SUCH strange things one discovers while watching a cookery show. If it’s not the ever more elaborate gadgets or ingredients (how do you pronounce quinoa?), it’s the hitherto hidden aspects of the presenter. Take Nigella Lawson. Who knew that the Aphrodite with a mezzaluna was from Glesga?

We were part way through Nigella: At My Table (BBC2, Monday, 8.30pm), when everything stopped for a declaration. “There are two rules in life,” purred the domestic tigress. “One, everything is better between two slices of bread. Two: everything is better when it’s deep fried.” Half expecting the director to cut to a shot of Nigella pulling a shift at the Blue Lagoon, it was a teensy bit disappointing to segue instead into a recipe for Coconut Shrimp with Turmeric Yogurt.

Having not been around Nigella’s table for a while it’s good to see that some things have not changed, like the mics being turned up to 11 whenever our hostess is mixing something. With all the schlurping and slapping going on you might think, with eyes closed, that you were watching something else entirely. Like a documentary on hippos, maybe. What were you thinking?

Despite her Weegie soul, Nigella is proper posh, like the folk in Howards End (BBC1, Sunday, 9pm). The opening episode of the Sunday night dressing up box drama was exhausting, with the Schlegel family in London and the Wilcoxs at Howards End in a tizzy over an engagement that never was. This was followed by a fit of the vapours over a “stolen” umbrella. With Kenneth Lonergan, the Oscar-winning writer of Gangs of New York, adapting EM Forster, the piece is as beautifully written as one might expect. But as ever with Forster, Austen and their ilk, there is a fine line between delightful loquaciousness and irritating wittering. On the evidence of last Sunday, even Lonergan will have to watch his step.

Crimewatch might have gone to the retirement home for old lags, but never fear, Scot Squad (BBC1, Wednesday, 10.40pm) is back. The comedy that is the best PR for the real-life (and not so amusing) Police Scotland that money cannot buy, wheeled out the old characters and added a few new ones. Of these, I like the look of the two female detectives, one of whom, being able to understand pure Glaswegian, has the nickname “bam whisperer”. Otherwise, it was a hit and miss of an opener. Scot Squad is at a difficult age. It’s so beloved it now comes burdened by expectations. If it even halfway meets them we’ll cheer it to the rafters. If it doesn’t … But that’s Scotland for you.

Love, Lies and Records (BBC1, Thursday, 9pm) is the new drama from Kay Mellor, which means wall to wall strong women. Plucky female number one was registrar Kate Dickenson, played by our own Ashley Jensen. Between suspected human trafficking and competition for a management position, it was all go among the hatches, matches and despatches of Leeds.

Just when you thought Mellor had rather overdone the sentimentality with a storyline about a dying bride, she tore off Kate’s halo and set her up for a fight with colleague-with-a-grudge Judy (Rebecca Front) that is bound to end in snot and tears. Oh goodie.

Gone to Pot: American Road Trip (ITV, Monday, 9pm) had the bright idea of investigating the legalisation of marijuana in the US, where the fastest growing customer demographic is the over 50s taking it for assorted aches, pains and more serious conditions. Alas, since it’s illegal to experiment on normal people, the programme had the not so original idea of enlisting five celebs to be guinea pigs. So less a thoughtful documentary of the kind the subject is crying out for, and more “I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Off My Face.”

Courtesy of Christopher Biggins and former darts player Bobby George we learned, among other things, that it is never wise to eat too much food laced with pot, as the effects take hours to kick in. “It’s like 100 seasicks and 100 hangovers at once,” said George between bouts of vomiting. Lovely.

California looked dreamy and stuffed with fabulous hotels, save for the joint where the gang rocked up one night. “It’s like the Simon Bates motel,” said Linda “Birds of a Fevver” Robson. Other unforgettable sights include Pam St Clement (“Pat, Pat” Butcher from EastEnders) puffing on a bong. Next week, the hardiest investigators since the Scooby Doo crew tickle the underbelly of the subject with a look at drug crime. Biggins, Pat and Bobby George on the war on drugs. You don’t have to be on something to take this show seriously, but it probably helps.