Breakfast with the Beauties

A Bi-National Breakfast

 

Courtesy of television, I had breakfast this morning with two remarkable ladies representing two of my favorite countries—Brazil and England.

 

Serving the coffee was Ana Maria Braga, sort of the Brazilian Martha Stewart but much more beautiful and charming and with no known criminal record. Her guest was Nigella Lawson, a remarkable English beauty not previously known to me. The two chatted away in their respective languages with the critical assistance of an unseen, but highly talented interpreter.

 

The thread that connects these two is a love of cooking about which each has written books, which they did not hesitate to flog at the end of the show. Flogging books is an exercise with which I am very familiar and Ana Maria and Nigella did it well.

 

I was struck by the physicality of both host and guest. Ana Maria Braga is an icon of Brazilian TV and her show Mais Voce (which I’m told means, More You, a clever audience-orientated title) has been popular for a very long time. She is a tribute to the efficacy of self-discipline and the cosmetic arts. She is also a heroic cancer survivor. A permanent fixture on her TV set is a photo, not taken yesterday, which puts one in mind of Catherine Deneuve at her patrician best. Imagine my reaction when a neighbor who had dealings with her described Ana Maria as “short, ugly, and arrogant.” I don’t believe a word of it.

 

As I said, the very English (I could hear her native voice through the translation) Nigella Lawson was a case of first impression for me, but quite an impression it was. My first assessment was that she looked more Brazilian than did Ana Maria. The dark brown eyes, the brown hair tinged with that particular touch of copper that is so common here, the ample mouth fronting a dazzling dental display, and a complexion that survived the severest close-up scrutiny, probably arranged by Ana Maria. All of this was swaddled in a tight-fitting wrap that made no apologies for her hyper-curvaceous corpus. Lawson admitted to being in her early fifties, which was two decades more than I would have guessed.

 

The final touch was Nigella’s shoes. Brazilian shoe designers have a unique flair. When I was teaching ESL in San Diego, the head of the school, who spoke American English without a touch of foreign influence, wore shoes that were incredibly beautiful. I later learned that she was born and raised in Brazil. Nigella Lawson’s shoes featured stacked heels, platform soles, and ankle straps. Carmen Miranda meets Joan Crawford. Had I not sworn off the word, I’d say awesome.

 

In short, Ms. Lawson was more in the mold of Sophia Loren than Deborah Kerr.

 

As a final tribute to her host country, Nigella Lawson whipped up some swoon-producing chocolate-banana cupcakes. Bananas are quite well known here in Brazil.