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Nigella Lawson's Favorite Things

The Food-Network star, and author of Nigella Express
shares her vices, tools, and pick-me-ups.

A.M. Fix: Lawson's morning ritual: Two cups of English breakfast tea with skim milk. She sips them "before and during making the kids' breakfast, and before I have mine."

Food Staples

To give her dishes a quick punch of flavor, she uses high-impact ingredients like garlic-infused olive oil and sun-dried tomatoes in oil, which she calls "disconcertingly good."

Roasted Garlic Reserve olive oil, $18,
Temecula Olive Oil

Fave Gift: She jokes that the best holiday presents for little kids are gift wrap and boxes. "I don't feel children should be limited to these, of course, but I love the way the presents become relatively immaterial and they spend hours playing with wrapping."

Beauty Tools

The onetime beauty writer relies on a couple of key products to create her trademark dramatic eyes: Chanel eyeliner and Kevyn Aucoin's eyebrow pencil.

Le Crayon Yeux in Teak, $28, Chanel
Precision brow pencil, $24, Neiman Marcus

Cookbook

"I didn't get into cookbooks until later in life, but when I stumbled onto Entertaining all'Italiana[now out of print], by Anna Del Conte, Britain's answer to Marcella Hazan, I felt inspired."

The Gastronomy of Italy (Del Conte's newest book), $50, Barnes & Noble

Uniform

Her fashion formula is simple—keep it monochromatic: On the weekend, it's "black, Katharine Hepburn–style wide-leg pants, a black Gap T-shirt, and black Puma sneakers."

Suede sneakers, $65, Puma

Go-to Dish: "My favorite recipes are nonrecipes," says Lawson, who is currently obsessed with "roast chicken, and then the leftovers made into a salad with crunchy lettuce, avocado, and pomegranate seeds."