The recipes, to the extent that they can be categorized at all, range from Southern comfort foods to a broad mix of ethnic dishes, including Indian, Thai, Italian, Jewish, Cambodian, etc. There is a section on "All-Day Breakfasts" (since no one has time for breakfast at the start of the day anymore), rainy-day dishes, party food, trash food (refer to above comments on prepackaged foods and think deep-fried Mounds candy bars), dishes to help a hangover seem less dire, and — if it's possible — everything in between. The full-scale entertaining menus at the back of the book are innovative and appealing and absolutely tempting, and Nigella Lawson makes you believe you can actually pull off a dinner for 12 without resorting to pulling out your hair.

If you're a fan of Lawson, you'll surely find the pages and pages of text charming. If you're new to the cooking diva, you may find it excessively chatty. We're somewhere in the middle, but it does seem to us that Lawson occasionally tries too hard to be clever or cool or witty or sensual, or whatever her devil-may-care goal is. Still, amid the sameness that afflicts too many cookbooks these days, Nigella Bites stands out as unique and in full possession of that indefinable quality of personality.