ARCHIVE: Nigella told me to buy a mezzaluna
We have stacks of magazines that we've written for over the years. All print, nothing internet. I'll be bringing pieces I wrote for them over here from time to time.
Context: The Advocate, 2005
Twenty years ago you could earn a roof-over-your-head-food-on-the-table living writing mostly inconsequential lifestyle items. In addition to film reviews, I did a lot of those because they were easy and enjoyable. The Advocate, at the time, was also reliable. They had editors. They had copy editors who would call you and ask you to clarify sentences over the phone. They paid promptly.
It was never a good idea for any editor to send me out to interview anyone. I was barely competent at getting what I was told to get from the interview subject and only ever marginally interested in whatever the celebrity was promoting. I took the assignments based on my own interest in the person. Nigella Lawson, in 2005, was becoming more known in the U.S. because of Nigella Bites, a show I watched and loved. It was the opposite of intimidating, and in addition to her food writing, it gave me confidence to cook beyond my skill set.
The stock interview pic going around at the time was Nigella in a tight t-shirt that said ENGLISH MUFFIN on it. I would have attached it to this little archival moment but it's very easily located on the internet. The picture you see at the top will be explained at the end of this, along with notes about what got cut from the piece.
She had a line of kitchen products to sell, so I asked her one quick question about her product line and the rest about eating. Here are excerpts:
Nigella Bites, Nigella Lawson’s food program on the Style Network, is truly concerned with the joy of cooking. Already a star in the UK, Lawson is now tantalizing Americans with a style that’s the antithesis of the current national craze for carb-free living. In her kitchen, life really is a banquet, and no one’s allowed to starve.
DW: In the United States you’re not the object of tabloids, but in England they’re snapping pictures of you without makeup, right?
NL: They have, but my laziness is greater than my vanity. I was photographed once – I won’t say I was jogging, because I don’t do anything that energetic – but I was walking around in the park in an effort to take a bit of exercise, and the photograph of that moment convinced me that where I’d gone wrong was to go out doing that sort of thing in the first place.
DW: The line is called Living Kitchen. What’s the one item I should buy?
NL: I would say the mezzaluna* because a sharp blade is always useful to have around. It’s both beautiful and lethal.
DW: I know a gay man who cuts around the fat strips in the bacon. What would you say to him about this?
NL: People think watching what you eat and having a good figure makes you attractive, but you’re either attractive or you’re not. It’s not about your figure. How you eat says everything about you, and to eat that way means your life doesn’t have enough pleasure in it.
DW: I live in West Hollywood and this is not a perspective I hear often.
NL: I think men, straight or gay, tend to have a real weakness in thinking that surface beauty is somehow meaningful. But after 10 minutes, mind numbing boringness and stupidity will make you forget that beauty. It takes a woman 10 minutes to learn what it can take a man two years to see.
NOTES: I told you it was short. A few questions asked and answered and then a publicist on the call with you steps in to move the interview subject on to the next phone call. Some questions were cut from the print piece for space and perhaps tastefulness, who can say. One of them – because at the time the way she was being marketed in the U.S. was "Check out this sexy lady who cooks on TV" and, therefore, she was always ready to answer questions about sexy things and pose for photos in t-shirts with provocative slogans on them – was the stock question "What makes a man sexy?" and her response was, "Hairiness." I saw her give Graham Norton the exact same response not long after when he asked the same question. He followed up with "How hairy?" and she said, "I quite like a gorilla."
*Pictured: my now-20-year-old mezzaluna, missing the little thingy from one of its handles, not from Nigella's line of kitchen items. She was right, though. It's fun to use. Chops up herbs quickly and amusingly.
