10 Questions for Nigella Lawson

Nigellisima is a book of “easy Italian-inspired recipes.” Which is the easiest?
Really all of it is pretty simple. I’ve got a pasta with zucchini–or whatever vegetables you’ve got. I like cooking which comes about after a bit of fridge foraging and just using what’s there. I like to think that all the recipes are doable for people who are utter novices.

You’ve hosted many cooking shows and written nine books. When do you graduate to chef?
Never, and most people who call themselves chefs are not. It’s not modesty that makes me resist the appellation of chef; it’s being a stickler for accuracy and a belief that it’s not inferior to be a home cook. It’s just something different.

How many people have you tried the chocolate pasta on?
About 14. I should note, they started making cocoa or chocolate pasta in Umbria in the 13th century. True, they didn’t put it in a butterscotch sauce with cream and pecans. And I was a bit frightened the first time I ate it. I made someone else try it first.

On your TV show The Taste, your fellow judge Ludo Lefebvre said one of the female contestants cooked like a guy. What did he mean?
Who can tell? He’s French, and he’s a chef, and he’s a man. I think a lot of professional chefs have a slightly holy view of women who cook. I don’t think you can tell the gender of a person through his or her cooking–except at home because male home cooks tend to be more show-offy.

What dish of yours do you eat most often?
I’ve probably cooked and eaten My Mother’s Praised Chicken hundreds of times. When I get back home, that’s what I’ll make, because I need to spray my territory.

What’s your bad cooking habit?
I’m not big on guilt. People often say to me, You don’t wear your hair up. You haven’t got a net. I cook for my children. I grew up eating my mother’s hair, and I don’t see why they can’t grow up eating mine.

Do you observe the five-second rule in your household?
I don’t mind it being a bit longer.

Let’s call it the 4½-hour rule then.
It depends how many people are looking. I will eat something myself if it has been on the floor, but I’d be nervous about making someone else do it. It would be just embarrassing to give someone food poisoning. Not good for business.

Your spouse is art collector Charles Saatchi. Do you have a favorite work he owns?
I’d never talk about the art in his collection–although he once said to me, “There is nothing you could cook that would be as good as Weetabix with sugar and milk.” So I should retaliate, really, but I found that very endearing.

Were you surprised by the fuss when you wore a burkini on an Australian beach?
I was slightly annoyed because it was a very unflattering photograph. Dry, I looked a lot better. Wet, I could see the hippo resemblance. But I try not to get too hung up about that sort of thing. I wear it because I don’t like the sun on me at all.

How do you feel when people say that you’ve embraced your curves?
Women’s bodies are thought to be public property. Whatever. If you’re on TV, you can’t be surprised if someone talks about what you look like. I don’t want to be the poster girl for anything in particular, but I don’t equate thinness with healthiness, so I don’t feel I have to defend having flesh on me. It’s really, as the French say, everything in moderation–including moderation.