Can the Nigella Lawson get jittery about doing it wrong while cooking? Well, she does! The oomphy British food show host shares little-known things about herself –– and a lot about Italian food –– with t2 as her new series Nigellissima starts airing on TLC (at 10 pm on weekdays).

You are not a trained chef. Haven’t you faced problems because of that?

Cooking is something that has been going on for centuries. Great chefs are not threatened by me. They think ‘She’s like my mom, my sister, my wife and that’s how she cooks’. But I can see that those who haven’t got great confidence with the talent might feel threatened by someone who hasn’t got any qualifications. My point is you don’t need qualification to get into the kitchen. Otherwise human beings would have fallen out of the evolutionary loop! Cooking need not be held at ransom by professionals.

Do you think this lack of training helps the viewer identify with you and gain confidence about cooking?

You are right. I don’t have enough training to remain necessarily calm from beginning to end. I’d say on TV: ‘Don’t worry if everything looks runny at this stage. By the time I finish, it would thicken up and be the right consistency.’ If I had received training, I’d never worry about it. So my concerns as I cook echo those of my viewers. I often feel slightly worried that I’d make a mistake and I have to make it right somehow. So I cook in a natural, accident-prone way in a context not dissimilar to that of my viewers.

People have less and less time to cook at home yet cookbooks remain on best-seller lists. Having written quite a few, how do you explain this trend?

A lot of people watch food TV as they want to be inspired to cook. Other people watch food TV instead of cooking. It’s the same with books. Everyone is looking for answers and books provide them. You can get inspiration from food books. I want to show people how it’s not that difficult. A good percentage of the dishes in each programme you can watch and then go cook something based on it, without having the recipe around. Sometimes you just need a little push to feel: ‘Oh yes, I can do that. May be I don’t have courgettes but I have broccoli and cauliflower to go with the pasta.’ What my show does is give people the tools within their own kitchen rather than making them feel that a recipe is gospel etched in stone.

Having been a judge on Iron Chef, Top Chef and Masterchef, would you want to be in a situation where cooking is time-bound?

Cooking at home also has to be time-bound, especially if you have teenagers at home. Recently I also judged a big American cooking show called The Taste. It was complicated and fascinating. I don’t believe cooking is a competitive sport. I’d certainly never be brave enough to compete as I’d be sick with nerves. But as a writer, I always wished I could write under exam conditions, shut in a room for three hours. The adrenaline makes you perform better. I like pottering in the kitchen. I don’t want my kitchen to be a high-octane adrenaline base. Often I get into the kitchen to escape stress.

Do your children Cosima and Bruno have any interest in cooking?

They do, indeed. Cosima is 19, Bruno is 16, and I have a step-daughter Phoebe, who is 18. All of them show an interest in cooking and absolutely no interest in washing up!

You had mentioned in an earlier interview with t2 that Italian food takes less time and suits today’s lifestyle. Is that why you chose to do a whole show around it?

It was a factor in cementing that decision. But Italy is so central in my life. I always write autobiographically. I always wanted to write my Italian book. On top of that, as my children are getting older, I realise that these recipes are those that they would want to cook themselves. Also, the older they get, I realise they will leave home soon. So I want to fill a book with all their favourite food. They say: ‘Mom, it’s your best book so far.’ I don’t know if that is true but they are very sweet about it. (Laughs) It’s a story of my youth and a compilation of the food I feed my children. It’s the first time I had a single theme as a series in culinary terms. Even though the ingredients, like spices, were more limited than I use in the other series, I never felt bored.

How would Nigellissima be different?

This show is not about traditional Italian food. It is a kind of a personal journey. I went to live in Italy in the gap year between school and university and I’ve been back pretty much every year since. And it’s also about how I can bring the Italian spirit and feel and taste into my own kitchen, and showing how simple and straightforward Italian food can be. Some of the recipes are traditional Italian. For some I have taken inspiration from certain key ingredients or flavours and let myself go free with them.

How important was Italy in your formative years?

I learnt how to speak Italian, cook Italian and be Italian (laughs). So Italy has been important to me emotionally, linguistically, culinarily. In my shows Italian food plays quite a part anyway. This one is more head-on, in a funny way. It is more about inspiration than a traditional run-through of the Italian canon.

To most Indians, Italian food starts with pizza and ends with pasta. What would you tell them?

I wouldn’t cook a straightforward pizza at home, not having a proper pizza oven. But pasta is wonderful. Yes, there is a lot more to Italian food. I feel Italians cook vegetables particularly well. It’s a country which for hundreds of years had protein, which necessarily develops with vegetables. I wouldn’t say they invented it as that would mean a whole lot of ingredients which Italian cooking doesn’t use. Italian ice cream is also celebrated. They do it with machines. I have my way of making that in a much simpler way.

What kind of twists are you putting into the dishes?

There are some things I have made up, like Mock Mash. There’s a very classical recipe called Gnocchi alla Romana which is made with semolina, parmesan and eggs. You cook that, let it get cold, cut shapes out and bake it again with more cheese and tomato sauce. I thought, ‘Why don’t we do it the first time itself when you mix the eggs?’ It tastes somewhat like sweet mashed potatoes, although there’s parmesan as well. It takes a few minutes.

There’s a recipe for Tuscan fries, not French fries, as they have the wonderful herbs of Tuscany. Everything I do is adjusting for the home kitchen, without thinking of how it would be made in an Italian restaurant in Rome.

The Kitchen Goddess

During the end of the premiere episode of The Taste (on ABC, 2013), which also features Anthony Bourdain, she quipped: “I might be a bit longer. I think they want to change my underwear. Just to warn you” to Bourdain’s question, “A slash and a smoke?”

She is never shy of her curves. She refused to have her “tummy” digitally touched-up for the promo of The Taste.

Nigella doesn’t like weepy women around offices.

In 2011, she took the title Kitchen Goddess to a new level by appearing on the cover of Stylist, eyes shut as caramel sauce trickled down her face.

Anytime finds in Nigella’s refrigerator:

Egg, parmesan, lots of lemon, bacon, fresh herbs, parsley and coriander, and whatever is in season.