cookbook addict

There's a lot of talk of the new Nigella Christmas book, and while I am deciding whether or not I want it too, I have pulled my other Nigella books off the shelves, at least those that contain Xmas recipes. There is enough in there for my own Xmas needs, as limited as they are, but of course, there's always space on the shelf for Nigella, whose books are so carefully made and make you yearn for her lifestyle, if not her life. Well, not really her life, with its truckload of tragedies, and certainly not her husband, egg-diet thin or not, those she can happily keep. But her beauty, wealth, creativity, her lavish table, etc. These are attractive assets. Browsing through Nigella Express, I realized I hadn't used it nearly enough yet. It is the type of food I want to make these days, because I am a bit frazzled and have little energy yet want to eat good food. I happen to have a head of escarole, courtesy of my veg box, and I found a recipe to use it with pasta, the Italian way ...

It's been over a month since I last posted. Not that I don't cook, or don' take photos, it's just that I've been excessively lazy and tired. Still, here are a few of the meals I've had this week. Last weekend, I made veal with olives and lemon. It was very very good, in a summery way. Summer is still a long lost dream at this point, let me tell you. It's been snowing for the past few days and even if the snow's melting as soon as it hits the ground, it's been rather unpleasant. A nice baked apple stuffed with homemade pain d'épices and butter is the best dessert for such weather. Then, inspired by what Paola said she had had for dinner, I set off to make my own version of pasta with chestnut mushrooms in a white wine, blue cheese (St-Agur-it's made with pasteurized milk) and cream sauce. Don't be fooled by the simple recipe method, it was comforting but still had enough grown-up complexity about it. Next we have mashed potatoes enriched...

Another recipe taken from Nigella Express , this time with the instructions. Nigella borrowed it from Elinor Klivans, author of Big, Fat Cookies . It may make you want to buy that book. Personally, I try to resist such temptations, sometimes. There is a little confusion between the recipe in Nigella's book and the original recipe which I found online with both sets of measurements, so in the end, rather than giving you NE's metric ones and both of the others, I just wrote Nigella's first, then the American cup version. I made about eighteen cookies with a good size, you can choose to make them bigger or smaller. They're really intensely cocoa-rich, especially as I used (natch) my stash of Paris-bought Valrhona bitter 70% chocolate called Guanaja. I don't know how they'd fare with kids, but with us, grown-ups, they didn't last very long, especially if feeling hormonally unbalanced. Don't bake them for as long as the recipe stipulates, I found it too much ...

I belong to a community of Nigella followers, we also worship Nigel (Slater), some of us like Jamie (Oliver), we drool at Bill(Granger) and so forth. Well, it so happens that a few days ago, Nigella, concomittently as Jamie, published a new book. You won't have escaped it, especially if you live in the UK, where it accompanies a BBC series where the voluptuous Nigella explains at length that she is über-busy, always rushing from one black cab to the next in her workaholic schedule of Hausfrau and TV chef/author. She still finds five minutes to drop by Waitrose, her supermarket of choice, the high-end of food stores, to buy everything she needs to cook up express delights for her children and millionaire husband. I know I sound mean and unsupportive, but I've heard echoes about the first shows that weren't entirely to her advantage. The food sounded rich in saturated fat and Nigella herself quite ill-at-ease (check out the Times video clips, you'll know what I mean). In ...