Tipping Our Hats: Nigella Lawson
The Tipping Our Hat Series is about the women of the world who find their way and make their own luck with the kind of charm that can’t be implanted, airbrushed, scripted or sullied by the bastardised ideas and imagery of women we face on a daily basis. It’s where we celebrate the talent, ethic, beauty, intelligence, ingenuity and idiosyncrasy of the women that proverbially turn our heads, take our hands and steal our hearts.
Nigella Lawson has always an undisputed favourite for many men, utterly drawn in by her alluring smile, culinary ability, mastery of double entendres and unrelenting curves - the perfect fit for Tipping Our Hat. Seemingly the scorn of countless women’s magazines, they turn dizzying circles around her simultaneously wondrous, worrying and woeful weight, unable to decide whether she should be revered or ridiculed for maintaining the kind of body that many of our wives and girlfriends would have. She is not, and never will be, an impish waif, shying away from the simple joys of the world in an effort to meet some ridiculous, warped and narrow conception of beauty and femininity. Damn it, the woman cooks well, loves food and looks good. Not only that but she eats it. In front of a camera. Viewed by an international audience of millions. In a constellation of public figures, she lies about a million light years away from the measured, cautious, puritanical and mechanical images of women we’re bombarded with on a daily basis.
The women we’d never see with a bowl of pasta on their lap, or halfway through a hunk of chocolate cake. The women who fear eating in front of others, because of the way the world has convinced them that it’s wrong, or undignified, or crass, or unladylike. For this, we tip our hats to Nigella. Not only is she utterly beautiful but she is beautifully human. A woman on our televisions that draws us in with her charm and then dazzles us with the wonderful warmth of her appetite and utter delight with the simple joy and pleasure that things like food and drink give us. The simple joys that point to a greater truth of our existence. The simple forms of love, purpose, mastery and art that come alive in an act like preparing food and sharing it with the people we love. Or watching Nigella share it with the people she loves. Or just eating it alone.
Whatever. Nigella, we thank you.