This week's Cook the Book featured cookbook is Nigella Lawson's Nigella Express. The subtitle of the book is "130 Recipes for Good Food, Fast," and with the exception of a handful of recipes in this title, it's a pretty accurate description—with dishes that are either assembled and finished quickly or those that are assembled quickly and then finished in the oven, allowing the appliance to do most of the work while you lounge or take care of other more pressing matters. Win 'Nigella Express' We'll be excerpting a recipe a day this week as part of our ongoing Cook the Book feature. The first of those will be up shortly, but for now it's time to let you in on...
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Micheline Maynard has a long piece in the NYT today about the mini-empire of Ina Garten, a.k.a. the Barefoot Contessa. It's interesting that she was actually reluctant to do a show herself after her first cookbook took off, because of stressful experiences filming segments for her friend Martha Stewart's show. What changed her mind? "A friend sent her a copy of "Nigella Bites," the television show that starred Nigella Lawson, the popular British cookbook writer and journalist. Ms. Garten said she liked the show, in which Ms. Lawson selected a topic, explained her menu in simple terms and often invited family or friends to sample the results." The Barefoot Contessa show ended up being produced by Rachel Purnell, the same...
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Live somewhere with a large population of Irish descent? Chances are pretty good someone you know (or at least the bars around you) will be observing St Patrick's Day this coming weekend. If baking for holidays is your thing, you might want to try Nigella Lawson's recipe for Chocolate Guinness Cake (from her cookbook Feast), as every single blog post I've ever seen about it has raved on about how delicious it is and how it's quite possibly the best chocolate cake ever. If Nigella's frosting of cream cheese, sugar and cream sounds too sweet for you, Maki Itoh makes an Irish Stout Cake with Whiskey-Sour Icing, having reworked a Gary Rhodes recipe and added the icing. I can't...
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