MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (AP) - America might not know what to make of a
celebrity chef as comfortable quoting philosophers as corralling reality
cooking show contestants.
And Nigella Lawson is completely at ease with that.
"Today, it's all about marketing and people want to
know where to place you," Lawson said during an interview Saturday at
the South Beach Wine and Food Festival. "And I suppose I just don't care
about that."
Lawson has carved a long culinary career by rejecting stereotypes and speaking her mind.
Most recently, she garnered attention for telling
the producers of her latest television venture "The Taste" that they
could not retouch images of her to reduce her belly.
It's not about vanity. It's about voice. And she
wants hers heard - or in the case of her curves, seen - without layers
of producers and editors and retouchers reinterpreting her message to
viewers and readers.
"I don't need that to be mediated by any other
person," she said. "To have your voice tampered with is a terrible
thing. It has to be a genuine conversation with the reader."
That's why when Lawson writes cookbooks - including
her just released ode to Italian cooking, "Nigellissima" - she sends
them to the designer long before they go to her publisher. It's a way to
preserve her vision for the book rather than have an editor decide how
it should look.
It's also why she's comfortable dropping the names
of British philosophers - in this case Bertrand Russell - in the
introduction of her new book, the sort of highfalutin chatter that would
end up chopped by most cookbook editors.
As for "The Taste" - which Lawson shoots with
fellow culinary free spirit Anthony Bourdain - she has ideas for
changing it up a bit if there is a second season, including more cooking
and eating by the teams who compete on the show.
"The producers probably don't want all my extra
ideas, but I probably will give them the benefit of my ideas whether
they want them or not," she said.
"The Taste" airs Tuesdays at 8pm on 13abc.
All content © Copyright 2000 - 2013 WorldNow and WICU. All Rights Reserved.
