile on her face tossing her head, sighing and chatting to the camera about how stressful deadlines are while looking totally glamourous and not stressed in the slightest. Another segment features her rushing out to buy ingredients for chocolate chip cookies after a "friend" has just had a breakup, all of this accompanied to Coldplay music and we even see Nigella from the POV of the CCTV about to enter the shop. We see numerous segments of her having friends over for food, how many friends does she have, we see a new group every single time. Another segment sees her looking very pleased with herself walking through the streets of Chelsea, dropping her children off at school before heading off to a café for breakfast. It's this fun, carefree lifestyle loves to watch. The final straw is when she heads out to a ribbon shop to buy a ribbon for her daughter to wear in her hair. For the rest of us who spend 8 hours a day in an office, another 2 hours commuting, and the rest of are time anxiously worrying about a thousand other worries from family to money it's such fun escapism to slip into this world.
This was TV from 2007, pre-credit crunch, such a different time. New labour had spent a lot of money regenerating areas, the middle classes were thriving, interest rates were good, housing was still affordable, wages were growing nicely. It was a time where celebrity was at it's peak, sports stars, musicians, TV personalities, Chefs, etc. TV was very strong, there was no streaming or real social media as competition.
After the 2008 recession, austerity, the London riots, Brexit, Covid 19 it's just not possible anymore to flaunt your wealthy and lifestyle, sentiments like that could lead to unrest these days. The early to mid 2000s though were a more innocent time, it was okay to be rich, glamorous and have a too good to be true lifestyle, were they just handing out money back then? The show remains amazing escapism though and the choice of food really appeals to me. The exact idea is meant to be recipes that don't take very long to cook. Nigella will arrive home and 4pm, tell us the guests will be arriving at 5pm but she's not even worried because she has all these fast recipes up her sleeve.
