奈洁拉·劳森

生平

她是前财政大臣尼格尔·劳森的女儿，母亲凡妮莎·萨蒙则来自约瑟夫·里昂食品公司（J. Lyons & Co.）企业家族。自牛津大学玛嘉烈夫人学堂毕业后，劳森从事书评家和餐厅评论家的工作，并在1986年当上《星期日泰晤士报》文学副编辑。她随后开始她的自由记者生涯，为众多报章杂志撰稿。1998年，劳森出版她的第一本烹饪书《How to Eat》，旋即畅销30万本。2000年，她推出第二本著作《How to be a Domestic Goddess》，获得英国书卷奖年度作家殊荣。2015年，她将为英国在欧洲歌唱大赛上播报英国的投票结果。

Nigella Lawson (born 6 January 1960) is a food writer, television cook, and former journalist. Known for her relaxed and indulgent approach to cooking and food writing, she has sold more than 12 million cookery books worldwide to date, and has appeared on numerous television programmes in the United Kingdom and internationally.

After graduating from the University of Oxford, Lawson began her career in journalism, working as a book reviewer and restaurant critic before becoming deputy literary editor of The Sunday Times in 1986. She left the staff position the following year to pursue freelance writing. In 1998, her first cookery book, How to Eat, was published and sold 300,000 copies, becoming a best-seller. Lawsons's second book, How to Be a Domestic Goddess, was published in 2000, winning the British Book Award for Author of the Year.

Lawson became widely known on television through the Channel 4 series Nigella Bites (1999–2001). In the United Kingdom, she hosted the ITV daytime chat show Nigella (2005) and the cookery programmes Nigella's Christmas Kitchen (2006, 2008), Nigella Express (2007), and Simply Nigella (2015). In the United States, she hosted the Food Network series Nigella Feasts (2006) and served as a judge on the ABC cooking competition The Taste (2013–2014). She also judged on the British version of The Taste (2014). In 2026, Lawson became a judge on the Channel 4 baking competition The Great British Bake Off.

In June 2026, Lawson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in recognition of her contribution to food writing. Her range of cookware, Living Kitchen, has a value of £7 million.

Early life

Nigella Lawson was born in 1960 in Wandsworth, London, one of the daughters of Nigel Lawson, Baron Lawson of Blaby (1932–2023), a business and finance journalist who later became a Conservative MP and Chancellor of the Exchequer in Margaret Thatcher's government, and his first wife, Vanessa Salmon (1936–1985), a socialite and the heiress to the J. Lyons and Co. fortune. Both her parents were from Jewish families.……

Ancestry

Taking part in the third series of the BBC family-history documentary series Who Do You Think You Are?, Lawson sought to uncover some of her family's ancestry.……

Career

Early work

Lawson originally worked in publishing, first taking a job under publisher Naim Attallah. At 23, she began her career in journalism after Charles Moore had invited her to write for The Spectator – her father had previously been editor at the same publication, and her older brother soon would take up the same role. Her initial work at the magazine consisted of writing book reviews, after which she became a restaurant critic there in 1985.……

1998–2002: First cookery books and Nigella Bites

Lawson had an established sense of cooking from her childhood, having had a mother who enjoyed cooking.……

Presenting style and image

Though Lawson has enjoyed a successful career in cookery, she is not a trained chef, and does not like being referred to as a "celebrity chef". Nor does she see herself as a cook or an expert in her field; nonetheless, she is frequently described as a chef. Throughout Lawson's television programmes, she emphasises that she cooks for her own pleasure, for enjoyment, and that she finds cooking therapeutic.……

Personal life

First marriage and children

Lawson met journalist John Diamond in 1986, when they were both writing for The Sunday Times. They married in Venice in 1992, and had a daughter, Cosima, and a son, Bruno. Diamond was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1997 and died in March 2001, aged 47. One of his last messages to Lawson was, "How proud I am of you and what you have become. The great thing about us is that we have made us who we are." His death occurred during the filming of Nigella Bites;……

Second marriage

Lawson married art collector Charles Saatchi in September 2003.

Awards

2000 – British Book Awards – Author of the Year for How to Be a Domestic Goddess

2001 – WHSmith Book Award – How to Be a Domestic Goddess shortlisted for Lifestyle Book of the Year

2001 – Guild of Food Writers – Television Broadcast of the Year for Nigella Bites

2001 – World Food Media Award – Gold Ladle Best Television Food Show for Nigella Bites

2002 – WHSmith Book Awards – Lifestyle Book of the Year for Nigella Bites