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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

In thinking Delia has a death wish for us all?

206 replies

mamhaf · 01/12/2009 22:25

Just watched the Delia Christmas cookery programme on BBC2.

I know she always does this, but I haven't seen her on the tv for a while - everything was crammed with heart-stopping cholesterol - either butter or cream/creme fraiche. And then liberal amounts of nuts, cheese, fatty bacon etc.

It made me feel ill watching it.

And, wearing loads of rings on her horrible liver-spotty hands while preparing food - I hope they chucked the stuff away afterwards.

Admittedly some of the recipes looked delicious in small quantities but AIBU in thinking a full Delia Christmas is a ticket for the morgue?

OP posts:
Cadelaide · 02/12/2009 12:12

Can't stand the way Delia talks.

So prissy.

alypaly · 02/12/2009 12:12

the ones that used to make me heave were the two fat ladies....they used to have rings and nail varnish on whislt squeezing mince between their fingers. I do object to nail varnish with 'hands on' dishes.

Nigella is too interested in her visual appearance and her sexiness.....vom

As for liver spots....unfortunately it will come to us all as it is in our female blood. There is nothing wrong with freckly hands...its not a disease.

TheCrackFox · 02/12/2009 12:12

Jamie Oliver does have sausage fingers.

Lilymaid · 02/12/2009 12:12

The bread sauce was astonishing - vast amounts of cream and then what looked like about a whole block of butter cut up in cubes.

TheCrackFox · 02/12/2009 12:14

I once saw one of the Two Fat ladies practically inhale a Burger King Burger at Waverly Station. It was not a pleasant sight.

ImSoNotTelling · 02/12/2009 12:15

DH and I had this on last night and at the point where she said "don't forget to put little dollops of butter all over it", I turned to DH and said "do you wish she was your mum? just a little tiny bit, so you could go to that huge house on xmas day and eat all that food? I do." and he shamefacedly said "yes".

Bucharest · 02/12/2009 12:42

Bread sauce looks like sick anyway.

I made Nigella's pistachio chocolate fudge on Monday, and put 150g less chocolate in then Nige says, and it is still far far far too rich even for me.

scaryteacher · 02/12/2009 12:43

Try cooking the bread sauce recipe before you have a go at it please. I have been making it for the past 19 years and it is fab. It just requires a little butter on the top to stop it forming a skin. It's great cold the next day as well. I also make it with semi skimmed milk, so that cuts the fat down. I don't think that 2 tablespoons of double cream in a sauce that serves 8 people is excessive, nor the 2 oz of butter specified (1/4 oz per person).

I learnt to cook by using Delia, and the great thing is that her recipes work first time, every time, unlike others.

GrumpyOldHorsewoman · 02/12/2009 12:51

I agree re: the re-branding of 'cool' Delia. In my mind, Delia is all midnight mass, mulled wine and a few friends round for (home-made, naturally) sausage rolls and mince pies. Don't diss the Delia. I agree with MadameDuBain - for all the (many) cookbooks I own, I always go back to tried and true Delia. Have you tried her baked macaroni with leeks and bacon? Again, a treat because of the butter etc, but a revelation. I have never fed it to anyone who didn't love it. Mmmmm. Hungry now...

EldonAve · 02/12/2009 12:53

YABU
The program was great apart from the annoying Wogan interludes

AppleTreeWick · 02/12/2009 13:15

I still worship at the alter of Delia each Christmas. And for me she is at her best when she is mixing up a batch of lard and double cream. Yum.

Rubyrubyruby · 02/12/2009 13:20

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

alypaly · 02/12/2009 13:27

i have just taken a new nigella cookbook to oxfam.Even the pictures look yukky and her smiley sickly face spoils the whole book. recipes are rubbish too.Nothing seems to go together.

MadameDuBain · 02/12/2009 13:34

But actually I like How to Eat, her first one. It has some genuinely original and very useful things in it and isn't primarily about suggestive finger-slurping. It all went downhill after that (recipe-wise, though obviously not for Nige's bank balance)

goldieandthreebears · 02/12/2009 13:36

mixing that turkey stuffing wearing all those rings and bracelets was not a good example of hygienic cooking.

and food can still taste good if you substitute all that butter and cream with olive oil. Turkey is also eaten in mediterannean counties at Christmas but it is never smothered in butter!

GetOrfMoiLand · 02/12/2009 13:37

How to Eat is brilliant, and so is Feast (one of my favourite all time recipes is from that) but have found that some of her other books (Nigella Express, Domestic Goddess) are not as good.

Nigel Slater far better for everyday practical cooking.

Find Delia uninspiring. Can not see how she can recommend aluminium pans, they are terrible to cook with.

Bucharest · 02/12/2009 13:43

I like Nigella because she's got a proper body.
You can see the lard has gone straight to the hips.
I imagine Delia to be a bit like a Barbie doll underneath her pinny. No bits.

I love all cooks acksherly, except that weirdy Valentine "seasonal" bloke who thinks he is Nigella, with his slurping and yumming. But he sooooo isn't.

I want Nigella's studio kitchen.

Delia's courgette pasta bake doesn't work. All the water oozes out of the courgettes and makes the bake soggy.

reikizen · 02/12/2009 13:44

It all looked bloody lovely to me...

ChaosInCamelot · 02/12/2009 13:45

It is only one day (or a few days I suppose)...and there is nothing wrong with using butter, cream etc. They are real ingredients not low fat options. I am assuming that each person would only have a small amount of that bread sauce, it's not as if that was one portion she was preparing. I make proper, rich, puddings but I only have them occasionally. I exercise a lot and am slim and healthy.

I am definitely not going to hold back on Christmas day - but then the week beforehand I will be eating very healthily and will enjoy myself on the day.

Mean comments about her hands.

ChaosInCamelot · 02/12/2009 13:46

Though I agree about the rings.

Morloth · 02/12/2009 13:51

It's Christmas! I just bought a 6 kilo slab of chuck steak for coffee beef...the fat will melt...the mash will be made with double cream, the pudding will be served with brandy butter, yum yum yum. Lard even turns up in our house at Christmas and goosefat and....oh bloody hell, I need a lie down now.

GetOrfMoiLand · 02/12/2009 13:51

Have never seen Valentine Warner on the telly, though DP bouight me his autumn/winter cookboo, and some of the recipes in that are fantastic. You have to like game, though.

Has the most fantastic recipe for macaronui cheese ever (probably 2800 calories per mouthful, but still). Really recommend it. he writes very well, too, very much in teh Nige/Nigella vein.

OtterInaSkoda · 02/12/2009 13:54

Nigel Slater is wonderful. I'd go as far as to say that Real Fast Food taught me how to cook.
I weaned my ds on How To Eat and my copy is now falling apart (after much use over the past 9 years), but I'm not keen on Nigella's roasting times. I refer to Leith's Cookery Bible for those (and other things). It isn't fashionable at all but I think Leith's is ace.

kinnies · 02/12/2009 14:53

I loved it (prog last night)

Am off to buy Delias xmas cook book asap.

DISCLAMER

Dh, Dcs & I are horrid peeps that eat can anything and dont put on a pound!

MorrisZapp · 02/12/2009 14:54

Totally agree.

The thing is, if we all cooked with no concern for fat/ calories etc, we'd all be as good as Delia anyway, and wouldn't need cookbooks.

If all we had to do was ladle double cream and melted cheese into everything then yes, it would all taste pretty nice!

Surely a talented cook can make a great tasty recipe that doesn't make you feel sick with the richness of it from forty paces.

Same goes for Nigella. If I didn't give a flying fig for the cost of the ingredients or the calories they contained, I'd be a well loved hostess too. Chucking sugar and fat into everything is easy - imaginative cooking with reasonably healthy and affordable ingredients takes real skill.