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Nigella Lawson: 'I wouldn't be writing about food without the influence of my late mother and sister'
Nigella Lawson has opened up about her late mother and sister and the influence they have had on her cooking in an intimate interview with The Pool.
She said she wouldn't be writing about food without them, and that she does so to "carry on the conversations" they had with her about what she would be eating for dinner.
Ms Lawson, who has released a new book recently, said she cooks to feel close to them, with the implements they used to use in their kitchens.
Showing an old wooden spoon, she told journalist Sam Baker: "My mother died a long, long time ago, she was 48, and when we went through some of her things, I really wanted to take a few things - I'm afraid I've lost a few things along the way, but I've got this still...this was the best of her wooden spoons - I have got one that really is now almost a charcoal crisp."
The cook said it means "so much" to her, and that she looks after it carefully because she likes having it close to her, in her kitchen.
She took a memento from her sister's kitchen, too, an old ladle, saying Thomasina, who also died young and not long after her mother, was a great cook and they often spoke about food together.
Ms Lawson explained: "They had died, and our conversation would always be 'what are you having for supper' and I'd tell them what I was having for supper and we would talk about it - writing about food was a way of continuing that conversation."
Some of the recipes in her new book contain memories of her late mother and sister. The cook gave the example of her salt and vinegar potatoes, and said that although she does not like vinegar a huge amount, her sister loved vinegar and potatoes.
When the two were children, they ate vinegar sandwiches, she explained - two slices of white bread sprinkled with malt vinegar.
Also present in her kitchen is a memento of her late husband, John Diamond.
One of the first gifts he bought her, she explained, was an onion timer.
This became a regular implement on her television show set, she said, explaining that it was used to focus the camera.
They nicknamed it Focus Onion, and although it is now broken, she has a new one, which serves the same purpose and reminds her of her late husband.
Ms Lawson said she remembers the family members she has lost through eating food they used to enjoy, explaining: "Bringing the memory of people into your cooking is not a recipe but is remembering what you eat."