nigella, so close and yet so far...

years ago, i actually took cooking lessons - really expensive, intensive, you-might-as-well-be-attending-culinary-school-with-the-amount-of-time-&-money-you're-spending-on-a-few-weeks-of-lessons - from Tante Marie in san francisco. if you're looking for basic cooking lessons - i highly recommend this school and its classes.

anywho... of the many things i gleaned (i love that word) from my steamy, spicey, aromatic time at the cooking class - the rejuvenating quality of lemongrass soup , sell your organs for a set of good knives, honey + bourbon + carrots = yum! - i was introduced to the recipes of Nigella Lawson.

she truly is the domestic goddess i wants ta be when i grows up and grows up and grows up. and if i were a guy, i wouldn't kick her outta bed either. it's very complex, my love for nigella, who just happens to be on a book tour and just happenned to visit this midwestern hamlet this past weekend... *sigh*

i patiently waited a full hour (just an hour?) for nigella. in that hour, i moved five feet - MAYBE. (the above pic was taken on the sly, as close as i could get without getting hauled away and with a zoom lens) but her new book, which i shoulda bought (but i could not stand in another line!), Feast, is filled with her wonderful comforting recipes dressed in her comedy and wit. i do have her earlier book, How To Eat, which is underlined, dogeared, stained with soy sauce and oily now. i have yet to attempt her "white-trash (how un-PC!) lunch for 6" which includes ham in coca-cola, parsley potatoes, snow peas and young peas and cherry pie. but, the easy peasy carbonara recipe is awesome!

anyway, nigella, wherever you are, you truly inspire me, but there was no way i was missing a dinner at NoMi - even for you. stalking will resume from afar....