All I want for Christmas - is everything in Nigella’s new kitchen. And I mean everything! From her bundt pans to her biscuit jars; from her eye-level double oven and grill to her pink rubber spatulas; from her see-through toaster to the darling little glazed ceramic tray she uses as a spoon rest.
Nigella’s shelves and worktops just groan with utter gorgeousness.
For her new BBC2 series At My Table, Nigella is ensconced in a brand-new kitchen, a place of wonder and brick-sized waffle irons; a veritable treasure trove of culinary hardware and all-round foodie grooviness.
There is a double-door fridge the size of a wardrobe, a batterie de cuisine that hangs above her head, festooned with enough basket sieves and balloon whisks to make mayonnaise for an army on the march.
There are copper shelves - copper! - stacked with enviable flatware and handmade glazed ceramics.
There are coloured water glasses, a divine baby-pink cake stand and a metal-plated KitchenAid which looks capable of repelling bullets as well as whipping egg whites.
undefinedHow have I lived until now without a hand-carved wooden pig centrepiece filled with onions or lemons, just like Nigella’s?
Why have I been happy to settle for a boring plastic bottle of Greek extra virgin next to my hob, instead of half a dozen glorious Italian glass flasks, into which a selection of different cooking oils have been lovingly decanted?
I lust after Nigella’s trio of beautiful, fat-bellied coffee pots in different sizes, the “teeny vintage milk bottles” she fills with love-in-a-mist flowers for table decorations, the bevelled measuring spoons she uses to scoop cocoa powder, those perfect, long-stemmed champagne saucer glasses and - hold me - her set of peerless Netherton Foundry woks and pans, the ultimate in Shropshire-built iron cookware.
Oooh, magnifico! as Nigella herself might say.
In Nigella’s kitchen, every last teaspoon or teacup has to earn its place at the table, while every bit of kit and cooking caboodle has to be stylish, practical and covetable to gain entry.
Of course, in the middle of this glorious cornucopia of kitchenalia stands the most exotic item of all: Nigella herself.
There, in the twinkling firmament created by her mania for tea-lights and fairy lights, the domestic goddess reigns supreme once more.
Now 57, this series finds her demonstrating recipes from her new cookbook, At My Table - her best for years.
Her red-hot roast salsa and her spiced almonds are already firm favourites Chez Jan, even if I don’t have the perfect Apacuka ceramic bowls in which to display them, but let’s not intrude on private pain.
No wonder Nigella appears to be in a saucier, more frivolous mood than ever before.