Nigella Lawson ambushed by MI5 agents after she nearly killed Salman Rushdie in oven horror
HER sultry good looks, gourmet recipes and flirtatious manner earned her the nickname ‘the domestic goddess’. So it’s hard to imagine Nigella Lawson being anything other than perfect. But that hasn’t always been the case – with one kitchen blunder ending in Mi5 storming her flat. Things took a frantic turn when dinner with showbiz […]
HER sultry good looks, gourmet recipes and flirtatious manner earned her the nickname ‘the domestic goddess’.
So it’s hard to imagine Nigella Lawson being anything other than perfect. But that hasn’t always been the case – with one kitchen blunder ending in Mi5 storming her flat.
Things took a frantic turn when dinner with showbiz pal Salman Rushdie ended in disaster.
Nigella, 61, said: “I’ve known Salman Rushdie since I was 23, and when he had to go into hiding because he had the Fatwa, he came to have dinner with me when I lived in a very little flat.
“Special Branch, who were protecting him, had to go and sit in my bedroom and wait there. When I was cooking, something went wrong with my oven and it kind of blew up, and I ended up looking like Lucille Ball.
“I had black-brown cheeks and of course Special Branch obviously thought there had been some sort of assassination attempt on him in my house. They all then stormed into the kitchen in an instant, so that probably is one of the worst blunders.”
And with her usual cheeky humour, Nigella added: “The lamb was ruined.” After angering Iran with his book The Satanic Verses he was protected by police for nine years with a £1.5million bounty on his head.
When she burst on to the culinary scene in 1998, pouty Nigella’s unfussy approach set her apart from other telly chefs.
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And she remained glam as she slurped melted chocolate from her fingers and scoffed naughty treats. So it’s no surprise that in Glasgow for her ‘Evening with’ event, the calorific local cuisine isn’t far from her mind.
Sitting cross-legged in a black roll-neck jumper and white blazer, she said: “I’m very, very keen on Scotland’s Lorne sausage, you know, square sausage. As someone who loves a sausage sandwich, they are genius.
“But being a Londoner born and bred, I am ashamed of what chips in my city have become. I did enjoy Irn-Bru, but my life wouldn’t end if there wasn’t a glass in front of me now. Food is a wonderful source of joy in life and I feel very strongly about it.
“If I could ban any phrase, it would without doubt be that overused, viscerally irritating and far-from-innocent term itself, the guilty pleasure. It’s not what you want to hear and I think the same thing about food. If you persecute yourself for taking pleasure in eating, it’s not only incredibly counterproductive, it means you don’t even get the pleasure in the first place.”
Nigella is known for her indulgent recipes, with one pudding — her chocolate hazelnut cheesecake — containing more than 7,000 calories. Her ice cream in brioche comes in at 2,144 calories — more than the recommended calorie intake for a woman for a whole day.
But she is adamant that no one should feel guilty about enjoying these dishes — a philosophy that stems from her mother’s food issues. Nigella said: “She had eating disorders. With food, everything was a problem. She got ill very young, and two weeks before she died — she found out she was terminal — she said, ‘This is the first time in my life that I have been able to eat without feeling guilty, and with pleasure’.
I have really learned to enjoy food – it’s been a lifetime’s work, enjoying food.
Nigella Lawson
“I don’t think any of us should wait for a terminal diagnosis to feel like that about food. There’s something so wrong with feeling guilty about eating.”
It’s a mindset that Nigella has worked hard to develop. She added: “I have really learned to enjoy food – it’s been a lifetime’s work, enjoying food. I think it’s important and I know a lot of it is in reaction to my mother, I didn’t want to be like that.
“When you’re young, the mother/daughter thing is so complicated, because on one hand I learned everything about cooking from my mother, but I also felt like, ‘I’m not going to turn out like you’.”
In 2012 Nigella slimmed down from a size 16 to a 12, thanks to a strict regime of pilates and yoga. She insists she has never been on a diet. Instead she thinks tucking into goodies actually helps you stay trim. Nigella, a mum of two, said: “I’ve noticed that if people stop eating all of those things, it completely blows your body’s capability to decide what it wants to eat.
“In the end, it makes the thing you’ve forbidden, so attractive to you. As if it’s the only thing you really want, but like in life, it isn’t. Our bodies need all sorts of food. There are times when you want to sit on the sofa watching TV with a tub of ice cream, and there are other times when you want to eat broccoli with a few chilli flakes, and some lemon and olive oil.
“Those both offer exquisite enjoyment, but you’re prioritising what you shouldn’t be eating and so therefore you’re not really thinking about all the other ways you get pleasure from food.”
‘I COULDN’T BE VEGAN’
Even as a child Nigella had an opinion on what she ate. Unlike most children, who would reach for an ice cream at the seaside, Nigella remembers asking her grandmother for something more unconventional.
On one trip to Brighton she requested buttered spinach and hot chocolate. She said: “I had quite eccentric tastes, but I didn’t like a lot of things. I think that perhaps as a child, you have no autonomy over what you eat, whereas now children boss us about.
“I was brought up in the old fashioned way of if you didn’t finish what you were eating, then you’d have a plate of cold, congealed food brought back for the next meal. So as a child I didn’t really enjoy food, it wasn’t until I had a bit more control over what I ate that I loved it.
“I don’t think it’s that hard to make young people interested in cooking. There is this real and important need for independence, and I think that cooking for yourself is a very important part of being independent. To be able to keep yourself fed is not a small thing.”
Nigella is finally on the road to launch her book Eat, Cook, Repeat, which she wrote before the pandemic. Little did she know, during lockdown that pattern would become the way of living for many. Even Nigella admits she became “a little feral” stuck at her £5m Chelsea home in 2020.
But she has a plan to make this winter more cheerful. And she hopes to inspire others to join her. She said: “I think if you had a Christmas tree up all the time, it wouldn’t feel special. However I think these days, if you want to put your Christmas tree up now, you should be allowed.
I have a butcher, I’m quite old fashioned because I like to have a good old chat on the phone about how to cook things.
Nigella Lawson
“I think that November gets very dark, and I don’t think you need to wait. I never would have thought this before, I always waited until after December 15th. But I think these rules don’t apply anymore, after everything.”
Nigella has always tried to keep her private life out the spotlight. But in 2013 her dirty laundry was aired when her drug habit was exposed during a fraud case against her former assistants.
Her marriage to Charles Saatchi ended after 10 years when photographs emerged of him with his hands around Nigella’s throat during a row. Now she lives a simple life at home with her two children, Cosima, 26, and Bruno, 24. She said: “I don’t have a car anymore so I buy bits from supermarkets that can deliver.
“I have a butcher, I’m quite old fashioned because I like to have a good old chat on the phone about how to cook things. I think even those of us in cities need a bit of village life and for me it’s often about talking to the people I buy food from. And I like that.” Eat, Cook, Repeat is Nigella’s 14th cookery book and was released in October last year.
The TV series that accompanied it aired at the same time. Both appeared with little fanfare due to the pandemic. So Nigella is delighted to finally be able to celebrate with her mini tour. Seven dates across the country follow her Scottish date, ending on December 5 in London. Nigella arrived in Glasgow just as the world’s leaders departed, having grappled with the issue of climate change at Cop26.
But her fans may be relieved to hear Britain’s kitchen won’t be signing up to a vegan diet anytime soon. Nigella tried to ditch meat, fish and dairy products for two week but felt “very run down” and craved eggs. She added in a recent interview: “I couldn’t be vegan, though I do love vegetables. I’m very happy to not eat so much meat… but I do love it.”
Nigella on…
