Nigella Kitchen, Thursday 8pm, BBC One

Originally posted on Orange.co.uk

Posted by Stewart Turner

Nigella Lawson
Who’s that sneaking down to the kitchen in a silk gown to satisfy her midnight cheesecake urges? Why, it’s Nigella of course, back for a 13-episode tutorial in the fine art of alliteration, with a little bit of cooking thrown in for good measure. “Gorgeous golden gleaming gloop” was last night’s winner, weighing in at a respectable four words. A peanut butter cheesecake, in case you were wondering.

Kicking off the show with an evocative snapshot of David Cameron’s Britain, we joined Nigella as she slinked out of Sloane Square station before heading home to show us her sizeable pantry. Home to an enviable collection of different-shaped pastas, popcorn buckets and pepper-shaped fairy lights, it’s big enough to house a family of four in some of the poorer parts of the capital.

When she wasn’t cooking cakes to the point where they “had a hint of inner-thigh wibble”, Nigella rustled up some delicious-looking roast seafood, her mother’s special Praised Chicken recipe – which involved snapping the bird’s breastbones with all the force of a heavyweight boxer – and most baffling of all, a dish that comprised of little more than salami, pasta and a can of tomatoes. If I were one of the assorted teenagers invited round for tea I’d have asked for my money back. Still, probably a small price to pay if your best mate’s mum looks like Nigella Lawson.

It was all pure Nigella, full of linguistic liberty-taking and flirtatious fluttering (this alliteration thing is catching) of eyelashes in front of the camera. Although the recipes were a little bit hit and miss, one can’t help feeling she’ll still be reeling off innuendos while grappling with a hand blender 30 years from now, a little like a sexier Delia Smith in a dressing gown.

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