Okay, I'm pretty sure there's a new love in my life. Or, more accurately, a new infatuation. Channel surfing this evening, I hit this on the Food Channel.

And stayed.

We never watch the Food Channel.

But hey, her name is Nigella Lawson. She's a brunette, and she's British. All good things. But the thing that stopped my finger from surfing on through the channels was her voice. The article I linked above refers to her voice as "sultry", but that isn't the right word at all.

Her voice is "natural". She's not some Southern belle trying to be a gourmet Martha Stewart, nor a brisk New Yorker, nor a Californian following health fads.

She's an attractive British mother who invites us into her home, into her real life kitchen and pantry, to learn her cooking skills. And she shows them to us like we're family, or a close neighbor. Not just one of millions of subscribers.

And the language!

"Massage" is "mah-sahje", not "muh-saj". Tomato is "to-mah-toe". The phrase for plopping one layer of ingredients on top of another is to "blodge it on".

Apparently British blenders have a setting called "Blitz".

Is that more or less than a puree?

I loved it.

And the ingredients are in metric! Her recipe for a "caramel", what my family would call a "brittle", calls for 175 ccs of water, 200 grams of sugar, and 100 grams of chopped nuts.

How easy is that!

Man, no wonder the rest of the world has gone metric.

The wife and I like the candles in the brownies, but we're not so sure you should take a bite before blowing out the candle...

I want to eat at Nigella's house.

I want to cook at Nigella's house.

Watched her entire Christmas special, of course. And, as her guests would say...

Happy Christmas!