Since publishing her first cookbook, How To Eat, in 1998, Nigella Lawson has become an unstoppable and empowering force of the cookery world. She’s published 13 cookbooks, selling more than eight million worldwide, and hosted award-winning cookery shows, including Channel 4’s Nigella Bites and BBC Two’s Nigelllissima and Simply Nigella.
Not even a global pandemic could stop her. When the UK went into lockdown in March 2020, not only did Nigella write her latest book, Cook, Eat, Repeat, she also became the foodie agony aunt of social media - solving our dilemmas over what to cook and how to cook it.
In an exclusive interview in Good Housekeeping’s May issue, the global food icon opened up about the comfort – and companionship – that her followers have provided over the past couple of years. “It all started when the pandemic hit; I was getting a lot of panicked messages on Twitter from people who weren’t used to cooking, so I started giving advice in the way I would if a friend phoned for help,” she says.
“Everyone kept saying, ‘Oh, it’s so nice that you’re doing that,’ but the truth is, it was a mutual thing. It still is. It gives me a sense of companionship and connection to others, which is really important to me.”
As her community – and the questions – continue to grow, Nigella is often up in the early hours responding to queries about various dishes, but there’s one particular recipe that she gets asked about more than any other. “There’s a particular recipe – my Malteser cake – that people often message me about,’ she explains.
“They’ll say things such as, ‘I’ve made it for every birthday since my child was eight – and they’re now 18!’ It’s so moving to be a part of someone’s life in that way.”
Having experienced her fair share of difficulties – the loss of her mother and younger sister to cancer when she was a young woman, and the subsequent the loss of her husband, the journalist John Diamond, to throat cancer when their children were aged seven and four – she also revealed what her biggest challenges have taught her.
“I now understand how important it is to stay in the moment and not worry about all the things that could go wrong. At this point in my life, if something is making me happy, I don’t want to chip away at it thinking, ‘Oh, this is going to end,’ because that feels ungrateful," she says.
"I suppose as you get older and you know you’ve had more dinners than you’ve got left, you realise that you can’t afford to waste the good things or the good times. Life is too short.” We couldn’t agree more.
Find Nigella’s recipes and a host of other food-related features, all free of charge, on nigella.com. For more of her cooking tips and tricks, watch the video above.
Read the full interview with Nigella Lawson in the May 2022 issue of Good Housekeeping, on sale now. It is available in all supermarkets and online at MagsDirect.
