Domestic Goddess

By Anna Jones Buttimore

Over here in the UK we have a particularly attractive cookery-guru type called Nigella Lawson. She is known as the Domestic Goddess, and with good reason. She looks gorgeous, she cooks amazing food, and she sells hundreds of thousands of copies of her books to those who slavishly follow her TV shows. (It may even help that she's the daughter of a slightly less attractive but nevertheless well-known politician. Famous family is always a boon in becoming famous yourself.)

I have given up buying Nigella's books, because when her pert lime and mint souffles positively ooze deliciousness, mine just ooze. On her TV programmes she invariably presents the finished perfect dish with her nails manicured to perfection, her subtle make-up radiant and unsmudged, and not a single lustrous dark hair out of place. Whereas I always look hot and sweaty, with flour in my hair and sauce all over my face. And don't get me started on what my kitchen looks like. (At the moment, actually, I have no kitchen. We are in the process of having a new one fitted and all the units have been ripped out. The electrics and plastering are being done today, plumbing tomorrow. So it looks only marginally worse than after I have cooked a meal in it.)

Needless to say, my children generally refuse to eat my offerings. They will peer suspiciously at any dish I set before them, ask what's in it, and then declare "I don't like that" and go off to make themselves a sandwich. My two hours of chopping, boiling and seasoning seem to count for nothing. At least Hubby Dearest will gamely try a few forkfuls.

But now I can call myself a Domestic Goddess because I have three recipes in a cookbook! The World Wide Ward Cookbook by Deanna Buxton (who I'm sure is Utah's answer to Nigella Lawson) is a selection of recipes from Latter-day Saints around the world, and no fewer than three of those recipes were contributed by Yours Truly. I've yet to see the book, so please go out and buy a copy, and let me know how wonderful it is. In the meantime, I shall sit here and feel smug.

You too could be a Domestic Goddess! Deanna is now working on the World Wide Ward Cookbook - Christmas Edition, and she's looking for contributions from across the USA and the world. But time is running out - your Christmas recipe has to be in by 7th April. Go to www.worldwidewardcookbook.blogspot.com for more information.