Nigella's missing ingredient.

You can't ignore Nigella especially if you are like me often compared to her!  I get rather mad when the papers announce the New Nigella has been found.  Why try and replace the old one? She's amazing.   Well I am wondering this time if perhaps the journalists and the writers feel she's  somewhat become a product herself now. But If there is one food writer that delights me always -  it's Nigella. But even I a complete die hard Nigella fan have to admit these days things seem to have changed.  Where as once I watched Nigella as the driving force of herself.  I now feel there is a team that team drive her for themselves.   I miss the original. Although I'm glad she recently admitted to having team cupcake  (because let me tell you producing a recipe book is really hard work)  and to produce the kind of book Kitchen that Nigella’s team puts out is seriously allot of work. Indeed, the work that has gone into producing Kitchen is tremendous. With almost 500 pages the recipes are very Nigellsish.. but the truth is I don’t feel her.  I don’t feel her truly.  It’s hard to explain.. but it’s as though there is a Nigella clone who is almost her.   For years now she has been my turn to.  If I want to make anything I literally headed straight to my bookshelf and would turn to her books; I’m not sure I will turn to this one it feels somehow weirdly void of her original soul captured in her other books.

Perhaps I am being overly sensitive? Am I searching for the initial impact she once had on me? 

I still hold her up as the domestic goddess and I can’t just abandon my heroine. So I pushed myself to have a go.. to see if I find the real Nigella in her book I decided to make her sweet and salty crunch nut bars.  So today with the rainy blustery winter weather I wanted maximum comfort.  Something gluttonous. Utterly food sluttery. Something I couldn't resist that are a synch to make. These bars looked like they fitted the bill. They taste like a cross between a mars and a marathon and the only real change I made was that I used whole nut chocolate.. I ran out of ordinary and I cut the bars into small bite size pieces, was Nigella really in this recipe ? Yes I found more of her in this particular recipe .. but the truth is despite being a superb book I’ve had to accept that the Nigella I once fell in love with has been commercialized, and it feels to me like she is going through the motions, I wonder if that will happen to me one day.  I really hope not. Passion is the secret ingredient in the Kitchen.. and this is no exception.. . and I can't find the real honest gutsy passion in the book, no matter how hard I want to find it.