SPEAKING OF NIGELLA: Her cooking show, Nigella Bites, is now being shown in the States on one of the cable channels. (I think it's on the explosively-named E!) I happened to catch an episode when I was home sick one day a couple of months ago. Unlike our stolid Martha Stewart, or even Paula Zahn, Nigella is deliberately more than just a little sexy. Her rather long hair flows freely in the kitchen and she seems to mix an awful lot of things with her hands, purring about how divine everything is.
It all struck me as just a little unhygienic. I'm aware that people in other countries think Americans are obsessed with cleanliness. Perhaps some are, but not me-- I even adhere to the five-second theory, which states that, provided a dropped non-sticky food item is not on the floor for more than five seconds, it remains perfectly edible so long as you blow on it. So surely it was more than just typical American fastidiousness that caused my stomach to turn when Nigella showed us the frozen bags of wine in her freezer. She said she used them for cooking, and that they were leftover wine from previous dinner parties. Out of other people's glasses. Blech. One gets tired of Martha's insistence on buying the finest and most expensive of everything, but there are limits to frugality. It's interesting that extravagant Martha comes from rather humble roots, whereas thrifty Nigella's mom was an heiress and her father the Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer.
One positive way that Nigella differs from Martha, which is clear in this interview in The Guardian, is that she spends a lot of time emphasizing that everything doesn't have to be perfect. Martha, on the other hand, projects an unattainable ideal which no one without a passel of servants is going to live up to.
UPDATE: I'm a little stunned by this, but the New York Times cooking page had a story yesterday on Nigella that mentions the frozen bags of wine backwash without a hint of distaste (via Ken Layne). It is kind of a puff piece, I guess, emphasizing her sensual methods of food preparation. But can't we be a little critical even in puff pieces?
FURTHER UPDATE: Ben Sheriff writes to inform that:
the UK aristocracy is famous for ridiculous thrift. Not all of them, of course, but (having bought fine items the first time round) there are a lot of upper class families that recycle, reuse, wear to threads, etc. Especially the men. Partly, of course, because since WWI (and WWII especially) there's not been the income to support them in quite the style to which they are accustomed, what with the cost of houses etc. (long ramble about the National Trust to follow). So it's not exactly playing against type for Mrs Diamond.Posted by shilohbucher at January 10, 2002 03:28 PM