Radio Times

Nigella Lawson's latest series sees the "domestic goddess" throwing together haute cuisine in minutes, while juggling a busy work-life schedule and incessantly eyeing up the camera. It's a five-course recipe for annoyance - starting with the infuriating way she talks…

Nigella does nothing so mundane as "putting" her cooking ingredients into a bowl. No, she tumbles in chicken thighs and strews crumble mix (after digesting one of her sumptuous meals, no doubt she expels "gusts" of wind). Maybe it's a disease of TV chefs, but like Jamie Oliver's mockney spluttering and Gordon Ramsay's contrived expletive-scattering, Nigella's increasingly jarring use of "sensual" language is turning her into a self-parody.

Even more offensive than her pretentious vocabulary is Nigella's spurious assertion that she's just like you or me. Yes, we too have to go to the supermarket - but we can't all afford to bring the shopping back in a black cab. Yes, we also must work - but if work meant being filmed while doing all the cooking and shopping we currently (fail to) fit in around our jobs, then work wouldn't be so bad, would it?

And are we really supposed to believe that Nigella rustles up those intricate, elegant dishes in just a few minutes? Well, yes, that's the whole point of the programme - but if, like me, you struggle some evenings to summon up the energy to pierce holes in the film lid of a microwave meal, then I think doing steak with a marinade of crushed garlic, thyme and lemon zest, followed by Eton mess is pretty unlikely - even if you have taken the shockingly plebeian step of using shop-bought meringues.

Here's another thing - we don't all have a grocery budget bolstered by the spoils of book deals and television shows. It's a lovely idea treating a group of friends to 100 grams each of fresh crab meat for lunch, but at seven quid a time I'd have to spend a day dangling fishing line off Brighton pier, and that certainly wouldn't speed things up.

Now I realise that for some people Nigella Express is aspirational TV, and that they really do want to see her lunching with "the girls" or throwing together a perfect last-minute soiree for friends. But when she starts - in that smug, faux-irreverent way - to refer to these showbiz mates as "those reprobates", then, really, don't you just want to slap her?

Its all such marvellous, entertaining nonsense. Like all the other TV vittle-slingers she's only there to flog a book: a girl's got to make a living. After all we can't all be millionaires. Or married to them.

Why doesn't Nigella take her jacket off and wash her hands before she starts cooking? Doing that and tying back her hair would at least instruct the nation in a useful way.

Nigella is also a hefty lass. I notice she's always behind obstacles whenever her bottom might come into the camera. Part of the joy of watching her is wondering how she will get from one side of the kitchen to the other without walking there. Ah yes.... lean suggestively over pan, viewers are distracted momentarily while the camera soft focuses to a nearby pepperpot which is now ludicrously taking up the entire screen and in the background you see her waddle across.

Please tell me there will be some more of her cooing precious twaddle this Christmas. Some more recipes lifted from America I hope, with made-up words that even George Bush could rival? This is supremely indulgent entertainment during an indulgent holiday.

I liked watching Nigellas old cookery shows when she was on ' the other side', however since she married a millionaire and now has a cookery show that is filmed in a fake house(her husband millionare Charles Sattchi is intensly private and would not let cameras into their real home) I find her show hard to take. I cannot bear watching her cooking in her 'kitchen Set' and holding fake dinner parties. For proper Nigella cooking watch her old shows thast were shown on Chanel 4. Saying all this I must say her 'How to be a Domestic Goddess' is my baking bible and never fails me.

I have read all these comments and agree with some, and not so much with others. I am a student and try as much as I can to cook with fresh ingredients and veg, my mum was a great inspiration to me and is very educated in eating healthily (she has an allotment and we hardly eat meat in the house cos of her boyfriend and my sis are veggies bit annoying but it's given me a good relationship with vegs) and still lentils and vegetables are regulars in my shopping trolley at uni - (some nights it is a pizza thrown in the oven though - as I do fashion and I'm in uni from 8:30 till 8 - fashion isn't like other courses!!) I love cooking and enjoy doing it. I don't follow recipes or measure but love trying new things. I only use olive oil and agree with most of her ingredients - although some are definitely a little fattening!!

The only thing I am UTTERLY AMAZED by is that all the haters of Nigella seem to take such offence to her. I for one LOVE her show, my friend and I just watch it PURELY FOR LAUGHS. I love the things she says, her phrases, her manner, the camera angles, the over-use of her glancing at the camera, her three-quarter-length tops IN EVERY COLOUR!!, the absolute cheeeeeese of it all - it's hilarious and brilliantly cringeing!!! My friend and I tune into it regularly and are in stitches by the end and recite little quotes from it throughout the week just for chuckles!!

I think 'Florador' is absolutely right! She is well aware, and is effectively being a parody of herself. Genius!!

Yes, shopping in waitrose, her over use of the black cabs, don't fall into normal peoples lifestyle - and her throw away things. I'm all for the environment!!... Her incessent cheese - when leaving the butchers with some lamb she says 'and that's what I call express cooking' is all over-done, and cringeing to the max but that's why she's brilliant.

Yes RhodriMarsden RT it was deeply cringeing with the chocolate chip cookie fiasco and her snivelling friend, also her 'real-life phone call' with her friend where she proclaims "Don't text him, don't answer his calls!" - as if!! ha ha, and her whole 'day in the life' episode. But I thought it was hilarious. I just laugh the whole way through!!!

To all you who hate her, just turn it off!! Simples!

Go Nigella you're brilliant!!! woooooop wooooop!!

they should just dig a big hole and bury her...she is the most annoying sanctimonious stuck up person I have ever seen, why do they have to inflict this upon us. please just take your umski pukey food and pathetic comments to yourself and off the telly!

Many of the criticisms in your article could be voiced towards any TV chef. They all have nice kitchens and expensive ingredients. It'd hardly be entertaining TV if we all sat around watching them add water to a Pot Noodle.

I hereby nominate Paul Jones for a knighthood. Spot on.

Give me Nigella's income, plenty of time to prepare, and I will make a cookery programme called "Everyday dishes for the redundant and very short of money" Please get her off thee TV. She is so false and fond of herself.

The woman is just dreadful and incredibly tiresome. Her TV programmes are pointless a far as actual cooking is concerned; it's far, far more about her and what a fabulous lifestyle she enjoys, all because she has oddles of money and influential.supposedly glamourous chums. She doesn't have a 'busy, busy' life doing what has to be done. She's simply busy doing what she wants to do with cooking as a lucrative hobby. Why doesn't someone suggest to her that perhaps viewers must, by now, have become thoroughly bored at the sight of her cooing over foodstuffs, marvelling at the sensuous colours and textures, etc. before sticking a finger or spoon into her mouth suggestively. It's embarassing. Well, they wouldn't tell her, it's her shtick and it's all she does. As for the dishes she creates, I really don't care. Much of it is prohibitively expensive, assuming it's readily available in the first place; the world doesn't begin and end with London, afterall. Not only that but a substantial amount of what she cooks is calorie laden heart attack food. Perhaps she'd be kind enough to just stick to turning up for premiers and parties in ludicrous cinched waist, bust revealing dresses.

It isn't so much the food Nigella produces which I object to, though I don't think it's anything to get that excited about or inspired by. Also, it's frequently quite unhealthy. It's the lady herself who proves to be irritating. She's not a 'wordsmith' as claimed; her patter sounds scripted and I don't expect it to be other than that, nevertheless it it's not indicative of any fluency on her part. She cooks in a remarkably well appointed kitchen and a multitude of ingredients which most ordinary home cooks, her supposed audience, have access to. It's largely just more culinary entertainment; nothing more. TV cooks don't have to be as prosaic as Delia Smith but they should be guided by some acknowledgment of what is possible for most people to attempt to emulate or be inspired by. For example, there is no point in suggesting turmeric as an alternative in a dish which requires saffron. The former is much less expensive but it is no substitute; it's only used as a colour and in excess has an unpleasant bitter taste. What's the point? Saffron has a distinctive flavour and aroma used to enhance the food.

her silly performances of 'this is how I live and these are the kind of things I do at home', ie. middle of the night fridge raids, ect. are tedious and hackneyed. She should take a very long sabbatical from public life.

i just don't get it. act or cook not both. can't stand the way she wakes up and oh so creepy there just happens to be a camera and sound guy in her bedroom. i feel like i am being treated as an idiot to beleive that all this is just happening on a wim. just lucky the camera and sound guy live under the stairs so when she needs to cook or steal food from the fridge late at night, there they are. just spur of the moment things and someone can capture it. i love what she cooks, really do, but i just can't come to terms with the "reality of her busy life" she tries to script into the show.

If i coked food that is as expensive to make as hers is im sure it would taste good! Her show is hardly relevant today is it?!

Nigella is a wordsmith, who obviously loves the English language as much as food and has an envious skill with both. Why can't we just celebrate an intelligent, successful, attractive, passionate woman for once without always trying to find something to whine about?

I think Nigella is great, she does not care about size, she is intelligent, has huge sex appeal and good luck to her, she seduces the food she cooks and gets paid for it.....

Nigella Lawson, "national treasure" ! It doesn't take much, does it? Everybody has experienced misery in their lives and I expect most accept it's part of life, though it hurts. Few, however, when the inevitable downsides kick in, are as cushioned from the practical realities as she has been and continues to be. What is there to treasure? She's a tireless lotus eating self publicist who cooks, whilst living the highest of lives. The food she cooks represents her very accurately; rich, expensive, overly indulgent and not terribly good for you.

Nigella is ace :)

My daughter and I regard Nigella as a treat which we both thoroughly enjoy. We love the world she creates of good food, friends a lovely home with love at the centre and her artistic flair. She is a national treasure who has overcome some terrible times in her own life loosing so many close family members - and yet not being bitter but creating fun and beauty in all she does and inspires us to try new dishes, use wider vocabulary and keep looking on the bright side of life.

I've only dipped into Nigella's Christmas programmes because although the rest of my family have chosen to watch her, I like so many others, can't bear the eyelashes, her bosom (only jealous), her unreal budget and her late night "snacks". BUT… she celebrates food, she loves food, cooking, feeding friends, family etc etc and for that I thank her. I love her books, especially "Feast" so aptly subtitled "Food that celebrates life" and that's just it… her exuberence means I forgive her for everything else!

By the way, I don't think it such a hardship to cook from scratch every night and therefore I would refer you to some basic household management and simple recipes as can be found in such pubclications as Mrs Beeton's (updated version is very cheap on Amazon these days) and also to brain storm some ideas when buying fresh fish and meat on offer at the supermarket and plan a little, I have always cooked from scratch every night (even when I was in a very stressful job and even when in that very stressful job and lived alone, (unless out to dinner) ps - I'm not too old either! Just had a decent teacher in my mother! and yes and my father is goes shooting regulary so I know how to pluck and draw pheasants, ducks and skin a rabbit, guess that will make you realise just how incredibly plastic you are!

She is educated, warm, expressive and cooks and presents herself as Delia Smith would like to, but can't (Delia being part of the Nanny state style of cooking!) I don't need to know how to boil an egg; infact I certainly don't need to spend £2 on buying microwaveable prepared mashed potato, cooking should be fun, using up what you have and being a little inventive, and whoever said by speaking properly is strange, well there you go, a contribution from the prepacked meal lover who has the day off work if theymiss the Simpsons the nioght before!, if you find it too hard to pierce a couple of holes in a ready meal which I think you may have paid around £2.50 for then it may interest you to know that you cna throw a couple of unpeeled carrots, unpeeled potatoes, a few unpeeled garlic cloves and a fresh chicken in the oven, drizzle some olive oil, season (even when I'm tired I can always open a bottle of wine somehow) so I expect a drizzle of oil isn't too cumbersome for you and roast breast side down and then revert for half an hour on 180 degrees, oh sorry, I forgot to add, you need a table and a carving knife rather than just a spoon! I guess you would find that a little too prententious, best get back to lamb shanks in minted gravy and listen out for the ping on the microwave!

I love Nigella's luscious and voluptuous movement of bodily charm - and those eyes!. Watching her preparing and cooking food is more than captivating, and not to be equated with the many other plain and uninspiring cooking shows on TV. She demonstrates that food is not just simply for eating but also something that can be enjoyed and celebrated in a sensual way. Those who complain about Nigella not disclosing the recipe with the relevant amounts of ingredients etc., can always look into her homepage, there they will find the details they require.

So go on Nigella, suck your fingers as much as you want, for me you still have the best cooking show on TV.

I love those mounds of succulent sensuality, and the food she cooks is also quite desirable. She brings that unquestionable style of voluptuousness into her cooking that makes one's mouth water, something probably still unknown of in the kitchens of the UK. Go on Nigella, suck your fingers again, and let us experience food as something other than just eating.

I can see how some people would find Nigella annoying but personally I like her "food porn" demeanour. I don't think she takes herself too seriously and she makes a pleasant change from food Nazis like Ramsay.

If I got home tonight and found Nigella cooking my evening meal I'd think it was my birthday! Georgeous food served by a female who is not built like a stick insect. Fabulous!

I totally disagree. Nigella is the one television cook I CAN stand. Delia Smith could never hold my interest the way Nigella does. Whoever wrote this critical post is probably just plain jealous of the "Queen of Cuisine". Get a life is what I say.

I watched Nigella Lawson for the first time the other evening and thought she was useless. I enjoy cooking, but she rushed everything, did not say any quantities of ingredients or give recipes, spoken or written. Just a bit of this and a bit of that, - useless.

I quite like Nigella but I have to say that the episode where she harped on about having such a hard day at work ahead of her and how will she find the time to shop and cook dinner for 300 people etc blah blah.....then cut to a shot of her 'excruciatingly hard day at work'....her and some bird looking at pictres of food going 'Mmmmm...that looks lovely....' REALLY MADE ME CROSS! Is that what she considers a hard day at work? Really? Honestly...she should try doing my job....12 hours spent at an operating table today, do I have the energy to feed 300 people? I don't think so.....

I have never quite understood why Nigella enjoys the popularity and praise she does. Is it all down to the fact that her breasts are fairly large and she is capable of coquettishly gazing from under mascaraed lashes? /For God's sake pension the woman off. Her food is mostly indulgent and and not particularly nutritious. So many of her dishes are meat, meat. more meat; oh, and crab of course. The finger sucking food eroticism has become boring in it's predictability. Nigella is not a talentless cook but she is an uninteresting one; presumably that's why chicken thighs have to be 'tumbled', rather than simply added, or put in. Nan, it appears that the lady herself has finally been tumbled.

You guys are awful! Nigella is awesome and those that look down on her, SHAME ON YOU! What have you accomplished in your meger lives? we are all people and all have our on reason for doing things and way to live, have respect. Don't judge what you don't know!

You guys are awful! Nigella is awesome and those that look down on her, SHAME ON YOU! What have you accomplished in your meger lives? we are all people and all have our on reason for doing things and way to live, have respect. Don't judge what you don't know!

Nigella may be pretentious, but when she sucks some sticky ingredient from her finger, I can forgive her anything.

Just tie your hair back, Nigella. And get your ... out of the soup.

i've only just found this site; I'd hoped to find a place where there could be a really thoughtful discussion of the intrusion of 'MUSIC' plastered over everything in radio and TV - especially wrecking all the superbly photographed TV documentaries so that no doubt there is now a whole generation which expects to always view the countryside to the accompaniment of synthetic soaring strings; also so that most trailers cannot be heard for the 'background' orchestral noises; and finally because the 'music' rapidly sends me to sleep, so that i miss most of the programmes anyway; lets hear from those who commission and provide this dreadful audio pollution- will someone in RD set up a blog for this?

i've always thought that this youngish woman has an unhealthy LARDY look about her - i cannot pin down exactly what this look reminds me of, but it is exceedingly off-putting!

I'd certainly never advise Nigella Lawson in relation to her cookery skills but please, please get rid of her television director. I want to watch a cookery programme, not a very bad attempt to win the Cannes Film Festival. The "now you see it, now you don't" editing of pans of foods and kitchen utensils. I know what an electric pepper grinder does and what it looks like. I want to see how the food is prepared and cooked not a close up ground pepper falling into a pan. The eternal out of focus shots! What are they all about? It's a cookery programme not an optician advert. Also get rid of that irritating incessant music that doesn't add anything to the show, shades of Rachel Allen (is it the same director?). What should be a very good programme is totally spoilt by these unnecessary additions.

whatever her pretentions I think she's a wonderful woman - having seen the tv docu of her late husband's struggle with throat cancer and how supportive she was of him she can do no wrong in my eyes. She is filthy rich and I can't relate to her lifestyle - she's got a freezer bigger than my backbedroom - but she's no snob - she drinks from a bottle for God's sake!!!

I hate lots of people, quite specifically Gary Rhodes showing off his smug-git designer eveningwear but performing like a carthorse at Ascot in the current Strictly Cum Dancing. Now how do I get my own RT blog?

It's just so irritating. The fact she shops at waitrose for a start, then gets in a cab and then proceeds to use a variety of disposable foil trays, sandwich bags etc. Apart from the cost of these things, what about the environment? I'd rather spend a minute washing up my baking tray than contributing to an already massive waste disposal problem. I still watch it though, even it's just to laugh at her ridiculous use of sensual words to describe the food! Oh, and one last thing why does she insist on wearing that shapeless denim jacket on every program???

Phew, I feel better now after my rant!!

ain't you guys heard of Iceland?? all cooked for you, just heat it up! seriously though watch all the cookery progs and love them! nigella,jamie,gordon your always find something you want to try!

Watch Rachel Allen. Easier recipes and more pleasing to the eye.

I've always thought that she should come with a health warning on the lines of 'Cook and eat just like me and you will look all lardy just like me'...; I'm amazed that her unhealthy flabby pale look is considered by so many to be sexy

quote from string originator - "but if, like me, you struggle some evenings to summon up the energy to pierce holes in the film lid of a microwave meal...". Wow. This is sad...

I have to say that, like her or not, the recipe book which accompanies the series is WONDERFUL. I have become pretty addicted to leafing through the book and picking out a new recipe to try:- it's akin to Nigel Slater's style of using very few ingredients, but keeping them high-quality so that the food tastes great.

I understand the comments made by other people here but I was never a fan before and now her recipes have convinced me that she's a culinary inspiration. We don't watch bland, boring people on TV: everybody is a caricature of their personality on the box, so why expect a TV cook to be any different? (And, let's face it, if Paul Jones's blog wasn't extreme in its views, it wouldn't have engendered as many strong feelings and comment as it has. Blandness has no place in entertainment, whether written or on the screen.)

I have lived the cliched Nigella dream of coming home from work, cooking with the kids and then cooking again for guests - all using her book. It works for me, even if it doesn't press the right buttons for other viewers.

Oh thank goodness its not just me!!! I was compared to Nigella recently - meant as a compliment - and the poor chap didn't realise that the can was open and worms were wriggling EVERYWHERE.

"GASTROPORN!" I hissed. "The poor woman's only licking her fingers," he countered. "Nonsense," I said, "she's promoting oral sex in the kitchen!"

In all probability he doesn't care about the location of said pleasures, but this week's "softly whipped cream draped over my golden mounds" is beyond bearing (ahem).

Get rid of this woman, all she does is cack-handed assembly projects: there's nothing "express" about preparing 2 days in advance.

If I watch more than 2 minutes of this over paid, under talented cult of celebrity nonsense, I find myself thinking "Come the revolution ...".

If you really want simple tasty cooking with no measuring, and a bit of risk thrown in you can't beat Keith Floyd.

See? I'm not biased against posh people. Only posh people who think we should emulate their vacuous, contradictory, parasitic lifestyles.

Toot toot!

The comments so far seem to have centred on Nigella's style of presenting, but that's not the reason I have become disenchanted with her present series.

I have previously been a fan of Nigella - the producers market the programme all very much as a lifestyle thing - where we are obviously meant to drool over her lifestyle, her house, the lady herself etc as well as the food.

I think those that say she is becoming a parody of herself are somewhat true (although it's never really bothered me all this bossy 'You absolutely MUST use fresh prawns - don't even THINK about frozen ones!') It's all just part of the package. You either like the style, or ignore it.

However, I've given up watching this series since episode 5. Not because of how she talks - no - it's because of the food she prepares.

Every week she presents recipes that are groaning with pounds of sugar and pints of double cream, bucket loads of red meat, handfuls of salt and full-fat everything - and hardly ever a vegetable in sight (you obviously are supposed to have the rest of your 5 portions of fruit and veg at other meals during the day because there is nary a one to be seen at dinner!).

Earlier programmes had a mix of sensible balanced meals and the odd indulgent treat. However, this series has tipped the balance too far into the indulgent. In the first 5 episodes I watched (before I gave up in disgust) there was so much fat, salt, sugar etc - that to be honest, with such nutritionally unbalanced meals you'd be better to buy a ready-made one from the supermarket! Believe me, as a nutritionist, what she's cooking isn't any better for you!

This indulgent diet is probably why the lady herself seems have to put on 3 stones in weight since the last series I watched and has now moved beyond 'curvy' into definite 'pudgy-dom'.

Sorry Nigella - thanks, but no thanks - I don't aspire to such an unhealthy lifestyle!

I thought that I was in the minority until I read the comments on Nigella's latest culinary contribution to BBC2. My boyfriend and I find ourselves losing patience with her condescending attitude and have to turn-off for our own sanity. We too love cookery programmes but find this unbearable to watch. Please BBC, no more "Nigella Express".

I rarely watch this programme now, though I might buy the book when it's inevitably reduced as all cookery books are. I like reading Nigella very much, I think she's a good food writer and a couple of dishes from her "How to Cook" book are in my classic standby rep. Indeed, one is so simple and easy to make it's probably been featured in this series and it really is quick and delicious to prep, cook and clean up. (one pan cooking, how I love it). But written language is more formal and mannered than spoken language and what reads well doesn't always sound so good. Spoken language is generally more casual than written language and a straight translation can sound as affected as mockney Jamie.

But what makes the programme ridiculous for me is the cameraman's obession with her lovely bosom which is as irritating as her constant flirtation with the camera. It's good to see older women confident in their sexuality, so often it is simply disallowed because older women aren't 'allowed' to be sexual but I do wonder where Roni Ancona has left to explore with her "Dead Ringers" parody. Perhaps this is Nigella's plan: be a self-parody and use the comedian's material before they get the opportunity?

And one last thing. Really, do Nigella's family and friends really all eat like pigs, stuffing the food into their mouths as if they've never seen food before in their enthusiasm to show how wonderful it all is? And for a late night snack do you really sneak down to the fridge and wrap a lamb chop in parma ham to stuff down your neck before you've even shut the fridge door? Must enjoyment of food translate to ramming it in your mouth as quickly as you can?

It's just all to chi chi for words.

Hi AEStJohn

I agree, using language descriptively and playfully is necessary and generally to be commended. Cooking and eating are incredible sensual things, and it’s completely reasonable to lavish lots of delicious adjectives on them. So when a chef talks about the beautiful vivid colours of a fresh vegetable, or calls a sauce velvety, to me that’s great – the smell, taste and texture of the food is what makes it. What makes Nigella pretentious is her self-conscious use of flowery language to talk about the mundane mechanics of preparation, rather than the food itself. The fact that a chicken thigh is “succulent” is completely relevant but whether we “tumble” it into a bowl rather than just chucking it in seems to me less so. On the other hand, a word like drizzle, which has now passed into common usage, and describes the way you pour oil over a salad better than most, is, I reckon, fair enough. Hmmm… so maybe Nigella is pushing the boundaries, and one day we’ll all be tumbling our chicken thighs… Crab: yes, I seem to be a bit obsessed with it, don’t I? I recently had a go at dressing my own crab and found it loads of fun, and fresh crab really is delicious. I don’t know, but I suspect Nigella and I have something in common in that we wouldn’t give guests the watery, tissue paper-textured tinned stuff, which I’m sure must be what you’re talking about at £3 a time. Fresh white crab meat really is about £70 per kilogram.

God, I’m making myself hungry …

Paul

I have stopped watching Nigella altogether as I can't abide her smug attitude and would rather use the other cookery books available off the shelf and not necessarily by any celebrity cook! Who is the lucky student living off £50 a week! Bet you can rustle up super meals on such a whopping budget!

I quite like her style. It's fun and friendly. OK, so she's posh and flirty, but the recipes are nice and simple. None of this measuring business, just a cup of this or a dash of that. And for me, a nice easy episode watching Nigella cook before stuffing it all in her face (every episode she has seconds! haha!), rather than an irritating, common pug with a speech impediment using words I've never heard of ("Pukka"????), or a grumpy git who has a two word vocabulary that can only be broadcast after the watershed.

Furthermore, it's all about practice. To use your mathematical equation,

x(prep + cooking + eating + clearing up) = x(prep + cooking + eating + clearing up)/x to the power of x

...in other words, the more you do it, the faster and less stressful it becomes, regardless of whether you have a dishwasher or not.

And here's another timesaving tip free of charge - providing you rinse the soapsuds off your dishes, if you leave them on the drainer, they will dry themselves! Giving you and hour or so to go and catch up with Nigella's next programme ;)

Completely agree with your comments about the presentation of the show - but that just the package isn't it? As you say, Jamie is the cheeky chappie, Gordon is the Glesga hardman and Nigella is the flirtatious posh totty. It's just brand building...

As for the recipes, they really are quick and easy. I'm no expert cook, but I tried the sliced steak recipe almost as soon as I saw it and it is astonishingly simple as well as very very tender!

We also tried the Mexican fiesta recipes this weekend and the Margarita ice cream just defies credulity - how can something so delicious be so simple to make?

I now watch the show for amusement but I take the recipes very seriously. Can't wait for the next instalment...

Hi All,

Again, I'm not usually one to comment on things like this but the whole debate seemed incredibly one-sided to me. I am a student living on £50 a week and I have used both Nigella's programme and the book to assist me in broadening my culinary horizons!

There are some recipes in there which contain some slightly more extravagant ingredients, for example crab meat, but I live in London and can still find in Tesco's and M&S for less than £3. But the point of some of these recipes is not for everyday fodder, but to provide something simple and delicious to rustle up for a nice occassion, such as a good friend visiting for lunch.

Overall, the book is very positive and has provided me with infinite inspiration. The recipes are swift and simple to prepare. As for washing up, if you are not environmentally conscious, it is perfectly possible to use disposable equipment for very messy dishes and lets face it, most people shove everything in the dishwasher anyway!

All in all, Nigella may not be perfect, but she strives to assist us in being able to prepare delicious dishes very simply and that is an admirable quality. As for taking a black cab back from the supermarket - I usually take public transport but as I don't drive I also have to take black cabs occasionally and I am merely a lowly student!

Personally I find the innuendos hilarious. So much in fact, that I'm tempted to turn Nigella Express into a weekly drinking game: one shot per innuendo. Perfect!

You refer to ‘the infuriating way she talks’ and her ‘increasingly jarring… language’ when the word ‘annoying’ would serve well enough in both sentences. Of course you use the words you did, however, because they more effectively relate a certain sensation and the variety of vocaulary does make your ‘article’ (if I may borrow your arbibtrary use of inverted commas) a slightly better read. It is both hypocritial and needlessly spiteful to rebuke Nigella for her playful and imaginative use of language when you’re quite guilty of it yourself. Similarly, you comdemn Nigella for making the 'spurious assertion' that she is 'like you or me' despite your recurring and determined attempts to convince us that you're some archetypal everyman.

I'm not entirely certain why crabs keep popping up and of course I don't know where you do your shopping, but at Tesco 500 grams of crab meat is less than £3 - about the same as a digestable ready meal for one and more than enough to feed a few guests. Your argument seems to be little more than resent owing to the fact that is she is rich and, ostensibly, clever. The affair may well be a bit contrived but all television is just that - deliberately creative - and only the six o'clock news and reality programmes purport not to be. It may get on one's nerves occaisonally but it is to be expected.

Yeah very smug and annoying,could do without the boy skateboarding round Eaton Square.Notice husband has good sense not to appear on camera!!!!!

Hi Rosalindjane

Thanks for your comments. In my defence, I do cook - in fact I love cooking, and cookery shows - but despite what Nigella might claim, it is hard to manage preparing a proper meal every night.

I just don't believe her recipes are as quick as she claims when you take the preparation into account, and when you consider how you may be feeling after a day at work. It may well work in Nigella's favour that she doesn't do a 9-5 job. It must be great to be able to get to the supermarket during the day when it's nice and empty. Another thing she never seems to touch on is the washing up and cleaning aspect of cooking. I don't know if she does it herself but that certainly adds time to the whole thing. I reckon prep + cooking + eating + clearing up = an entire evening gone, however "Express" the dishes are.

Also, fresh crab really is as expensive as I say. So having four people for lunch is going to cost you £28 before any of the other ingredients. For a casual meal, it's beyond the reach of both a student and, believe me, a Radio Times blogger.

Finally, I fully stand by my comments about her smug self-parody. What is particularly annoying is not that it's a show about how great she is supposed to be, but that she thinks we can't see how heavy-handed it is in contriving to demonstrate this. It's kind of insulting. As for my own smug attitude, well it's time Nigella got a taste of her own medicine. Now if she only had time in her busy schedule to read my blog....

Paul

Hi all, I just wanted to comment. I totally agree that the show is thoroughly annoying. I love cookery programmes but the way Nigella smugly looks at the screen and gives us her coy looks made me turn off I'm afraid! She really got on my nerves, trying to make out she's 'normal'. Yeah right! The supermarket and the taxi cab was the last straw for me and I didn't watch after that... and rosalindjane you were quite rude in your comments to the others about having no cooking talent etc, they didn't say they had no talent in cooking, they were merely commenting that sometimes when you've had a hard day at work, a microwave meal is the only thing you feel like cooking... not that they have that every day! (I hope not anyway lol). Most of their comments were about Nigella's smug attitude - and how annoying it is!

The cooking has become a sideshow, really. I've taken to watching it each week just to check whether she's persisting with this unbearably smug, grotesque parody of herself that she inexplicably started doing this series. It's astonishing. I can barely believe that no-one on the production team put their hands up and said "Hang on, though, won't this really, really annoy people?"

My girlfriend and I have a competition each week to see which one of us cracks first and unleashes a stream of expletives at the screen. I always lose. Just. And man, we usually love cookery shows.

If you saw the one a fortnight back when a "tearful friend" came over for chocolate biscuits, and you managed not to scream in fury, you deserve to be canonised. "You're right, Nigella, he's not worth it - but these chocolate biscuits are," she snivelled. "They are, aren't they!" smiled Nigella. Hooray!

Hi. Normally I don’t comment on blogs but yours is just so full of “MY UNITELIGENT THOUGHTS! LET ME SHOW YOU THEM’ that I actually registered so I could post a comment to you. Now, I like Nigella Lawson. Her Christmas TV show got me into cooking, so we can say I’m biased but I’m not here to rant about how Nigella is the best thing ever – I know other people don’t like her and your are allowed to dislike the smug aura of the show. Yes, it is horribly smug.

However, the recipes aren’t at all hard to cook. My boyfriend brought me the Nigella Express book as a moving in present and we’ve cooked our way through pretty much every thing in there with ease and enjoyment. Perhaps you just have no talent in the kitchen?

And really, it’s not that expensive. Buying good, cheep produce from your local supermarket or butcher and making it up at home is much, much cheaper than a trolley full of microwave meals at £4 a pop. And we live on a students budget so we have even less money than Radio Times blogists.

But what really annoyed me about your little article is how you somehow feel proud about your lack of culinary ability and the fact that you’re stuffing yourself full of additives and e-numbers instead of doing something for yourself.

Really, I wouldn’t have commented at all if it wasn’t for your horribly smug attitude.