Here are the highlights from tomorrow’s Canvas magazine. Get your premium glossy weekend magazine in tomorrow’s Weekend Herald.
I rarely hold dinner parties these days - it's too daunting. All that food shopping, preparation, arranging flowers, pressing napkins, polishing cutlery and lining it up just so. Too much fuss and fluster. It's easier to meet friends for brunch.
But having read Greg Bruce's yarn with Nigella Lawson in this week's Canvas, I realise I've got it all wrong. Dinner guests don't really give a toss about your table setting. All they want is some good - even edible will do - food, nice wine and plenty of boisterous conversation. It's about the getting together, not the ironed table linen.
Behold the luscious Nigella! Messy and somewhat disorganised in the kitchen, she admits to the odd disaster and - here's the bit I love - plonks a pile of plates and canisters of cutlery on the dining table and lets the guests sort themselves out. Marvellous. Nigella's also shared three recipes from her new book, Simply Nigella, including the slow-cooked black-treacle ham she'll be taking to her sister's place for Christmas dinner.
Make sure you enter the competition for two tickets for an evening with Nigella at the Langham Hotel, Auckland, in January.
