How Can I Get More Cool, or Why Am I Not More Like Nigella?

Okay, obvi­ous­ly the first prob­lem is that the only cool thing about me in this pho­to­graph is my gor­geous new dress from Vince, which you can’t even see prop­er­ly, but it was my major Christ­mas present from my moth­er in law (don’t even get me start­ed on how lucky I am to have a moth­er in law who gives me Vince). My point is that Nigel­la has me com­plete­ly flum­moxed. Has any­one seen her Christ­mas series? Where she effort­less­ly pro­duces six whole roast­ed poussins with chili oil and a fes­tive rub, while hav­ing cock­tails OUT with friends, and then there’s also two side dish­es and a pud­ding? Here’s my objec­tion: unlike Martha Stew­art, Nigel­la makes a fetish of being sim­ple, eas­i­ly-imi­tat­ed, “you can do this.” Only it’s all a hor­ri­ble, hor­ri­ble fake. First of all, she’s effort­less­ly Eng­lish, so I can­not do HER. And it’s worse to be told emphat­i­cal­ly how easy it is, than to be told, as Martha does, “you should only hope you could be me.” With Martha I don’t even try.

But wait: my prob­lem is in pre­sen­ta­tion. Not of the dish per se, although that’s lack­ing at times. No, my prob­lem is in the pre­sen­ta­tion of ME. I do not exude glam­our. I do not exude a sort of sexy apolo­getic “these three cours­es are all I could man­age, sor­ry,” while being impos­si­bly gor­geous and sophis­ti­cat­ed, nor do I even have an adorable incom­pe­tent glow about me. No, I’m that awful thing in between: I can do things, fine, no prob­lem, but they don’t look COOL.

I need all your help on this! How am I ever going to turn my blog into a cook­book, much less a tele­vi­sion pro­gramme that makes peo­ple like me feel bad, if I just sit here and live, occa­sion­al­ly feed­ing peo­ple and then telling you about it? Obvi­ous­ly some­thing is need­ed in the way of presentation.

Take this evening, for exam­ple. Tru­ly, in all hon­esty, I did walk in the house from drop­ping Avery off at her friend’s house to play, and with­in ten min­utes produce:

Mus­sels with White Wine and Fresh Thyme
(serves one hun­gry hus­band with a wife who does­n’t like mussels)

3 tbsps olive oil
1 lb mus­sels, cleaned
4 cloves gar­lic, chopped fine
3 shal­lots, chopped fine
1 tbsp fresh thyme (chopped with­out stems)
6 Thai fresh green pep­per­corns, chopped (from Spice Shop in Not­ting Hill)
2 cups white wine
½ cup chick­en stock
2 tbsps butter

Saute gar­lic, shal­lots, thyme and pep­per­corns in olive oil, then add white wine and stock. Bring to a boil, add mus­sels, cov­er and steam for 8 min­utes. Dis­card any that did not open, and lift good mus­sels into a large bowl with slot­ted spoon, bring wine sauce to a boil again and whisk in but­ter. Pour over mus­sels and serve with warm baguette and goats cheese.

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Now, don’t mis­un­der­stand me. I think this dish was all to the good, and it fol­lows our long tra­di­tion of either cook­ing mus­sels or get­ting them in Bel­go, where he eats all the mus­sels and I soak up all the sauce with French bread, or just drink it straight, as I’m sor­ry to say we have pho­to­graph­ic evi­dence of my doing, per­haps 15 years ago in this very city.

No, my objec­tion is that I have no… PR. That’s right, no one is watch­ing me, styling me, doing my hair, mak­ing sure the right num­ber of friends laugh on cue in the back­ground or that my child and her friends unac­count­ably begin to enjoy crab cakes, or spicy baby­back ribs, at my Christ­mas par­ty, some­thing that would nev­er hap­pen. No, my par­ties and even just acci­den­tal din­ners occur with­out fan­fare. Which is why I find Nigel­la so depressing!

And why, you might ask, am I awake at 1 a.m. being depressed my B‑list food celebri­ties when I should be get­ting my beau­ty sleep so as to deserve B‑list celebri­ty sta­tus? Because we got in from the final night of the horse show at 11, and it takes me a min­i­mum of two hours to decom­press from any event involv­ing hay. And bad sausages. Yawn. Tired. And sad to have said good­bye last night (okay, they left this morn­ing but I was asleep) to John’s mom and dad. What an emp­ty spot their guest room is today.

I have lots more to tell you about my busy, if un-glam­orous life, but right now I shall sip a Cal­va­dos and con­tem­plate sleep. If you have any sug­ges­tions on how I can get more glam­orous in (ide­al­ly two, or three) a cou­ple of steps, let me know. In the mean­time, what I am grate­ful for tonight are a few things: fam­i­ly who let me cook for them, and say they enjoy it, and friends who come by, like dar­ling Twig­gy and Eddie for Sun­day lunch (veg­e­tar­i­an! I’ll tell you all about it), and hap­pi­ly enjoy what­ev­er I cook for them. Sur­round­ed by them, and antic­i­pat­ing more to come, I’m quite sat­is­fied. But a lit­tle glam­our would­n’t hurt!