With her luxurious bakes and pin-up looks, she is the consummate domestic goddess.
Or so we thought. For Nigella Lawson has admitted there is one household chore she will never do – the ironing.
In fact, such is the TV cook’s hatred for the task, she doesn’t even own an ironing board, opting for a steamer instead.
Speaking to Zoe Ball on BBC Radio 2 yesterday, Ms Lawson, 63, revealed: ‘I steam, I don’t iron. And as you can see, I’m not a particularly uncrumpled person in my natural state.’ She added: ‘Also, I seem to have bits of cake batter on my sleeve.’
Ms Ball was so shocked that she asked her guest three times whether the admission was true.
But while ditching an iron is anathema to some, it appears to be picking up steam with millennials. Lakeland’s 2023 Trends Report revealed that 30 per cent of 18 to 34-year-olds don’t own an iron.
When asked why, a fifth said their clothes don’t need ironing while another fifth said the chore was simply ‘not important’.
Ms Lawson also revealed that, apart from ironing, wrapping Christmas presents is ‘the job I hate the most’, despite once selling wrapping paper featuring the artwork from her cookery book How To Be A Domestic Goddess.
She said: ‘It’s just that I’m so incompetent that everything goes wrong. I always have bits of hair stuck under the Sellotape, it’s a nightmare.
‘My late husband John always used to say I was the only person who could wrap up a book and make it look like it was a bottle of wine.’
While this might come as a surprise, it is not the first time the TV chef has admitted to skipping more laborious household tasks.
Earlier this year, Ms Lawson revealed she has ‘fallen out of the habit’ of big dinner parties.
She told the Times: ‘I’ll have a person or a couple of people over quite often and I keep planning to have people round in a proper grown-up way but I haven’t yet. I must!
‘I feel a bit guilty because people have had me for dinner and I haven’t had them back.’
Ms Lawson is not necessarily one for sticking to Christmas tradition, either.
She told The Sunday Times: ‘Much as I love a slice of dense, damp Christmas cake, especially when eaten with a slice of strong, sharp cheese, I am surrounded by those who abominate dried fruit in all its seasonal manifestations.
‘If no one in your family likes dried fruit, there’s no point having a Christmas cake gathering dust or just being eaten on sufferance. If chocolate cake appeals more, go for it.’
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James Parker is a UK-based entertainment aficionado who delves into the glitz and glamour of the entertainment industry. From Hollywood to the West End, he offers readers an insider’s perspective on the world of movies, music, and pop culture.