Quotes of the Day
"Shall I have the brains? Would that be better copy for you?" It would. So Nigella Lawson — former newspaperwoman, member of PEOPLE'S 50 Most Beautiful People list and reigning cookbook queen — has the calf's brains. She also has the octopus salami, the gnocchi with zucchini flowers, spaghetti with sardines, Tuscan steak, crispy duck and other gourmet victuals — many of which originally resided on my plate.
Lawson is in New York City to promote her latest cookbook, Forever Summer. We've decided to go on an eating date to three Manhattan restaurants of her choice — one each for appetizers, entrees and desserts. "Eating is more fun than cooking," she says, explaining why we won't be sampling any of her food. "Anyway, I don't cook professionally. I cook like someone who likes to eat. That's my niche." Lawson eschews things like measurements and specific ingredients (Forever Summer's grilled sea bass recipe begins, "You don't need to grill sea bass for this. Similarly, you don't need to use sea bass") in favor of an endorphin-fueled dive into food prep. Her cooking show, Nigella Bites, is often called gastro porn in her native England, while in the U.S. its host is frequently referred to as the anti-Martha. Lawson does justice to both categorizations by announcing, "I've worn an elastic waist this evening! Let's go."
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Our first stop is Beppe, a Tuscan restaurant whose chef Lawson knows. Before we reach our table, she's ordered a bottle of prosecco and French fries with rosemary and oregano. "I love fat," she says. While we wait for our half a dozen appetizers, Lawson launches into her professional history. She tells a good tale, deftly mixing the grandiose and ironic (a recipe in her first book begins, "I first had salsa verde when I was a chambermaid in Florence ...") with a healthy sprinkling of famous names. Her father Nigel was a journalist before becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer under Margaret Thatcher. After graduating from Oxford, Nigella followed her father into journalism at the Sunday Times of London. Soon she veered into her mother's territory (Vanessa Lawson was an heiress to a chain of tea shops) and started writing about food.
"I really was a journalist before I became this monster," she says, "and sometimes I go on these chat shows and I'd just so much rather talk about al-Qaeda than how to cook a proper lamb." While she says she occasionally feels like a "blow-up doll," Lawson was never happier to have her food universe than when her husband John Diamond spent four years suffering from throat cancer. (He died in 2001; Lawson's current boyfriend is advertising mogul Charles Saatchi.) This explains, at least in part, her food hedonism. "People should stop demonizing fat," she says through bites of French fry. "Seeing food as something like medicine is a horrible idea. Life's too short."
At Da Silvano, Lawson sips Gavi di Gavi while chomping on duck, branzino and brains. "I'm like a Chinese Jew," she says. "I love brains and sweetbreads and all that stuff." At the next table, fellow Brit Tim Curry spots Lawson and offers a seated bow. "I have them all!" he screams, presumably about her books. But it's far too loud to hear anything. Lawson suggests we get dessert.
Balthazar is one of the toughest tables in New York, but Lawson has a private reservation number, so we are escorted to a large booth across from Ed Norton and Salma Hayek. "I've been very brutal about the cheese," she says after eliminating two subpar goat cheeses from the Balthazar selection. She also has strong opinions about the wine. "It needs to breathe for several generations. It will be very good one day." The desserts, however — pineapple upside-down cake, fruit focaccia and tarte tatin — appeal to her in all their Rubenesque unsubtlety. And as she removes the last bit of buttery glazed apple from my plate, she insists that she never worries about what physical havoc her eating habits may cause. "I try to exercise, but I don't have any muscles. Every cell of my body is weeping and crying out." But working out and eating lite are simply an impossibility. "I'd rather move fast and wear a long jacket."
- Josh Tyrangiel