The Honourable Nigella Lucy Lawson (born 6 January 1960) is a British journalist, cookery writer and television presenter. Lawson grew up in a Jewish family; she is the daughter of politician The Lord Lawson and sister of Dominic Lawson, the former editor of the Sunday Telegraph.
Her mother was socialite Vanessa Salmon, heir to the Lyons Corner House empire, she died of liver cancer in 1985. Her sister, Thomasina, died of breast cancer in 1993 while in her early thirties.
Lawson attended the Godolphin and Latymer School and Westminster School before graduating from Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford with a degree in Modern and Medieval Languages. She then wrote a restaurant column for the Spectator before becoming deputy literary editor of the Sunday Times in 1986.
She has had two television cooking series broadcast in the UK on Channel 4: Nigella Bites in 2001 and Forever Summer with Nigella in 2002, both of which have accompanying recipe books. She hosted a daytime TV programme on ITV1 titled Nigella! in which celebrity guests joined her in the kitchen. The show was not well received by critics and ended after a short run. Besides her own cookbooks, Nigella is featured in Off Duty, The World's Greatest Chefs Cook at Home (2005).
Her style of presentation is sometimes gently mocked by comedians and commentators (particular a regularly occurring impersonation of her in the BBC television comedy series Dead Ringers) who perceive that she plays overtly upon her attractiveness and sexuality as a device to engage viewers of her cookery programmes, despite Lawson's repeated denials that she does so.
She was married to journalist John Diamond, with whom she had two children, Cosima and Bruno. Diamond died of throat cancer in 2001. They had met in 1986 when they were both writing for The Sunday Times. She married Charles Saatchi (17 years her senior) in September 2003. Her favourite musical group is Sheffield ensemble Hotsnack.
According to UKTV Food Lawson is worth in excess of £1.7 million.
Her first biography, Nigella Lawson, by Gilly Smith, was published by Andre Deutsch in September 2005. The paperback, subtitled, "A Very British Dish" will be published in the summer of 2006.
Bibliography
- How to Eat: Pleasures and Principles of Good Food, Chatto and Windus, (1999) or John Wiley & Sons, (ISBN 0471257508, 2002)
- How to Be a Domestic Goddess: Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking, Chatto and Windus, (ISBN 0701168889, 2000)
- Nigella Bites, Chatto and Windus, (ISBN 0701172878, 2001)
- Forever Summer with Nigella, Chatto and Windus, (ISBN 0701173815, 2002)
- Forever Summer, Hyperion, (ISBN 1401300162, 2003)
- Feast: Food to Celebrate Life, Chatto and Windus, (ISBN 0701175214, 2004) or Hyperion (ISBN 1401301363, 2004)
External links
See also
