Forever Summer Wrap-Up

m-c:

OK, I'm going to have a lot of complaints here, but let me start by saying that they in no way kept me from enjoying this book. The recipes are Nigella in top form, easy, imaginative, and stylish. I cooked many, many of them and had a winner almost every time.

mb:

I agree 100%. It's really hard not to have a winner with Nigella's recipes when the food she's offering us is so luscious and delicious and beautiful and tantalizing.

What was your favorite part?

m-c:

The salads were especially appealing to me. I made the whole salad chapter straight through, Monday old‑fashioned tomato salad, Tuesday raw beet salad, Wednesday baked potato salad, Thursday Turkish cucumber salad, Friday carrot and peanut salad, like the best homework assignments anybody ever got in school.

mb:

Oh my god, that's SUCH a good idea! I never would have thought to do that, but of course it makes such perfect sense. And yes, the salads were to die for. By far the best part of the book, which I really appreciated because salads are so essential to how I eat in the summer.

I think one of the things that's so appealing about Nigella is that she really thinks about her audience and her food. I think that's pretty incredible.

m-c:

She has a gift for finding and developing simple recipes, and for convincing us that complicated‑looking recipes will turn out to be simple if we'll only try them.

I'm thinking, for instance, about her rice paper rolls on page 13. If it were anybody else, I would just turn to the next page. But since it's Nigella, and since she herself says, "I had longed to make some version of these little rolls for years but either essential laziness or fear that they would be frighteningly complicated put me off. Now that I've made them, I can't quite see what I was on about."

mb:

So have you made them?

m-c:

Not yet, but I probably will someday.

mb:

Well, I guess we'll have to wait and see if you agree with her.

m-c:

So how about you? What other things did you try?

mb:

I fell madly in love with the ice cream section, and tried several of her recipes. Or, to be totally honest, I tried several adaptations of her recipes. When summer rolls around my best friend and I become a bit obsessive about ice cream, so we dug deep into that reservoir.

My favorite was the recipe for baci ice cream. Dark chocolate, hazelnut ... heaven.

You said you had complaints. We already talked about the lack of a detailed table of contents, and you kindly provided one for us. Were there other things wrong?

m-c:

Alas, I'm afraid so. I go to Nigella for brilliant recipes, but I also go to her because she can write. Sentences like this:

You end up with fleshy salmon, salty-sweet and infused with the hot breath of ginger.

Or this:

Tip the mussels clatteringly into the garlic and chilli pan.

Or this:

Drizzle a few spoonfuls over (don't drench: think Jackson Pollock).

Or this:

Halloumi is a hard Greek cheese, squeaky and salty, like edible styrofoam.

mb:

Absolutely! I love the way she writes. It's inspirational.

m-c:

I love the way she writes when she's writing; I hate it when she's not writing.

mb:

Not writing? Can you give an example?

m-c:

There are the endless curlicue sentences:

It'll mean you have to strain the liquid before adding it to the peas themselves, which isn't exactly hard work, but, on top of the shelling itself (though children seem to do this gladly, especially if watching TV at the same time) is still another procedure, should such factors hold any weight with you, as they often do with me.

mb:

Ah. I see what you mean.

m-c:

There are the re-reversals and re-re-reversals, too many buts or althoughs or howevers in a single sentence:

This is not-quite spag bol but a warming but still summery one-course supper for evenings when the sun is shining, but not so fiercely as to make slow-cooked meatiness an unseasonable abomination.

mb:

Ugh.

m-c:

There are the everlasting paragraphs, like the one on page 98 with 12 sentences. I won't quote the whole shapeless mass, but it includes a 30-word sentence, a 43-word sentence, and a 44-word sentence.

I'm not saying it's impossible to write a tight 12-sentence paragraph, and I'm not saying it's impossible to write a graceful, coherent 30-word or 44-word sentence. I'm saying Nigella didn't do so.

To top it off, the last sentence of that behemoth is:

And that's all there is to it.

mb:

Tee-hee.

m-c:

And then there are her verbal tics, like the weird adverbs:

feltily green emulsion fierily orange shinily dark marinated lemonly waxily aromatic

mb:

Actually, Mom, I kind of like those. I think of those as part of what makes Nigella so charming.

m-c:

You may be right there. Nigella without weird adverbs wouldn't really be Nigella.

But how about the lazy modifiers, which in some sections come thick and fast:

p. 138 gloriously, wonderful, wonderful,              truly wonderful [p. 139 photograph] p. 140 wonderfully, fabulous p. 141 fabulous [p. 142 photograph] p. 143 fabulously

mb:

I'm going to refrain from comment here, since I know you always get ticked off at me when I write like that.

m-c:

Damned straight. That's not writing, it's blathering.

The mannerism that drives me the craziest is her endless knee-jerk invocation of frankness. For most people, frank admission comes up only in statements like "To be frank, I'm not wearing any underpants." Not for Nigella. She's frank about nearly anything:

Bake for about 5-10 minutes, turning once. Frankly, it's just a matter of cooking until the slices begin to turn gold.

I like to steep the red onion rings in the vinegar for a while first. To be frank, a quarter of an hour is probably enough.

It's not just that you can marinate this lamb one of three ways: to be frank you have a triple choice for cooking it too.

mb:

Yeah, I noticed that too:

Put the rest of the juice in a glass pitcher so that people can add more, if they want, as they eat. Or frankly, you could instead use half the amount of rhubarb juice in the pan for reducing and use the remaining 1¼ for adding to champagne.

m-c:

I really seriously believe she may have dictated some parts aloud and never gone back over them. But didn't she have the services of an editor?

One more example and then I'll stop:

There is something about the light, unwheatenness of rice pasta (which in effect these sheets just are) and the bundles of fresh herbs within that make them compulsive and uplifting eating.

The comma, I hasten to add, is hers.

mb:

Isn't that from the rice paper rolls?

m-c:

Yes, that might be why I haven't actually tried them yet.

mb:

And yet we love her.

m-c:

And yet we love her.

Want to say anything about the photographs?

mb:

Why such a paltry few? And why all the corny pictures of clouds and grass instead of food photographs? And why do the photographs not always match the recipes?

Want to say anything about the index?

m-c:

Oy. Maybe I should do an index to go with the table of contents.

mb:

But let's not end on a negative note.

m-c:

I agree. With all its faults this is a wonderful, truly wonderful book.

mb:

Fabulously fabulous. Ticklingly wonderful. Deliciously Nigella.

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