Nigel Slater (born 9 April 1958)is a British food writer, journalist and broadcaster. He has written a column for The Observer Magazine for over a decade and is the principal writer for the Observer Food Monthly supplement. Prior to this, Slater was food writer for Marie Claire for five years. He also serves as art director for his books.
Slater was born in in Wolverhampton, England. Although best known for uncomplicated, comfort food recipes presented in early bestselling books such as The 30-Minute Cook and Real Cooking, as well as his engaging, memoir-like columns for The Observer, Slater became known to a wider audience with the publication of Toast: The Story of A Boy's Hunger, a moving and award-winning autobiography focused on his love of food, his childhood, his family relationships (his mother died of asthma when he was nine), and his burgeoning sexuality. Slater has called it "the most intimate memoir that any food person has ever written". AfterElton.com - Interview with Nigel Slater (page 2) Toast was published in Britain in October 2004 and became a bestseller after it was featured on the Richard & Judy Book Club. Richard & Judy As he told The Observer, "The last bit of the book is very foody. But that is how it was. Towards the end I finally get rid of these two people in my life I did not like [his father and stepmother, who had been the family's cleaning lady]—and to be honest I was really very jubilant—and thereafter all I wanted to do was cook.
In 1998 Slater hosted the Channel 4 series Nigel Slater's Real Food Show. He returned to TV in 2006 hosting the chat/food show A Taste of My Life for BBC One and BBC Two. BBC - Food - TV and radio In 2009 he presented the six part series Simple Suppers on BBC One.
His book, Eating for England: The Delights & Eccentricities of the British at Table (Fourth Estate), is devoted to English food and cookery. It was published in October 2007 and was described in The Times as "the sort of ragbag of choice culinary morsels that would pass the time nicely on a train journey".
His latest book Tender is the story of his vegetable garden, how it came to be and what grows in it. The book is to published in two volumes - the first on vegetables was released late in 2009, the second on fruit will be released in 2010. Tender is described as a memoir, a study of fifty of our favourite vegetables, fruits and nuts and a collection of over five hundred recipes.
He has been a guest "castaway" on the BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs.
Slater has two older brothers, Adrian and John. John was the child of a neighbour, and was adopted by Slater's parents before the writer was born. Barnes & Noble.com - Books: Toast, by Nigel Slater, Hardcover
He lives in the Highbury area of North London, where he maintains a kitchen garden which often features in his column.
The Kitchen Diaries, Fourth Estate Ltd, (ISBN 0-00-719948-1, 2005) or Gotham Books, published by Penguin (USA) Inc., (ISBN 1-592-40234-8), October 2006
