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Nigella Lawson won't cook a Christmas Day turkey for the first year ever

Nigella's Cook, Eat, Repeat - Picture Shows: Steak with Anchovy Elixir. Nigella Lawson - (BBC - Photographer: Jay Brookes)
Nigella Lawson is saying no to Christmas turkey for 2020. (Jay Brookes)

Nigella Lawson has said she will not cook a Christmas turkey this year for the first time in many years, because it would be too sad to try to recreate her usual traditions.

The TV cook usually roasts a turkey for her family’s festive lunch, but with the whole country facing tough restrictions in a bid to stop the spread of coronavirus, she has decided to break with tradition and go for pork instead.

Explaining her reasons for shaking up the menu, she told the BBC’s Newscast podcast that she didn’t want to “feel what’s missing” with absent loved ones around her table.

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Lawson, 60, said: “For the first time ever, I am not going to do a turkey – and I always do. I'm doing pork.

"It's not going to be a normal family Christmas, therefore I think I will feel less sad doing something that is just a lovely lunch, that takes in a few Christmas traditions from elsewhere that interest me, but [does] not... make me feel what's missing."

Nigella Lawson will not cook a turkey this Christmas (Anne-Marie Jackson/Toronto Star via Getty Images)
Nigella Lawson will not cook a turkey this Christmas. (Anne-Marie Jackson/Toronto Star via Getty Images)

She said she thought having such a different Christmas this year would make many people realise that the most important thing is sharing a festive meal with other people, not worrying about whether each dish is perfect.

However, despite missing people at Christmas, Lawson admitted that she had coped very well with a year of social distancing.

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She said: "I haven't been lonely once. I have been very happy. I'm almost afraid to say it as it makes me sound pathologically unsociable, but I've rather enjoyed it."

Lawson hit the headlines earlier this year when her “recipe” for perfect toast aired on her cooking show Cook, Eat, Repeat, which involved buttering each slice twice.

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