food

Dear Nigella Lawson, you've changed. It's over.

This is hard for me to write. But I feel you owe me an explanation.

I remember when we first met, how could I forget? I was 11 when your show first came on TV. As potentially the only non-sporty kid in the entire region, I found an escape in your recipes and would run home from school to watch your show.

I loved the cup fulls of sugar, and entire blocks of melted (milk) chocolate. I loved the butter, the oil, the six egg yolks-per-cake. I loved the full-fat, the double-cream and the half a packet of parmesan on top of an already over-flowing bowl of pasta. What we shared together was real cooking, no bullshit.

You were unapologetically the Queen of the kitchen. Cooking real food with no substitutes that tasted delicious. I genuinely thought, ‘This is it. I have found the one.’

When the world was quitting sugar, going paleo and cutting out carbs, you were there.

But then, something changed.

You released Simply Nigella. I, of course, ran to buy it. I got home, opened the cover with excitement, and in that one moment everything changed. I couldn’t believe my eyes. What happened to us?

I thought we were destined to be together. Forever.

Gone was the pork loin. The pasta. The mousse. You’ve moved onto someone else. Someone who enjoys words like “sugar-free” and “coconut oil”. Someone who would bake, you know, sweet potato macaroni cheese. (Post continues after gallery.)

Your morning snack used to be pancakes. Eggs in purgatory. Chocolate croissants. And now? “Breakfast Bars 2.0” made with “chia seeds”, “goji berries” and “cacao nibs”.

Every recipe is “free-from” this, “free-from” that. I used to have it all with you. And I want it back.

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You used to cook lamb two-ways. Now you’re cooking broccoli two-ways. I didn’t realise there were more than one way to cook it. I feel like I don’t know you any more.

Nigella's Breakfast Bars. (Image via BBC/Simply Nigella.)

 

While I can compromise on the dark chocolate cake with no butter in it, I'm sorry, I have to draw the line at the no-churn pumpkin ice cream.

The health food section of the supermarket is a quarter of an aisle for a reason, Nigella.

Come back to me. I will wait for you.

Yours in hope,

Lizzie Marton