Nigella Bites

When you think of English food, fish-and-chips is more likely to come to mind than fine cuisine. But British tastes are changing, thanks to a new breed of flashy English chefs.

One celebrity chef in particular has aroused both interest and controversy. Her name is Nigella Lawson, and as 60 Minutes II first reported last December, she won fame and fortune by adding a pinch of sexuality to her recipes.

She called her best-selling cookbook "Nigella Bites," and described her TV cooking show as "gastro-porn." Working women are Nigella's biggest fans but men are crazy about her, too. Correspondent Charlie Rose reports.

There is nothing subtle about the way she gets millions of Britons to watch her simmer each week. To Nigella, seduction is just a way to bring the viewers into her kitchen.

"Food has to appeal. It has to, if you want, arouse appetite," she says. "I mean, I don't mind if I'm accused of a, you know, culinary come-on."

Make no mistake. Lawson is much more than just a pretty face. She is glamorous, intelligent, savvy, and a fantastic cook with a distinguished pedigree. Her father, Nigel Lawson, was one of the most powerful men in Margaret Thatcher's conservative government. Her mother, Vanessa, was a wealthy socialite and heiress.

"It was an interesting home. There were a lot of interesting people and a lot of talk, a lot of food, a lot of talk," says Nigella.

She went to Oxford and became a writer and editor at The London Times. She and her husband, columnist John Diamond, were part of the glitterati.

Nigella agreed to spend a day with 60 Minutes II, and show us what she shows her audience each week: how to purchase, prepare and consume good food.

The first stop was a shop where they know Nigella well, and where she got the main ingredient for dinner – a free range chicken.

She proudly admits her main qualification for cooking is eating. And her philosophy is simple: maximum pleasure with minimum effort. She invites viewers to pull up a chair in what until recently was her real-life kitchen. Her kids, Cosima and Bruno, are often underfoot.

Cooking is very much a hands-on experience on Nigella's show. She uses no fancy kitchen utensils, and her dishes require none of the elaborate preparation called for by most TV chefs. The point is to get the job done as quickly and easily as possible. And, if that means taking a culinary short-cut, too bad for the purists.

For Nigella, the kitchen is a place to have fun. "And not only fun, but companionship and warmth," she says.

"And I think, you know, like a lot of people, the kitchen is a room where I sort of like to sit around talking to my friends. I mean, I do get pleasure from every single aspect. Well, maybe not the washing up."

When it comes to Nigella, men want to be around her, but women want to be her. "I'm not seen by women to be dangerous or threatening in every way," she says, noting that at book signings women often ask her to sign the book to their husbands.

This image is finely honed by public relations advisers, but it was also shaped by the losses that have marred Nigella's otherwise picture-book life. Nigella's mother died of cancer at 48. Her sister, Thomasina, fell victim to the same disease eight years later.

By then, Nigella had met and married Diamond. The couple had two children, and Nigella had begun writing her first cookbook. But as her career was taking off, her husband was diagnosed with cancer, too.

He struggled with cancer for four years, while a BBC television crew documented the most intimate details of his decline, and the treatments that failed to stem the disease. In March 2001, Diamond died, leaving Nigella a widow, a single mother, a career woman, and a different person.

"From being someone who was quite contained and certainly not talkative, really, I became a big talker, because I had to," she says.

By then, Nigella had become a celebrity. Her cooking show was a sensation and her outfit stole the spotlight when she showed up to claim an award for one of her cookbooks. Now, her name is mentioned constantly in the press, and her Web site offers a selection of up-to-date photos.

Still, she says, she feels ambivalent about her success. "I'm trying, really, I suppose, to put food in the context of life, just be a normal person cooking."

She doesn't want to be considered a celebrity chef. "Maybe I just can't get to grips with the fact that I'm doing food rather than what is considered a more serious thing," she says.

Serious or not, the attention is not always welcomed. Critics claim that her recipes don't turn out as they were supposed to, and London's tabloids gossip about her affair with Charles Saatchi, the recently-divorced super-rich advertising guru.

One of her strongest selling points, however, is that she's nothing like that other doyenne of domesticity, Martha Stewart. She agrees.

"I am so the opposite of what she's about, because I'm not about the quest to perfect your life and to make everything in it beautiful and shiny. You know, I'm a bit more 'Aw, come on. We'll just do it this way, you know? Let's do it in a half an hour,'" she says.

Nigella often seems to be in a rush. Her daily schedule is hectic, and she's the first to admit she worries about her waistline. She says she minds, but "I don't mind enough. I mean, if I really minded, I'd be thin."

Nigella's cooking show usually ends with a few friends dropping by to enjoy the meal she's made. So we asked her to invite some of them to join us for dinner.

This group of guests, "the girls," come over often. "They're horrible to me, but somehow I must be a masochist because I keep on, actually, I don't ask them back. They just turn up anyway," she says with a laugh.