Playful British cook returns to TV

There always has been an element of naughty fun to Nigella Lawson, the playful and lusty British cook who has made sustenance sexy.

The cleavage-revealing shirts and suggestive spoon-licking on her previous TV series, “Nigella Bites,” have even enticed some reviewers to label her a “gastro-porn” queen.

But Lawson encourages the sly innuendos and doesn’t mind pushing the culinary edge. After all, the 46-year-old’s first cookbook “How to Eat: The Pleasures and Principles of Good Food” (Wiley, $35) included a Woody Allen sex joke.

Lawson returned to U.S. television this month with her new Food Network series, “Nigella Feasts.” The half-hour program, based on Lawson’s gorgeously photographed and thoughtful 472-page “Feast: Food to Celebrate Life” (Hyperion, $35) cookbook, celebrates family, holidays and private passions, along with dishes that stir the senses.

Before she made a U.S. splash several years ago, the Oxford-educated daughter of Nigel Lawson, who served as Margaret Thatcher’s right-hand man, was already a well-known name in Britain. Lawson had been the deputy literary editor of The Sunday Times and later pursued a successful freelance career. She wrote for a variety of newspapers and magazines such the Evening Standard, The Guardian, British Vogue, Gourmet and Bon Appetit.

After the premiere of “Nigella Bites,” her 2002 TV series showcased on the Style and E! cable channels, it was hard to turn on the television or pass a magazine rack without seeing her glossy good looks and curvaceous figure. But at that time, Lawson was nursing some very deep, personal wounds.

Her 47-year-old husband, British journalist and broadcaster John Diamond, had recently died of oral cancer. In his last years, Diamond, the father of her two children, Mimi and Bruno, was unable to eat or speak. Lawson lost both her mother and younger sister to cancer years earlier.

While Americans wrapped their arms around the appealing Lawson, she had enough media savvy not to overstay her welcome. Disappearing from the small screen, the cook tended to her personal life. In 2003, she married publicity-shy millionaire art collector Charles Saatchi and gained a stepdaughter, Phoebe.

She didn’t vanish from the culinary scene entirely. She penned columns for The New York Times’ Dining In-Dining Out section and tried her hand at a British daytime talk show.

It was a bust. The British press, which has a curious proclivity for ripping its celebrities to shreds, was anything but kind. The show was canceled after one month. But The Food Network doesn’t feel that the popularity of Lawson has waned. Indeed, executives say her new series is “a perfect fit” for the network’s daytime lineup.

“People love her because she is stylish and sensual,” says Bob Tuschman, the Food Network’s senior vice president of programming. “She shows how to get maximum enjoyment from cooking with minimal effort, which is an approach to cooking our viewers will really enjoy.”