Nigella Lawson has a lot of strong opinions on cooking, as well she should. Between her cookbooks, her television show, the hours she’s put in cooking, prepping, experimenting, testing, tasting, and studying recipes, she has demonstrated that she is an expert on cooking. And in her new cookbook Cook, Eat, Repeat, Lawson is filled with her unapologetic opinions.

She doesn’t believe in guilty pleasures—she thinks of all eating as pleasure and doesn’t believe in feeling guilty for that. She loves anchovies, rhubarb, and ramps, and she offers many recipes for each. But she understands that not everyone feels the same, so she offers options. In this cookbook, she offers lots and lots of options. Be sure to read what she writes after each recipe, because Lawson uses this space to talk about her inspiration for the recipe and, more importantly, so many extra ideas for how to use the leftover ingredients and different options on how to make small changes to the recipe to add 1 or 3 or 6 variations to try.

Lawson is diametrically opposed to food waste, so she offers ideas on how to use every drop of a sauce, taking it from the original dish and adding maybe 1 more ingredient, or some extra liquid, and suddenly it’s perfect for a pasta sauce or a dressing or just poured onto the top of some vegetables to add extra flavor. She has recipes that use old milk and banana peels, just so that nothing gets left behind, nothing is wasted, everything is turned into flavor.

She celebrates brown food, especially stews, believes a good dinner can take the edge off a bad day, and wants Christmas to be all about the comfort of traditions and rituals. As Cook, Eat, Repeat was written during a pandemic, she’s made changes to some of her original ideas about entertaining at holidays or just having friends over for a dinner party. Most of her recipes are created for 4 people, but she offers changes for many to cook them easily for 2 or even 1 instead.

From the initial chapter that is a deep dive into what a recipe is and how it’s created through all Lawson’s notes on each individual recipe, these are dishes that sing with flavor. From the Anchovy Elixir to the Pickled Rhubarb, Crab Mac ’n’ Cheese, Fried Chicken Sandwich, Oxtail Bourguignon, Chicken with Garlic Cream Sauce, Lasagna of Love, Basque Burnt Cheesecake, Vegan Lemon Polenta Cake, and Brown Forest Brownies—every single recipe here has been tested and re-tested, tasted and re-tasted, in order to bring forward as many flavors as possible. But these recipes are also about family, about the time and energy cooks spend making magic for those that they love, about heart and soul and putting your best on the plate for yourself and for those you care the most about.

I loved Cook, Eat, Repeat. I wish I had her patience in the kitchen to make the most of every drop, of every ingredient, of every dish. But since I don’t have that, I’m glad Nigella Lawson does and that she’s willing to share it with me through these recipes and essays. I’m not sure everyone will love the expositions after each of the recipes, but they were my favorite part. That’s where Lawson’s personality and passion comes out the most, with her suggestions and substitutions, and it’s the most fascinating and fun parts of this book.

Egalleys for Cook, Eat, Repeat were provided by Ecco through NetGalley, with many thanks.

I don’t really enjoy cooking, but I like to read cookbooks and books about food. I love Lawson’s writing style! Interesting and very entertaining. Recipes are doable with many variations.

Part memoir, part essay, part cookbook. This book feels very "Nigella" in the best possible way. It's probably not for those who don't enjoy cooking (why would you pick it up anyway?), but I really enjoyed it and the recipes within. It truly demonstrates Lawson's passion for food.

She almost convinced me to give anchovies a place in my kitchen. Almost.

As much as I love cooking from cookbooks, I also love just reading the recipes and stories. Nigella Lawson is a family favorite and her newest book, Cook, Eat, Repeat did not disappoint. The recipes are delectable and the stories delightful. It feels like I am cooking right alongside Nigella! Highly recommend for any cookbook lover to add this. book to his or her collection.

Love this new Nigella cookbook. Great recipes from a classy chef. I own a few other of this authors cookbooks and have loved them all.

A book is often many years in the making and over the last year, I have read many authors reflecting on the strangeness of trying to write and release books during a global pandemic. Writing a cookbook, especially one that envisions family gatherings and entertaining around a table of food must have been particularly challenging. A couple of the essays in Nigella Lawson’s Cook, Eat, Repeat refer to the lockdown she is experiencing while writing. I’m glad she included those mentions because it adds a pathos to the book that wouldn’t otherwise be there.

I don’t necessarily buy Nigella Lawson cookbooks for their recipes, though her recipes are very good. In fact, I get a recipe from Nigella Lawson every day via email. Her recipes are great. I buy Nigella Lawson’s cookbooks for her food writing. Her life, very different from mine, has afforded her the opportunity to travel and experience food in a way I have not and never will. There might be some tiny amount of jealousy, but mostly I love reading her thoughts on food and cooking.

In her first essay, “What is a Recipe,” Lawson dives into the nature of recipes, what they are and what they are not.

A recipe can be many things: a practical document; a piece of social history; an anthropological record; a family legacy; an autobiographical statement; even a literary exercise. You don’t have to take your pick: the glory of food is that, beyond sustenance, it comprises a little of everything—aesthetics and manual labour, thrown in.

Interestingly, she repeats a story I’ve heard from the many therapists I am related to, the story of the woman who cut the ends off her roasts. She’s asked why and doesn’t know, that’s just how she was taught. Further investigation reveals that her mother, or grandmother, had a too small roasting pan. For therapists it’s a story about rules are made and followed even when they are no longer necessary or beneficial. For Nigella Lawson it’s about turning the transitory process of cooking into a recipe written to be followed exactly. It’s both an explanation that she, the recipe creator, is working within the limitations of her kitchen and available ingredients, and tacit approval for us, the recipe user, to adapt recipes as necessary. She does go on to state clearly that we the people cooking from her recipes can and should adapt them as we need, but we should do so with the understanding that we are making a new and different recipe from the one she wrote.

With this understanding of the relationship between recipe author and recipe user, I did make a few of the recipes and I did adapt them as I saw fit. When I made the No-Knead Black Bread, I left out the caraway and fennel seed and added additional nigella seeds because I like the oniony flavor of nigella better. I was very happy with the way it turned out. For the Tuscan Bean Soup, I used drained and rinsed canned cannellini beans because I don’t have easy access to borlotti beans. Neither tasted exactly as they would had they come from Nigella Lawson’s hands, but both were very good and I will definitely use both recipes again.

I received this as an advance reader copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I love Nigella's stories and her recipes are classic, yet she always puts her twist on it. This is a cookbook every library should own.

Lawson intersperses her delicious-looking recipes with musings on our attitudes toward food and eating, personal stories, and meditations on life. Even if you're not looking to make something, you'll enjoy sitting down with this book and reading her warm and passionate prose. But the recipes definitely look worth trying.

The return of the Domestic Goddess.

I loved this book. Told in the familiar and uniquely Nigella Lawson voice. Her style is warm, conversational. a bit wry and self deprecating, always perfectly British. She understands that once a recipe is presented, everyone wants to change it despite all the work that went into perfecting the recipe. Its a dilemma.

The recipes are entwined with stories and memories and my hands down favorite is the labor intensive lasagna of love (and love it is). I have a soft spot for the bread pudding, this time with fig preserve. I remember being fascinated with a version of this recipe on her show years ago (and made it many times).

Peppered with staples and more unusual recipes, Cook. Eat. Repeat is perfectly Nigella.
Welcome back.

Highly recommend.

Cook, Eat, Repeat by Nigella Lawson's book is incredible and really helped me find some great recipes. I learned how to cook with certain ingredients that I've never used before. And now I feel like a pro :) Thank you so much!

This isn’t just a cookbook, but a book about food and cooking. The author shares her love of cooking through stories and beautiful photos rich with recipes arranged by certain topics. Devouring this book is like having a love affair with food. Highly recommended.

I love that this book was in Biographies & Memoirs in addition to Cookbooks, because it is full of essays and lengthy recipe descriptions. This is not a standard cookbook. It starts with an essay on "What is a Recipe?" - I really enjoyed Nigella Lawson's thoughts on recipe writing, following them, and modifying. Then chapters are A is for Anchovy, Pleasures, A Loving Defence of Brown Food, Rhubarb, Much Depends on Dinner, and Christmas Comforts. Each chapter has an opening explanation, in addition to the notes on each recipe. The point of this book feels like it is to compile recipes that are so important and delicious that they will be made time and again. I appreciated all the personal thoughts, and that each recipe had a color photo. This is a great book for fans of Lawson or interesting cookbooks.

Cook,Eat,Repeat by the famous Nigella Lawson is all about figuring out your rhythm in cooking. She shows you how to prepare individual meals as well as family meals and the stories are shared that helped to shape some of those meals. Cooks around the world will want to add this to personal cookbook collections and refer back to some of the less typical recipes.

A fantastically unique cookbook! Filled with Nigella's stories and insights but also packed with inspired recipes like "Lemon & Elderflower Syrup Cake" and an entire chapter devoted to the love of "Brown Food".

Thank you to Ecco and NetGalley for allowing me to preview this cookbook. My review is voluntary and all opinions are my own.

Written in a conversational style with extensive notes on the recipes woven in. If you prefer a straight-up cookbook, it’s not this, which is much more narrative, a bit like a master class. If you are looking for distinctly British recipes, this book contains many, like trifle and colcannon; as well as quite a few with Mediterranean flavors. Over the years, Nigella Lawson’s dessert recipes have always been favorites, and I can’t wait to try the Mine-All-Mine Sweet and Salty Chocolate Cookies, which she also includes gluten-free and vegan instructions for (my only concern is the amount of baking powder, soda, and salt called for...8 tsps each! I think it’s a typo and they meant 1). The book includes several vegan recipes, including desserts, as well.

This book is wonderful. Nigella Lawson shares some wonderful stories and recipes. I usually have a tough time reading cookery books with a lot of non- recipe prose, but this one is a joy. Her old fashioned sandwich loaf is easy, tasty and loved by everyone in my family - calls of make more echo through the kitchen when the last slice is cut. The tastes are from all over the world - crab, gochujang, marzipan, tahini - the list goes on, but the recipes flow well, are interesting to read about, as well as make, and taste fantastic. A real joy to cook from, and a recommended read, for sure. Thank you.

I am a huge fan of Nigella and this book was no different. She starts off with a chapter devoted to the humble anchovy, an ingredient that is small yet mighty. She teaches home cooks how to get the most flavor from this tinned wonder. Following through the book, I loved the pleasures section which included yummy indulgences and recipes for simple breads. As usual, these recipes are accessible to home cook and look simply scrumptious.

Perhaps my favorite portion of the book is the chapter dedicated to Rhubarb. As an American who ate quite a bit more rhubarb that my peers (thanks to an English great-grandmother) as a child---this chapter called to me. I am ready to make literally all of these rhubarb recipes.

The most stand-out recipe to me was the Crab Mac n Cheese. I'm sorry...let's just sit and luxuriate in those word....CRAB....CARBS....CHEESE. What else could you want? Oh right, for Nigella to be the one guiding your hand as you make such an indulgent and warming dish.

"Cook, Eat, Repeat is a delicious and delightful combination of recipes intertwined with narrative essays about food, all written in Nigella Lawson’s engaging and insightful prose. Whether asking 'what is a recipe?” or declaring death to the “guilty pleasure," Nigella brings her wisdom about food and life to the fore while sharing new recipes that readers will want to return to again and again.

Within these chapters are more than a hundred new recipes for all seasons and tastes from Burnt Onion and Eggplant Dip to Chicken with Garlic Cream Sauce; from Beef Cheeks with Port and Chestnuts to Ginger and Beetroot Yogurt Sauce. Those with a sweet tooth will delight in desserts including Rhubarb and Custard Trifle; Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake; and Cherry and Almond Crumble.

"The recipes I write come from my life, my home," says Nigella, and in Cook, Eat, Repeat she reveals the rhythms and rituals of her kitchen through recipes that make the most of her favorite ingredients, with inspiration for family dinners, vegan feasts, and solo suppers, as well as new ideas for cooking during the holidays."

Can I just say the number one thing I love about this book is that we don't have the horrid British cover stateside? I mean seriously, as a graphic designer and type enthusiast it drove me insane.

Cook, Eat, Repeat
Ingredients, Recipes, and Stories
by Nigella Lawson
Ecco
You Are Auto-Approved
Biographies & Memoirs | Cooking, Food & Wine | Nonfiction (Adult)
Pub Date 20 Apr 2021 | Archive Date 15 Jun 2021

I love a good cookbook and I love a good story and this book is one of those! I watch Nigella Lawson on TV but I hadn't seen any of her cookbooks. I really enjoyed this one. Thanks to ECCO and Netgalley for the chance to read this. This book would be enjoyable for anyone who enjoys Biographies, Memoirs, and cooking.

5 star

I love a good cookbook and I love a good story, and the two come together in Cook, Eat, Repeat by Nigella Lawson. Like her previous books, the cookbook contains really good (and well tested) recipes. I think she has a gift for writing and storytelling, and this book is no exception to her talents, and she makes talking about a simple recipe seem much more important that feeding people. Her chapter What is a Recipe? is a wonderful read. Lawson’s recipes are long and full of detail and I love the process of how she cooks.