Mary Wakefield meets Nigella Lawson and finds that she is friendly, confident, beautiful — but nervous with it
In a window-seat at the far end of the bar in the Rib Room of the Carlton Tower Hotel, Nigella Lawson, dressed in black, sits waiting for me. The lighting is mellow, the seats leather and her eyes modestly downcast. If she were auditioning for the part of Anna Karenina, there would be no contest. It seems a great waste that instead of Vronsky, she gets me, struggling to free myself from my anorak.
We shake hands over the salted cashew nuts and get off to a rocky start. ‘I’m not quite sure why I’m doing this interview,’ she says.
If I wasn’t already so fascinated I might be a little hurt, but Nigella, close-up, is riveting. I know she’s 43 — the cuttings say so, and on television, in her kitchen, this isn’t impossible to believe: she’s bosomy and knowing with a hint of the Wife of Bath about the mouth.
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