Nigella Feasts!! (....or the other way 'round?!?)

Nigella Lawson, the domestic goddess ….who’s heating up the kitchen with more than just her hot stove and steaming oven!! Renowned for her smouldering sensuality and glorious curves, this smart chef manages to keep the audiences hooked (a sizeable portion of which comprises the slavering wolves who follow her every word and pout with ardent devotion!!!).

I had only heard about the lovely lady, catching her recipes occasionally on the net. But then I heard two of my cousins having a heated debate over the merits of hand-kneaded dough and mashed peas and other such epicurean fundas. To say that I was puzzled was an understatement. Two reasons…..

One, because they are predominantly “manly” men, who still believe that their mother was put on this earth for the sole purpose of feeding their bottomless pits and two, because they hadn’t yet advanced to the state of being termed as truly-uplifted metro- sexual males who knew their way around the kitchen effortlessly.

With clock-work regularity, popped up the statement…."but Nigella says". And whenever the name was mentioned they smiled dreamily and exchanged knowing looks.

To top it off, I read a normally acerbic scribe waxing lyrical about her show in his hard-hitting column. With almost loving detail, he had dedicated a sizeable portion of his space to the merits and wonders of luscious Lawson!.......and this was just the tip of the fast-melting iceberg!!

Who was this enchantress who had turned a majority of the male population into blithering babies?? I was intrigued and had to see the woman in action.

Luckily(?) for me, the show aired some days later. With almost indecent haste, my cousins had grabbed their seats in front of the tube. I managed to squeeze in between Twerp#1 and #2.

.......And there she was, in full “peaches and cream” grandeur…..all curves and no hollows! She smiled coyly, licked her lips suggestively and managed to convert the innocent art of rolling out cookie-dough into something definitely X-Rated!!

She sauntered around the kitchen, flirted with the camera and cast steamy looks at all her devoted viewers. I understood the appeal……a talented career woman-who can cook -and - who looks like all male-fantasies rolled into one delectable package!!!

I was with her through the entire chocolate fiesta; she made it sound quite sinfully tempting and mouth-watering. But then came the episode where she got to the part of the kidney beans (our humble l’il rajma) and rolled her RRRsss over how it was a lovely ric-hhhhh terracotta shade!! Chocolate, I get……but Rajma!! Even raw sensuality has it’s limits!! I’ll never be able to look at a kidney bean again without blushing furiously!!


I had had enough of cooking for the hormonally-supercharged.

Quietly (not that they would even notice an over-weight bull elephant rampaging through the room!!), I left my besotted cousins to their guilty pleasure and retired to my room.

Hell, one good thing out of the whole episode could be that the family could look forward to fledgling chefs who’ll whip up some tasty morsels, every now and then. I have no complaints, so long as they don’t start oozing a lot of unwanted sensuality all over the kitchen floor!!!!