Four years ago, the fashion journalist-turned-chef, food writer
and acclaimed restaurateur couldn’t find the words to thank
Nigella, whose cookbooks and TV programmes first opened
her eyes to the joy of cooking and inspired her to pursue her
culinary ambitions. This is what she wanted to sayRECIPE RAVINDER BHOGAL FOOD ST YLING KATY MCCL
PHOTOGRAPHS MAJA SMEND ST YLING TONY HUTCHINSIt may sound overblown to say it, but I think
you liberated me. Growing up in a patriarchal
Punjabi family as daughter number four was
quite often stifling. I chafed at the constraints
of what was permissible – embroidery,
crochet, cookery – and what was verboten:
discos, climbing trees, boys and dreaming of
cooking for anyone other than your husband
and children. Cooking is a highly skilled and
often selfless labour, especially when it is
women who are doing the feeding. At family
parties, the men always ate first, and the
women were always left to clear up.
I occupied a strange and stressful space –
my feet straddling two opposing worlds – one
where my value as a “good girl” depended on
servitude and submissiveness and the other
where Margaret Thatcher was prime minister
and my teachers at junior school told me
anything was possible if I worked hard.
As I watched my grandmother, mother,
aunts and sisters join the cult of domesticity,
I felt restless and I rebelled internally.
In 1999 I turned on the television andwatched you boil pasta to make your recipe
for lemon linguine. “The Italians say the
water you boil pasta in should be as salty
as the Mediterranean,” you intimated
before going on to describe the pale yellow
accompanying sauce you’d whipped up
as “harmonious, calm, voluptuous and
creamy... like eating velvet.” I was
immediately enamoured.
I had already bought your brilliant book
How to Eat the year before while working
weekends atSelfridges,andwould barely
look up fromit trainjourneys
back to Kent,
way home.Ni
radiantly beau
eyes on, buty
more – yourb
a hearty enjo
life, and prof
joie de vivre.
Your food
relies on too
strenuousefDear Nigella
LETTER TO MY FOOD HERO
Ravinder Bhogal writes
to Nigella Lawson