Dr Angela Smith was invited to
give a paper at the second FoodKom seminar, held at the University of
Ljubljana, Slovenia, on 16-18 June. Her paper, 'Cooking to be Happy:
Simply Nigella and the rise of mindful cooking', explored how the
current trend in self-help therapy glossed as 'mindfulness' has recently
extended to cookery programmes. Through an exploration of Nigella
Lawson's cookery series in the UK (BBC November/December 2015) and its
associated cookery book, Angela suggests that mindfulness is actually
central to this show rather than its more peripheral place in others,
and that this is part of a growing trend for such self-help psychology.
