With her feet firmly on the ground, and her finger in the mixing bowl, Nigella Lawson has charmed us with her approach to food and cooking. Based on the principle that food should be a simple pleasure to cook and to eat, her recipe books emphasise the importance of friends, family and celebration. At a time when many of the messages we get about food alternate between anxious exhortations to eat ‘clean’ and the technical wizardry of competitive cooking, her relaxed and realistic approach shows a different path, where food can be creative, a source of comfort and a joyful part of life.