Rory: Nigella just made a raisin cake that looked so good, the fact that raisins make me gag became totally irrelevant.
Lorelai: Well, good, more ordering choices.
Rory: Oh, my God, she’s about to deep-fry a Bounty Bar. I want to move in with her and call her Mommy. Do you mind?
COOK EAT REPEAT
‘Food, for me, is a constant pleasure: I like to think greedily about it, reflect deeply on it, learn from it; it provides comfort, inspiration, meaning and beauty, as well as sustenance and structure. More than just a mantra, “cook, eat, repeat” is the story of my life.’
Nigella Lucy Lawson is an English food writer and television cook. After graduating from Oxford, Lawson worked as a book reviewer and restaurant critic, later becoming the deputy literary editor of The Sunday Times in 1986. She then wrote for a number of newspapers and magazines as a freelance journalist.
COOK EAT REPEAT is a delicious and delightful combination of recipes intertwined with narrative essays about food, all written in Nigella’s engaging and insightful prose. Whether talking about the evolution and meaning of the recipe in ‘What is a Recipe?’ – ‘a recipe, much like a novel, is a living collaboration between writer and reader. And in both cases, it is the reader who keeps it alive’ – or exploring the heinous notion of the guilty pleasure in ‘Death to the Guilty Pleasure’, Nigella is by turns characteristically informative, intelligent, thought-provoking and amusing.
‘The recipes I write come from my life, my home’, says Nigella, and in this book Nigella shares the rhythms and rituals of her kitchen through over fifty new recipes that make the most of her favourite ingredients. Dedicated chapters include ‘A is for Anchovy’ (a celebration of the bacon of the sea), ‘Beetroot and Me’, ‘A Vegan Feast’, a shout out for ‘Brown Food’, a very relatable ‘How To Invite People for Dinner Without Hating Them (or Yourself)’, plus new ideas for Christmas. Within these chapters are recipes for all seasons and tastes: Burnt Onion and Aubergine Dip; Butternut with Chilli, Ginger and Beetroot Yoghurt Sauce; Brown Butter Colcannon; Spaghetti with Chard and Anchovies; Beef Cheeks with Port and Chestnuts; Oxtail Bourguignon; and Wide Noodles with Lamb in Aromatic Broth, to name a few. Those with a sweet tooth will delight in Rhubarb and Custard Trifle; Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake; Rice Pudding Cake; and Cherry and Almond Crumble.
Over on Litsy we can choose to get paired up and read each others previous years top reads. A lovely reader pairs us all up. I got paired with a wonderful reader from the UK and COOK EAT REPEAT was on her list. The only real reference I have to Nigella is from quips from The Gilmore Girls because what else is there for reference points in life?! HA. The cookbook is lovely and I also am reading a previous cookbook of Nigella- AT MY TABLE. Getting inspiration from new ways to cook is just zen.
