GODDESS THE Nigella Lawson, St John Restaurant, London, 8 August 2018 Noble Rot meets Nigella. Words by Marina O’Loughlin Photographs by Benjamin McMahon 26 Noble Rot here seem to be two approaches when writing about rarebit into the sauce of her our interview because Nigella Lawson: the first is to pick over her well- rabbit dish, and when I do it a) I’ve badgered her constantly, T documented, dramatic and sometimes tragic life with mimsily, instructs: “More! More!” and b) it’s now the 20th all the appetite of a gleeful vulture. And there’s a lot of it Meeting at St John has been anniversary of her first book, out there – I spend days immersed in the various sagas, her choice. Even in this coolest, the wonderful How to Eat. coming away with more than four pages of questions. But most grown-up of joints, her Penguin has reissued a new I don’t end up asking a fraction of them. One reason is that presence throws everyone paperback edition under its we’re warned off the private life by her management. Fair into a fugue. Despite reviewing Vintage Classics imprint, with enough, frankly. The other is that Nigella – the Lawson is restaurants for years (Charles a foreword by Jeanette now silent – is immensely articulate, as of course we know. Moore, her Spectator editor, Winterson. Twenty years: And voluble. A volubility facilitated by the other approach, said later, “You can’t be a good this seems remarkable to me. in which the writer is reduced to a blithering idiot, poleaxed restaurant critic unless you’re It has the twin qualities of into inarticulacy, unable to do much more than panic: greedy”; sadly, none of it feeling as though it has been “Oh. My. God. It’s. Nigella.” appears still to be available), around forever while still It’s an odd thing to sit across the table from a woman who has she says that these days she coming across as new and fresh. become a single-name piece of iconography, transcending her role goes only to places she loves, Yes, it’s a book for reading, for as cook, critic, bestselling food writer, television star. (She has said feels comfortable in – The wallowing in, almost acting as she liked it when someone described her as “a writer who cooks”.) River Café or Corbin and King’s a memoir of her life at the time. In all honesty, it’s almost hard to treat her as a fellow human. celebrity-friendly stable. She has always maintained that the “goddess” in one of her most I’m not surprised. I’ve never famous early books (How to Be a Domestic Goddess, obviously) understood the appeal of fame; was a touch of comical irony. But, you know, still. So I’m not even and watching her effect on embarrassed by the fact that I appear to be hurtling gauchely others has done little to dent down the latter route. It’s difficult not to come over all Mills & my scepticism. People seem to Boon in her presence: she is, if anything, more beautiful in the feel as though they own a piece flesh than on television: creamy skin, inky-dark eyes to get lost in, of her. Over a phone call to set hand-span of a waist. How? How?? You know that thing she does up the interview, she talks on her shows, where she sneaks off to the fridge and greedily about “putting on my drag” crams in a brownie or leftover fish fingers, that joyful voluptuary for photographs, and becomes is gloriously evident during our lunch: tearing langoustines apart wistful about my anonymity. with all the relish of Darryl Hannah in Splash, berating us for not It’s as if her fame is at odds with eating enough bread, ordering on our behalf every pudding on the her nature. menu. She tells me to soak a chunk of St John’s legendary Welsh She has finally consented to 28 Noble Rot Noble Rot 29 fabulously indiscreet bitching from the people she regularly about our mutual loathing works with, both on TV and for a major food-world figure. those who make sure her And about another’s peculiar recipes really work. And the eating and drinking habits. pain of loss. But one of us is considerably Glass follows glass, but more excited about this than Nigella never misses a beat. the other. She poses for photographs, Meanwhile, around our table, even though she’s been candid there’s been some carnage: about how uncomfortable it someone, a male, has become makes her – “I hate every confessional; someone else, second of it” – and eventually also male, has fallen over. The slips off elegantly in a taxi. resulting transcript runs to I lurch straight back to my 175 pages (“I suppose I do talk bed; it takes me about two days with my mouth full,” she says to recover. She goes home and But it’s just so deliciously pomposity-free breed of food later), much of it unusable. makes a giant bowl of spaghetti. usable: even if you come out book writing. None of that is Nigella’s fault. What a woman. in hives at the sight of an oven It turns into a five-hour lunch. She has talked about her love glove, you will still want to She says firmly at the outset for animal fats: bacon, lamb, cook like she does. There’s a that she’s not much of a drinker, oh lord, butter. About feeding battle-scar oven burn across so I feel I should apologise to cake to the postman; about the white of her forearm her for bulldozing her into my “an atavistic refugee mentality” (“This is me tanned”), so it’s boozehounding. But even after that sees her stockpiling food not all for show, for the TV the Vieille Prune comes out, and loo roll, and refusing to cameras. She says she initially thanks to Fergus Henderson leave her coat in restaurant baulked at the baldness, the – Me: “Nigella, you told me to cloakrooms. About being sent boldness of the title – it was stop you…”; “Oh, be quiet, to interview Arthur Miller and her late husband John Marina” – she seems untouched being forced by The Sunday Diamond’s idea – but now by it all, not a glossy hair out of Times to ask about Marilyn it’s easy to acknowledge its place, never a suggestion that Monroe. She’s talked openly brilliance, one of the she’s not being quintessentially about the importance of groundbreakers for the new, Nigella. OK, there’s some creating an extended family 30 Noble Rot Noble Rot 31 Marina O’Loughlin: When unless I come up with NL: A little – I find Instagram-pudding-overload, St John, London, 8 August 2018 I was researching you, one of another idea. We’d arranged restaurants harder now. the things that really tickled to have lunch and I didn’t Most restaurants are me was your Desert Island have anything, so I read mediocre, and that isn’t Discs choices. I mean, Boney the one copy of The Spectator interesting to write about. M and The Mavericks! I had over and over and There’s also something thought, there’s nothing about restaurant columns, Nigella Lawson: [Laughs] about food. There weren’t like TV columns, which can really restaurant columns be unkind. When I was MO’L: I’ve never known then, so I suggested on the books page, I had anyone admit to liking The writing one once a month. a rule: if I didn’t like a book, Mavericks before. That’s my He wanted it once a week. I wouldn’t give it a bad pissed dancing-around-the- We compromised on once review unless it had been kitchen music. a fortnight, and that’s how enormously hyped. I feel Jennifer Paterson [of Two the same way with new NL: Me too! And just general Fat Ladies] started writing restaurants. Unless it’s cheering up. it on alternate weeks. been overhyped; I mean, why would you give a new MO’L: Also, I didn’t realise MO’L: So it was your idea… restaurant a… that you’d been a restaurant Were you enthusiastic about critic for 12 years? food writing before that? MO’L: A savaging? I’ve noticed recently that the NL: Nor did I. I started when NL: I didn’t really eat tendency is either absolute I was 24 or so - never with as a child, but I was quite rave review or absolute a contract. The Spectator obsessed with food and hatchet job. didn’t do contracts. In those menus and reading. days, you got paid the same I remember reading NL: Yes, because mediocrity week with your copy of something in a paper at is not interesting to the magazine – it would come school comparing lamb write about. in the post with a cheque with beef and saying lamb paperclipped to it, a set has much more flavour: MO’L: But do you still enjoy amount that included the “If you want meat with actually going? restaurants. So if you wanted flavour have lamb, beef to make more money, you had is about texture.” I’m not NL: Some: I love Locanda to go to cheap restaurants. saying I agreed with it, but Locatelli. I met Giorgio Which I never did, so I didn’t it hadn’t occurred to me that when I reviewed him at Olivo. make much money.