Why star chef Nigella Lawson calls the microwave ‘you know what’

Celebrity chef Nigella Lawson, who three years ago mispronounced “microwave” as “mee-krow-wah-vay” on an episode of her cooking show, has addressed the infamous yet viral incident.

The British chef, 63, was explaining the steps on how to make brown butter colcannon when the interesting pronunciation slipped from her mouth.

“I still need a bit of milk, full fat, that I’ve warmed in the mee-krow-wah-vay,” she said in the clip, which quickly caused an uproar on social media.

“I wasn’t quite aware I’d said it because that’s what I call it at home,” Lawson said in an episode of BBC Breakfast, which aired on Christmas, reports people.com.

At the time, people were debating if Lawson really pronounces “microwave” that way, so the chef clarified that she does but “not because I think that’s how it’s actually pronounced.”

Now, Lawson said the whole ordeal has changed the way she pronounces the word again.

“It’s made me quite self-conscious. I tend to refer to it as the ‘you know what’ now,” she said.

Despite some critics, she said that many supporters got in touch with her saying that they relate to her silly mishap.

“And what’s quite interesting is that a lot of people got in touch with me to tell me what their family mispronunciations are because so many families do have that,” she explained.

“They mispronounce a word either because a child in the family could never say it properly and that’s become part of their family language or just because they make jokes and they stick.”

In 2021, Lawson told People she understood why some viewers thought she was serious about the pronunciation.

“I did it with a straight face, I suppose,” she said.