WELCOME TO NIGELLA'S WEBSITE

1 2 3 4 5 NEXT 5

	NO TANGLES, NO TEARS: THE SMOOTH SOLUTION There are two things that make me feel quite panicked whenever I think of them: the first is the memory of having my unruly hair agonisingly combed when I was a child; the second is the ordeal of inflicting similar pain as I used to try and de-tangle my daughter's hair. Both of us have that difficult mixture of having very fine hair, but just lots and lots of it. It is a recipe for tangles, and tangles are, in turn, a recipe for tears. Or they were. I can't tell you how much the Tangle Teezer has changed my life. The minute I saw it on The Dragons' Den I knew I wanted it, but the dolts there turned it down and things looked grim. Luckily, others in the field had a bit more nouse and it came to market anyway. It really works: I don't know how, but it just does. Not only would I never be without one (I can 't go back to those days of pain) but I notice that there isn't a hairdresser's that doesn't use them now, either. And I don't grudge them their success: they've earned it - along with every mother's gratitude! Buy it online, directly from Tangle Teezer for £9.99. Also available from Boots and many more stockists. Click here to search for a stockist near you!
	A CHEESE TO PLEASE It's not often that I eat something that I have never tried before. Partly, that's because I have something of an obsession for food - not exactly breaking news, I know - which I have shamelessly indulged since my late teens (I may not have eaten as a child, but I've certainly made up for it since!) and partly because I am not as well-travelled as I'd like to be. Anyway, I don't do too badly, and right now I am rhapsodic about a Swedish cheese called Greve (pronounced, I think, like the word 'gravy' spoken by someone from Lancashire or on Coronation Street) that is new to me, but which I cannot stop eating. I'm afraid I've eaten my way through about half a kilo ever since I had my first bite just under a week ago, and I love it alone or on fantastic Malmö brand crispbread (www.malmonordicdining.com). When I researched the gorgeous Greve, I was informed that it was modelled on Emmental, but I don't think that's really what it tastes like: I think it's like a mixture between Norwegian Jarlsberg with its sweet nuttiness and a young Italian parmesan with that particular textural veining of grittiness. Hard to explain, but oh so easy to eat! I'm afraid I am being rather tantalizing here since I doubt it will be available internationally, but it is certainly worth googling it where you are and I hope you strike gold - or rather Greve!
	CHOC-A-LOT When I cook, I can't bear to use anything but the best dark chocolate. When it comes to eating, I have always been more tempted by the lure of cheap confectionery: I'd always prefer a bag of maltesers to a box of Belgian truffles. Of course, there are exceptions - Vosges Chocolat Barcelona Bars and Bendicks Bittermints for example - but on the whole, I've never thought a treat needs to be chic. And that's emphatically been the case for me where milk chocolate's been concerned. I mean, I know cheap dark chocolate is disgusting, but what on earth is the point of upmarket milk chocolate? I thought there wasn't any, but now I've learnt better. I made the awful mistake of putting a bar of Prestat Organic Milk Chocolate in my shopping trolley the other day (pretending to myself it was for the children) and then ate it. All of it. And I appreciated - relished - every melting mouthful. This is difficult. Avoiding dark chocolate is relatively easy, but now that I've seen the light, where is it going to end? Still, I have never believed in guilty pleasures: the only thing we should feel guilty about is not taking pleasure. So I've decided to be grateful that my greed now has the opportunity to be so luxuriously rewarded. Buy it online from Prestat for £3.49.
	NO MORE PEN ENVY For all that we supposedly live in the electronic age, I’m afraid I’m still a sucker for old-school tools of communication. I’m not on Facebook or Twitter (although I hear there are people who are on both in my name) but I am a compulsive pen-and-paper scrawler. I’m an inveterate list writer, and I’m forever leaving messages to myself (which I then can’t decipher the next day) and to my children (who aren’t much better at reading them), I’ve got several to-do lists on the go at any time and there’s not a coat pocket or a handbag without an old post-it with a shopping list stuffed inside. And then there are my kitchen notebooks for jotting down what I do – give or take – when I’m cooking. The thing is, I am very pernickety about what I write with: what I’m writing on is less important, any bit of paper, such as the back of an envelope, will do but the pen – the pen is really important to me. I’m not mad on biro, and anything with blue ink upsets me. A regular black pentel used to pass muster, though wasn’t perfect (that hideous green is just not live-able with) and any gel pen or rollerball thing I’ve tried that I’ve liked is either too expensive or runs out too soon. But now – thank the Lord – I have found pen nirvana. (Trust me, as I tell my children, it’s the small pleasures in life that oil one's wheels.) It’s reliable, writes neither too thin nor too thick and glides on smoothly. Even better, it comes in the colour I was surely born to write in: a deep, dark bitter-chocolate brown; I think of it as a quirkily chic black. So far I’ve found them only online (the electronic age has its advantages after all) but that’s fine, as I buy in bulk. I need them in handbags, on the bedside table, in the kitchen and on my study desk at all times. Go to Cult Pens and buy them for £1.37 each or for a pack of 12 it is only £14.71. There are several colours to choose from, but I normally buy the Brown (Brown/Black).
	S.O.S. (Save Our Skin!) I have long been a fan of Estee Lauder's Advanced Night Repair Serum - launched in 1982 - even though I cannot, however I try, turn myself into someone who puts face cream on every night. Actually, I first got into this magical stuff not for my face, but my hands. Irredeemably clumsy, I am forever burning myself and cutting myself and I found - first trying it during some filming - that if I put some Advanced Night Repair onto these self-inflicted wounds, they healed faster and scarred less. It may seem extravagant as hand cream too, but actually a bottle lasts for ages as you need only a few drops at a time. Someone from Estee Lauder once told me what was in it that particularly helped with healing and - by consequence - anti-ageing, but I've long sinced forgotten (perhaps I need an Advanced Night Repair for the memory now!) and find the sci-style techno-text that accompanies the new version, the Advanced Night Repair Synchronized Recovery Complex, rather impenetrable. Still, the point is, the stuff is fantastic, and just the thing for skin that is battered by harsh winds outside and central heating inside. I vow I will apply twice daily from now on.... Advanced Night Repair Synchronised Recovery Complex 30ml £36
	FRESHLY MINTED Oh dear, it's embarrassing how predictable I am. As I sat down to enthuse you with the joys of Summerdown Pure Mint Tea, I suddenly remembered that at around this time last year I'd been extolling the benefits of my beloved Stomach-East Tea. I love the stomach ease as much as ever but, as you know, when it comes to the kitchen, I'm a more-is-more kind of a person. So, to the many tea cannisters already cluttering my kitchen surfaces and cupboards, is added my new favourite brew, sweetly minty and - given the excesses of the recently celebrated season - appropriately soothing. When the need arises, I ramp up its comforting properties by adding a spoonful of manuka honey (and see Loves Archive) to create an indulgent but still virtuous hot drink - like a mint humbug in liquid form. You can buy it online from FineFayre or from RealFoodDirec t for £2.95 for 1 carton or £5.00 for 2 cartons.
	CHOCS AWAY I know I chose some chocolate for ‘loves’ last week, but come on, it is Christmas, after all. And this is the time I always delude myself that come the new year, I will lead a life of purity and restraint, and so I must get as much in under the wire now. So, the next three days, I will be sofa-bound and revelling in the gloriousness of my mega-jar of Quality Street. It is a hallowed tradition and must be duly honoured.
	SEASON'S EATINGS I often feel guilty because I write about some major enthusiasm that my transatlantic friends can’t share. This time, only those on American soil, I’m afraid, can join my passion-party. And the passion is a deep one – for minty, Christmas-candy-studded chocolate. My Christmas just wouldn’t be complete without a tin (or two) of Williams-Sonoma Peppermint Bark. I love the tin, I love what’s in it even more….. Buy it online from WILLIAM-SONOMA for $26.50.
	EYE-EYE I am shamefully lazy when it comes to daily beauty regimes (and much else besides) and have managed to pare my make-up down to the absolute minimum. But you already know about my ever-optimistic mascara-mania. Of course, I’ve got a new one I’m mad about! It’s a strange, two-ended thing: at one end, a wand to dispense some conditioning serum; at the other, one for fabulous lash-bolstering inky black mascara. This put me off initially: why would I want to double the time it took me to put on mascara? But in the end it doesn’t, because the first layer (a tippex white, which gives one a bit of a Tilda Swinton interim look) means you need to put on less of the second. And I’m liking the feathery long-lashed look it gives a lot! Available to buy nationwide in the UK from L'Oreal concessions, RRP £10.99. Or buy it online from BOOTS. Buy it in the US from Walgreens, for $24.99.
	'TIS THE SEASON I am a great believer in ritual at this time of year, and love bringing out old tree decorations year after year. But I think a little Christmas present to oneself in the form of a new little something to hang from the tree is also permissible. I bought some of these gorgeous, red and white, painted wood decorations last year, and not only hung them from my tree, but also decorated the table with them at Christmas lunch. I’ve just bought some more, and am planning to use them to adorn some jars of homemade chutney to give away as presents. This saves me from hideous wrapping duties: simply tie on with string or ribbon for easeful seasonal charm. Buy it online from ChristmasTimeUK, £7.99 for a pack of 12.
	DEAR DIARY I know you’re not supposed to wish your life away; my teenage years were spent with people telling me that. And yes, as I get older I do see how important it is to live in the present. But still, sometimes you just have to plan ahead. By this time of year, I just have to have next year’s diary brought into play, and this is my second year running of complete conversion to the Moleskine Pocket Weekly Diary (which comes as part of a ‘twinset’ with a fabulously useful little notebook). I love my iPhone, and enjoy playing with its calendar function, but I need a proper, low-tech, old-school diary in my bag or I can’t cope. Buy your diary online in the US from MOLESKINEUS and in the UK from MojoLondon.
	PURRFECTION I don't quite know what's got into me. Last week, a tutu, the week before a cute little painted stove and now this: a pink card featuring a fluffy white puddy tat in hair-curlers. I've never, ever been this sort of person. I'm beginning to wonder whether, at the age when oestrogen levels are meant to be droppng off, mine are actually on the increase. I am becoming girly. I have never been girly, not even when I was a girl. Womanly, I'm used to, but this is quite disconcerting. But there it is, and I do love this card (message reads: "from one glamour puss to another, happy birthday") and all the rest of this pooch-and-puss adorned range. I won't go into more detail. For one thing, they are better seen than explained, and besides, if you're anything like me you'll be very happy whiling away far too much time checking all the cards out on their website. Check out the Avanti Press US and UK websites. RRP in UK is £1.60 and the RRP in the US is $2.75.
	TOO TOO SWEET My tutu-wearing days may be well behind me, but I can't stop looking at this ravishing eau-de-nil creation, designed by Stella Macartney for Gap Kids and apparently, and poignantly, inspired by a photo of Stella taken by her mother. And I've even managed to find an excuse to buy two - one for my little niece's Christmas present, another for my not-so-little daughter's birthday. Ssssh - it's a secret, obviously. Buy it from Gap for just £35. Available in sizes up to age 13 years. To find your nearest store in the UK click here.
	TOYING IN THE KITCHEN Not being exactly petite, I have never had a taste for the dainty: I like to wear a man's watch and were I to go in for jewellery, which I don't, I would choose a cuff over a fine-chained bracelet any day. So what explains my choice for LOVES this week? You can't see the scale from the pic here, but what it is, is a miniature stove made of painted wood. About 18 centimetres (that's 7 inches in old money) tall. I must confess that I originally bought this to give as a present to a child, but we all loved it so much at Cupcake Towers, I kept it. But it would make a fantastic present, and with Christmas coming up, that's worth bearing in mind. I used to get driven mad by wall-to-wall plastic when my children were young enough to have played with a toy stove and would have been thrilled to have found it then. Still, I've been pretty happy to find it now myself! The stove comes with four pretend burners, two saucepans, a kettle, a pan with a fried egg in it and, in the oven, a baking tray with a baguette. There's something about this that makes its cuteness charming rather than emetic. And it's not just me: since we were doing the book shoot the other week, I asked if Lis, who did the beautiful photographs for Express and Christmas too, would take a picture of the stove for the site. It's not really done to ask such things, but far from minding my cheek, Lis devoted herself to taking the best photo she could, even though I'd just asked for a snap. And Caz, the most eminent art director around, and someone not given to the cutesie-poo one bit, started filling one of the pans up with peas and tearing vermicelli into spaghetti strands for the other empty pan. As you can see, the finished effect is delightful, and as I write, the stovelet in question sits on my desk. I know I must give it to some deserving child soon, but with St Augustine I plead "not yet"! Buy it online from Jelly and Ice Cream for just £17.50
	PERFECTION COMPLEXION Much as I have a well documented and unashamed weakness for make up (partly on the basis that I enjoy both the frippery and the fact that no changing room torture is involved) I have never been very keen on foundation. In fact, until pretty recently I would have thought it unlikely I'd ever be lured away from my Laura Mercier tinted moisturizer. It may well be that I do return to it, but for now I am won over by Givenchy's Subli'mine Sculpt Light liquid foundation, which looks a teeny tiny bit odd the minute you put it on, but seems to glide into luminous sheerness after about half an hour. Don't ask me how, but it does. Plus it has a SPF of 20, which you might not think important now the sun has gone, but I am a firm believer in nothing less than factor 20 every day (which I boost considerably in summer) but most of all, it makes your skin just zing: at around £25, it is not fantastically cheap, but nor does it look it; think of it as a morale-boosting investment. Obviously, you need to go to a cosmetics counter to make sure you get the right colour for the first time; I wouldn't guess by the pictures online. For store locations and to buy online in the UK from Debenhams and House of Fraser. Or for your closest Givenchy Stockist in the UK, call +44 1932 233 842. For Sales in the rest of the world, visit StrawberryNet.