Nigella Lawson Has Made Her Big Return To The BBC To Make Avocado On Toast
2.3 million people watched a grown woman mush up an avocado and put it on hot bread. Not everyone was into it.
For the past couple of years, celebrity chef Nigella Lawson has been regrettably absent from UK television. After developing her impressive reputation with a number of shows on the BBC for over a decade, she’s recently spent some time travelling the US with The Taste — a Frankenstein reality show with both the cooking and crying of Masterchef, the celebrity-backed competition of The Voice, and the cringeworthy sexual innuendo of Gretel Killeen-era Big Brother.
Obviously, Nigella was the perfect person for the job:
Now she’s made her triumphant return to her homeland with a new show, Simply Nigella. Based on her hugely popular cookbook of the same name, the show has an intentional focus on easy recipes to promote stress-free living and healthy eating. But, despite attracting an impressive 2.3 million viewers, the first episode which aired this week has faced a fair amount of criticism with many claiming her advice was too easy. Here’s the gist of the first recipe:
- Walk to the fanciest grocer you can find and buy a single avocado for $5.
- Scoop the avocado into a bowl.
- Mush the avocado in the bowl.
- Put lime and chili with the avocado in the bowl.
- Put the avocado on hot, hard bread.
- Eat the snack you learned to make when you were eight.
People haven’t been very impressed by it:
New Nigella Lawson cookery show feels beyond parody. So far she’s mashed up an avocado and looked at some holiday photos. #nigella
— Dave Harte (@daveharte) November 2, 2015
Nigella unveiling emerging groundbreaking recipe called Avocado on toast right now.
— Jamie East (@mrjamieeast) November 2, 2015
Nigella returns to TV tonight with a recipe for… avocado on toast. Next week: a cup of tea
— Alice Jones (@alicevjones) November 2, 2015
I love that we've got to a place in our lives/culture when the BBC will just air #Nigella eating avocado on toast.
— Declan Cashin (@Tweet_Dec) November 2, 2015
To be fair, Nigella spent the rest of the episode making some rather impressive Thai stir-fry, lamb ribs, and cake that none of these smart alecs had much to Tweet about. But still: within the past year we’ve seen The New York Times lose their shit about the fact that Australians occasionally eat smashed avocado and the US get so riled up about a guacamole recipe the President got involved.
This delicious green sludge does ridiculous things to us all from time to time.