How to Become a Domestic Goddess

When I saw the title of Nigella Lawson's cookbook How to Become a Domestic Goddess I thought, "mmm, yes please!" Yet keep your kitchen knives lowered, my fellow feminist cooks, because upon reading the opening narrative I discovered that Nigella is one clever Brit. "This is a book about baking, but not a baking book," she delineates, "I neither want to confine you to the kitchen quarters or even suggest that it might be desirable." (LOVE her!) She continues to speak so eloquently and poignantly about the role of baking in our society that I had to agree: "In a way, baking stands for us both as a metaphor for the familial warmth of the kitchen we fondly imagine used to exist, and as a way of reclaiming our lost Eden. This is hardly a culinary matter, of course: but cooking, we know, has a way of cutting through things, and to things, which have nothing to do with the kitchen. This is why it matters."

It's so true - baking, through its childhood and familial associations, is a classic stress-reliever. On 9/11 when the Twin Towers fell, when my mother stepped inside our home after racing out of the panic-stricken city, she sat down on our floor hugging her daughters and then pulled herself together and said, "okay, let's bake cookies." When my best friend Viki finally finished four long, stressful years of college, I asked her how she wanted to relax and celebrate and she responded, "let's bake a cake." When I come home after a busy day at work and need to decompress, what do I do? Bake muffins. So I have to toast to you on this one Nigella. "Sometimes we don't want to feel like a post-modern, post-feminist, overstretched woman, but, rather, a domestic goddess, trailing nutmeggy fumes of baking pie in our languorous wake."

Now as a British domestic goddess Nigella comes from the world of "puddings" - fruit cakes and mincemeat pies for the holidays, which is a whole world of baking in itself, and the recipe selection in the cookbook reflects this. I found some recipes fit for a proper tea party such as shortbread biscuits, and more decadent chocolate desserts to fuel my longstanding love affair. (Sorry honey, but my love for chocolate is the most serious and committed relationship I've ever had.) The recipes in How to Become a Domestic Goddess never fail to impress: when I saw the Torta alla Giundia, a hazelnut torte, essentially a flourless nutella cake, I knew immediately who to make it for. Someone I know has a nutella addiction, shall we say. And the torta was delectable, so rich even the tiniest bit on your tongue could send you to dessert ecstasy, topped with smooth ganache that may actually be the weakness of my weakness. Cheers Nigella, you truly are a domestic goddess.