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How to be a Domestic Goddess: Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking How to be a Domestic Goddess Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking, ISBN 9780701171087 and books by Nigella Lawson on sale at thebookshelf.co.nz This is a book about baking, but not a Baking Book. The trouble with much modern cooking is not that the food it produces is not good, but that the mood it induces in the cook is one of skin–of–the–teeth efficiency, all briskness and little pleasure. Sometimes thats the best we can manage, but at other times we dont want to feel stressed and overstretched, but like a domestic goddess, trailing nutmeggy fumes of baking pie in her languorous wake… About the AuthorNigella is the author of 4 bestselling books, How to Eat, How to Be a Domestic Goddess (both now available in paperback), Nigella Bites and Forever Summer, which together with various successful Channel 4 TV series have made hers a household name in several continents. She is a contributor to the New York Times and writes regularly for other publications. She has two children and is married to advertising mogul and art collector, Charles Saatchi.Table of ContentsPrefaceA short note on equipment and ingredients Charts and conversions Cakes Biscuits Pies Puddings Chocolate Children Christmas Bread and Yeast The Domestic Goddesss Larder Bibliography Acknowledgements Index ExtractThis is a book about baking, but not a baking book – not in the sense of being a manual or a comprehensive guide or a map of a land you do not inhabit. I neither want to confine you to kitchen quarters or even suggest that it might be desirable. But I do think that many of us have become alienated from the domestic sphere, and that it can actually make us feel better to claim back some of that space, make it comforting rather than frightening. In a way, baking stands both as useful metaphor for the familial warmth of the kitchen we fodly imagine used to exist, and as a way of reclaiming our lost Eden. This is hardly a culinary matter, of course: but cooking we know, has a way of cutting through things, and to things, which have nothing to do with the kitchen. This is why it matters.The trouble with much modern cooking is not that the food it produces isn"t good, but that the mood it induces in the cook is one of skin–of–the–teeth efficiency, all briskness and little pleasure. Sometimes that"s the best we can manage, but at other times we don"t want to feel like a post–modern, post feminist, overstretched woman, but, rather a domestic goddess, trailing nutmeggy fumes of baking pie in our languorous wake. So what I am talking about is not being a domestic goddess axactly, but feeling like one. One of the reasons making cakes is satisfying is that the effort required is so much less than the gratitude conferred. Everyone thinks that it"s hard to make a cake (and no need to disillusion them), but it doesn"t take more than 25 minutes to make and bake a tray of muffins or a sponge layer cake, and the returns are high: you feel disproportionately good about yourself afterwards. This is what baking, what all of this book, is about: feeling good, wafting along in the warm, sweet–smelling air, unwinding, no longer being entirely an office creature – and that"s exactly what I mean by "comfort cooking". Part of it too is about a fond, if ironic, dream: the unexpressed "I" that is a cross between Sophia Loren and Debbie Reynolds in pink cashmere cardigan and fetching gingham pinny, a weekend alter ego winning adoring glances and endless approbation from anyone who has the good fortune to eat in her kitchen. The Good thing is, we don"t have to get ourselves up in Little lady drag and we don"t have to renounce the world and enter into a life of domestic drudgery. But we can bake a little – and a cake is just a cake, far easier than getting the timing right for even the most artlessly casual of midweek dinner parties This isn"t a dream – what"s more, it isn"t even a nightmare. ReviewsWorking mothers must give thanks to Nigella … What sets her aaprt from every other food writer is her empathy with working women and her realism …. Every page of How to be a Domestic Goddess is imbued with warmth. – The TimesHow to Eat, was sheer joy … now she"s done it again. If ever baking nedded pepping up, Nigella does it. – Daily Express
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