Nigella Lawson

Relaxed, warm, and perennially good-natured, Nigella Lawson has won people over in the kitchen. Maybe it's precisely because she relies on her innate passion for food that her 1999 Channel 4 cooking show "Nigella Bites" won a Guild Food Writers Award. Lawson expanded her syndication to the US with "Nigella Feasts," and she has created more shows in her native UK with "Nigella's Christmas Kitchen" and "Nigella Express." Lawson cut her teeth as a journalist, rising to the position of Sunday Times deputy literary editor at the ripe age of 26. She then moved into freelance writing, and eventually broke into food writing in 1998 with her first book, "How to Eat." Chock full of practical advice on cooking, eating, planning meals, and more, "How to Eat" was hailed as the best culinary guide of the decade, and it sold over 300,000 copies in the UK. Next came "How to Be a Domestic Goddess," Lawson's paean to the value of baking as a way to create a sense of comfort and wholeness in yourself and your home. It won her Author of the Year from the British Book Awards and sold like hot cakes. She's been writing books ever since, including "Forever Summer," "Nigella Christmas," and "Nigelissima," which is on Italian cuisine. Nigella Lawson has also launched a line of cookware products, which combine classic design with function. They make perfect gifts for the gourmand in your life, or to treat yourself. And why not throw in a DVD of one of her series? You'll love having this warm, relaxed, eloquent companion in the kitchen. Lawson's approach is as rich in her philosophy of cooking as it is practical advice, returning meaning to a realm of our lives where efficiency tends to prevail over pleasure.