Page 11 - Woman's Weekly - New Zealand (January 2020)

endorsement deals to dry up, pile of books by 7.30pm. If I’m
Nigella and
Cosima step out
for a birthday lunch.
Above right: The TV
chef posted a photo of
a toasted marshmallow
and rhubarb cake to
mark her big day.
igella Lawson has a
complicated relationship years she has been in Australia
Nwith birthdays.
While she naturally shies
away from celebrating turning
another year older – and really,
isn’t the same true for most
of us? – the celebrity cook’s
attitude is rather complicated
by the fact she watched her
mother Vanessa and husband
John Diamond pass away
in their 40s and one of her
sisters, Thomasina, at just
32, all from cancer.
But on her 60th birthday,
the domestic goddess says
her milestone has made her
realise and appreciate the best
things about ageing.
“I now see the rest of my life
as a great, unfurling mystery,”
she says.
“For the past three decades,
as I grew up, established a
career, had children and so on,
I pretty much knew what the
shape of my life would be, day
to day. Now I feel that anything
could happen.
“I’m happy with my life as it is, the wheel. The
happier than I thought I would
be from the anxious vantage
point of my twenties, but now
I feel so much more open to
anything and everything. And
that’s a wonderful way to walk
into the future.”
and though she’s told pals she’s not suitably banked by books,
writing more recipes, there’s I start twitching. I’m a binge
no word yet of a follow-up reader. Now my children
to 2017’s At My Table. are grown up, I regard the
In fact, she has even hinted weekends as reading days.”
that a dramatic career change She also says she’s found
might be on the cards, saying in immense joy in solitude.
2018 that she’s “interested” “I found it hard to enjoy my
In a candid essay to mark her in the idea of abandoning own company when young, but
60th, Nigella has admitted she’s her foodie career to work with now I relish it. Put like that, it
had to fight against feeling people who are terminally sounds remarkably self-satisfied,
ashamed of her age and guilty ill. “It really interests me, that but I don’t care how it sounds.
about surpassing her mother sort of work,” she mused. I just feel so happy it’s the case.
Vanessa’s ultimate age of 48, “In many ways, I feel I didn’t “Solitude is as important
adding that turning 49 was the choose this life. But I guess to me now as food.” #
“hardest birthday” she ever had. that’s what happens Vivienne Archer
“When you have seen people if you go on TV.”
you love die young, the idea Nigella has often
of complaining about getting commented on her
older is just revolting. inherent shyness –
“Turning 50 was a doddle… which is perhaps at
I was rather relieved to no longer odds with her sexpot
be 49, the year that made me public persona. But
a traitor to my mother.” it’s because of her
Despite her aversion to natural nervousness
birthdays – for the last few that she turns on
the Nigella charm,
filming MasterChef on the big she reveals.
day, and got away without These days she
mentioning it – the beloved embraces her
foodie conceded a bit of a introversion. She
celebration, and was spotted no longer drinks
heading to a late celebratory and she indulges
lunch with her daughter in a bit of reformer
Cosima (25) in London. Pilates, and if she
For the last few years, family doesn’t get at least
time has been front and centre six hours of reading
– she also has a son, Bruno (23). in on a weekend, she
Though she’s filmed guest spots deems it “a waste”.
on MasterChef, launched a food “My greatest
photography app and regularly delight is being
posts to social media – she tucked up with a
acknowledged her
birthday by posting Nigella at six (left) with
a cake recipe – she’s Thomasina and her parents,
taken time away who divorced in 1980.
Above right: She adored her
from her own first husband, the late John.
shows and books.
“As far as her
career goes, Nigella’s
view is that she’s
done it all, really,”
says a friend. “She
doesn’t feel the
need to reinvent
fact that the last
two books were
essentially a rerun
of her previous books
kind of says it all.”
She has allowed
some lucrative
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