Nigella Kitchen, BBC Two, review - Telegraph

Nobody does over-the-top likeNigella. At 50 she s more domestic grande dame than goddess, the finger-licking replaced by eye-rolling and a lot of hair-tossing, giving the effect of a startled racehorse (it s a slightly demented look; I blame the cameraman). And she s still delivering lines so silly they re beyond camp. The cheesecake is done, she tells us, when the top is set, but underneath there s just a hint of inner thigh wibble . Yup, we re back in food porn territory.

But does she carry it off? Her debut TV series, Nigella Bites, aired 10 years ago; her bestselling How to Eat became the must-have cook book in every smart household 12 years ago. Back then, to choose one of her recipes or do a Nigella (was there ever a time when she needed a surname?) guaranteed a successful dinner party. A decade later, the pouting sex object is a hard look to pull off, and some of those early recipes now seem busy and over-complicated.

Her saving grace is that she is a great cook, and in the first episode of her new series, Nigella Kitchen (BBC Two), she didn t disappoint. Her Roast Seafood potatoes, red onions, lemon pieces and garlic roasted for an hour, with baby squid and prawns tossed on top looked terrific. And I have never seen anyone pick out a prawn, rip off its head and devour the whole thing, shell and all, with such noisy abandon.

Her recipes have become simpler, and the better for it. The pasta with salami is sensible, easy and perfect for voracious teenagers. She also has an earthily efficient, no-nonsense approach to handling food. During the cooking of her Praised Chicken, a recipe from her mother, we saw her breaking a whole chicken with a good, honest deftness so the carcass lay flat in a frying pan.

On to the food porn proper, with the obligatory immoderate Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheesecake. This should be compulsory viewing for any cook taking themselves too seriously. In she stalked, wrapped in a slinky black dressing gown, telling us she s at the age when baking a cheesecake is just the thing of an evening.

Are you ready? For the base: digestive biscuits, a mound of butter, chocolate chips and salted peanuts. Majestically indulgent. Into this goes the cream cheese, luscious dollops of sour cream, three eggs and two egg yolks, crates of caster sugar and more peanut butter, mixed into a gorgeous golden gleaming gloop . We haven t finished. The topping is more sour cream milk chocolate and brown sugar. Go, girl. Bring on the next course.

From food porn to fashion porn, with Trinny Susannah: From Boom to Bust on Channel 4. Trinny and Susannah aren t in the same class as Nigella, more superannuated teenagers veering between strop and sulk than racehorse. But they re out of the same stable: they don t need second names; they re posh, of a certain age (46 and 48 respectively) and made their names on TV. They ve also turned themselves into brands, and do humour, brilliantly. Readers might remember their fashion column in The Daily Telegraph s Weekend section, which, love it or loathe it, was a must-read for years. They took off into the fashionista stratosphere immediately afterwards with their TV series What Not to Wear, bullying members of the public into makeovers.

From Boom to Bust took up the story from there. It was a glorious spoof fly-on-the-wall documentary following the supposed collapse of their career. During this exquisitely funny offering, where small-screen setback was treated with the high seriousness of a Greek tragedy, every element of their career was mercilessly parodied.

We saw Trinny in a bath, covered in a hideous white facemask complacently discussing her diary. Cut to a taxi, where she was moving her colonic irrigation appointment so it would come after her arse-slapping slot with her masseuse ( Think about it ).

Cut to lunch with their agent, who told them not only had they failed to win a huge contract, but he was dumping them, too. Media names and celebrities appeared, as themselves, to mourn their decline: Dylan Jones (GQ editor), Lulu, David Furnish, DJ Neil Fox

It got much worse, and much funnier. On to a golf and tennis trade show to promote their magic knickers . Susannah has a bit of a wobbly tummy, Trinny told the bystanders who had wandered up to their stall, hoiking up Susannah s dress to show how the magic knickers (deeply unflattering, flesh-coloured efforts) worked. Which is exactly the type of indignity they put their stooges through in their various makeover shows.

Will they, won t they climb back into the media spotlight? Perhaps they should get a makeover by Nigella. Now there s a thought.