Nigella Christmas: Food, Family, Friends, Festivities by Nigella Lawson

My Account
Logout

Create an Evening Standard Account

Use your social network

Save time by using your existing account to sign in to Evening Standard

We'll never share your information or post anything to your account without your permission

Welcome! Sign in here

Use your social network

Save time by using your existing account to sign in to Evening Standard

We'll never share your information or post anything to your account without your permission

Forgot your password ?

Registration

* indicates fields that are mandatory

Email *

Password *

Confirm Password *

First name *

Surname *

Postcode *

Country *

Mobile phone number

Username *

Gender *

Year of birth *

When you sign up...

You will have access to all our online competitions, discounted offers and can post comments on our site.

You will also receive The Weekender newsletter sent every Thursday - it’s full of fantastic offers and ideas for the weekend. You can update your email preferences in your account page when you log in.

Other newsletters and emails

Homes & Property Newsletter - Yes I want to receive the weekly email with all the latest news on property in the capital

Occasionally we would also like to send you relevant emails detailing specific offers either from ourselves or carefully selected partners. If you would prefer not to receive these then please tick the appropriate boxes below. We will never pass on your details.

I do not want to receive additional offers and information from the Evening Standard

I do not want to receive additional offers and information sent by Evening Standard on behalf of carefully selected partners

Terms and Conditions

* I have read, understood and agree to be bound by the terms and conditions of Evening Standard

Registration

Mail Sent for Registration Confirmation.

A confirmation email has been sent. Please activate your account by clicking on the activation link sent in your mail box.

In her first and best cookery book, How To Eat, Nigella Lawson gave a crisp 20 pages to Christmas. "Christmas is every cook's nightmare," she said. "Even if you like cookery, Christmas can induce panic and depression." She even confessed: "I end up suffering from boredom-induced bloat." Here, though, is her Christmas extravaganza, a big brightred picture book. Now she's Christmascrazy: "I wallow in it; I relish it." No Christian, she happily attaches herself to the season as a pagan instead. "Christmas is not just a time when the Domestic Goddess comes into her own but a moment to conjure up the Domestic Druid as well." Even a choccy Yule Log brings out her inner heathen.

"I warm to it most of all for the rich pagan symbolism." With this one, she's thrown restraint right out of the window. "I defend the exuberance and the lurch of excess," she tells us. "It is the time when over-indulgence is not just encouraged, it is pretty well ordained." So excess we get, cookies, cakes and pies galore, including one called simply "Girdlebuster".

There are pomegranates everywhere, including in the vodka ("eminently useable, in an indulgent, uplifting kind of way") but, for once, not a single recipe for roast chicken.

The text proceeds almost entirely in the declamatory first person, a mode more often met in opera libretti than in recipe writing.

"I love cosiness," she proclaims; "I love wine and liqueur jellies"; "I love the louche, oldfashioned mixture of port and brandy." And then there are variations on that basic sentence: "I can eat crab meat pretty much any way"; "I can't think of any way of cooking ribs I dislike"; and, rather tremendously, "I salivate both in memory and in hope".

Translate that last one into Italian and have the soprano belt it out over a Puccini-style backing and you'd have quite an aria.

Although Nigella gives good recipe, Nigella Christmas, even more than her earlier books, is really much more about vicarious pleasure. So much the better. Flick through this, feel completely sated, not to say bloated, and give the real thing a miss this year.

Synopsis by Foyles.co.uk

Nigella Christmas comprises reliable, practical, easy-to-follow recipes and reassuring advice about planning and cooking ahead, presented in a gorgeous glittering package which will make this the ultimate gift to yourself and for family and friends. Illustrated with 150 fabulous full-colour photographs by Lis Parsons (photographer of the bestselling NIGELLA EXPRESS), including method photos and lavish double-page 'spreads', Nigella Christmas is in a new, irresistible format. It includes everything from Christmas cakes and puddings, to quick and easy homemade presents (biscuits, preserves and other standbys), recipes for feeding friends and family over the holiday season with minimum stress and maximum enjoyment (cook and freeze ahead or slow-cook in the oven), as well as Christmas party food and drinks. And, of course, exciting and inspiring variations for the Main Event itself - from traditional turkey, festive ginger-baked ham and special trimmings to a Swedish Christmas a la Nigella, or a vegetarian Christmas feast.Nigella Christmas will surely be a perennial favourite, the book we will all reach for - for inspiration and reassurance - as soon as the Christmas lights start going up...