Eat Pip-Life

Christmas Cooking Shows Might Be My Second Favourite Christmassy Thing

December 21, 2016
Simply Nigella Christmas special

(Apart from ACTUAL Christmas)

Sometimes I think watching the right kind of TV cooking specials is almost as good as having your own amazing Christmas.

I mean, take Nigella’s for instance.

I just watched a program where she smiled slightly, corners of her mouth turning up a titch, as she cooked potatoes and baked ham and some kind of colourful slaw and other things in her twinkly-thing-adorned kitchen (in a plaid shirt, some of the time!), waiting for her pals to come for Christmas Eve Supper.

Later, she and her friends were sipping pink drinks and marvelling at the treacle oozing down the side of the ham and greedily spooning golden, pepper-y potatoes onto lovely green plates.

And speaking of plates, Nigella’s bowls and plates were pretty in pink, or they were glass with little glassy dewdrops finishing their edges…

Nigella got a lot out of that ham, and even though it looked unattractive two times (once when it came out of the oven and looked a bit sunburnt and once when she peeled back that sunburn and things got a bit fraught) – it ended up a burnished, clove-studded masterpiece.

Nigella sliced it quite thick and eased it onto those green plates, and I don’t even like thick ham, but I really wanted some. It was so festive and treacle-y.

Then, they showed Nigella shaking her pink drinks and sloshing them into martini glasses and taking a sip before everyone had time to say ‘Happy Christmas’.

Next, everyone sat down and ate their thick ham and colourful slaw and pepper-y, golden potatoes as they sipped their pink drinks and chatted and laughed at each other’s cute faces.

I heard Nigella say something about pickles.

One of the best bits of the Christmas Supper was the Bundt triplets. This involved Nigella bringing three different bundt cakes to the table and confidently and firmly slicing them into little wodges for everyone. Her supper guests got a piece of each triplet with a lovely orb of ice-cream to cut the cakey-ness of the whole thing. There was some kind of syrup drizzled across cake-ice-cream combo, too.

Now and then, the show cut to the kitchen’s twinkly bits and later Nigella showed everyone (i.e. the viewers, not the cute faces with pink drinks) how to make a really good fried rice dish to sit alongside the next-day-thick-ham.

She fearlessly fried an egg and still the corners of her mouth turned up slightly as the egg spat and bubbled itself into a sort of crunchy cloud with a golden middle. If that were ME the cloud would have given me some kind of serious burns, but Nigella is not me and she knows how to cook an egg/cloud at Christmas time.

The cloud sat triumphantly atop the rice (which featured pineapple and chilli) and ham (thick). Then Nigella speared its golden middle with her fork, waved it through the rice, lifted fork to mouth, turned on heel and swept out of the kitchen.

Basically the whole program was really satisfying and I felt completely jolly and pleased and festive as the credits rolled. Even though I was ham and pink drink-less.

Sigh. I’m going to watch it again.

Sometimes I think watching the right kind of TV cooking specials is almost as good as having your own amazing Christmas.

* turns corners of mouth up slightly *

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13 Comments

  • Reply jac January 28, 2017 at 12:52 PM

    I love Christmas cooking shows too! I end up taping far too many in December and in January having to binge watch so that I can delete them. Mind you half the time I have seen them before but that doesn’t matter 😉

    • Reply Meet Me At Mikes January 30, 2017 at 1:53 PM

      That is such a clever strategy, Jac!! I am going to try it this year! x

  • Reply Lyn Briggs January 11, 2017 at 12:48 PM

    My favourite part of any Nigella show is the way she digs into the food at the end. Love a cook who enjoys eating.

    • Reply Meet Me At Mikes January 11, 2017 at 6:37 PM

      I love that about her too, Lyn!!! And I was so pleased to get your email. Thank you SO MUCH for that. It really made a big difference to my day. Love to you! xx

  • Reply Soula K January 5, 2017 at 6:53 PM

    One of my highlights of Christmas last week was getting to watch her Christmas specials after lunch.

  • Reply Sara December 24, 2016 at 3:06 PM

    Thank you for such a delightful read!

    The corners of my mouth most definitely were turned up.

    Merry Christmas

  • Reply Fiona Murphy December 23, 2016 at 10:32 PM

    Speaking of ham… Nigella’s ham cooked in Coca Cola is a revelation!

  • Reply Isabel December 23, 2016 at 8:42 PM

    What a sweet post, Pip. You reminded me a lot of Bridget Jones actually, in your writing style. Have you watched a British TV show called Gavin and Stacey? I think you would love it. It’s about a Welsh girl and an Essex boy who fall in love and have to battle the ‘cultural divide’. Rob Brydon is in it and he is FUNNY. There is a whole scene in the Christmas episode where Gavin’s dad is very stressed out because he has gone with Nigella’s Christmas turkey recipe and he has to bathe it in a waterbath with spices – at one point he says ‘I should have gone with Jamie – I know where I am with him!’ Happy Christmas and may you soon have pink drinks and thick ham on your plate. x

  • Reply Nat December 22, 2016 at 10:47 PM

    Love her show and those dishes she cooks so effortlessly for camera. Somehow I have roped myself in to make the slow cooked squid from a few weeks back for Christmas lunch sandwiches. However it’s going to be 35°C. The shit thing is we are seasonally or of sync and there is only half of the recipes on the BBC version of the show. That kind of bites! See what I did there?

  • Reply Michelle December 22, 2016 at 4:34 PM

    I just loved watching this episode too, and your write up about it is almost as good as watching it again! It’s so endearing how Nigella smiles to herself as she cooks.

  • Reply Kerri December 22, 2016 at 4:14 PM

    I love your description, it’s like I saw it myself. Thanks for sharing! 🙂

  • Reply Therese December 21, 2016 at 9:48 PM

    I watched it too, whilst I was making dinner and everyone else was doing other things. I felt so Christmassy and calm. It was totally lovely. I have a vision of myself preparing Xmas dinner just like this – ha!

  • Reply Carolyn December 21, 2016 at 7:40 PM

    Nigella and Jamie are perfect Christmas companions, in my book! So much deliciousness being whipped up nonchalantly in their festive kitchens. I shall practise turning up the corners of my mouth and maybe my food will be imbued with the same seductiveness and good cheer!

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