Kylee Newton

This week’s conversation is with my dear friend Kylee Newton of Newton & Pott, (makers of gorgeous small batch preserves) and author of The Modern Preserver (a modern classic for home preservers). She was a photographic printmaker for Wolfgang Tillmans before discovering a talent for combining flavours in the most mouthwatering way - simple, well chosen ingredients introduced to each other and jarred for enjoyment at a later date. She has no formal culinary training, except a lifetime of cooking and tasting and a palate that needs no education. Like me she loves to teach and her straight forward Kiwi character makes her a joyfully unvarnished person (my favourite kind). I knew as soon as I met her that we would be friends and I feel as though I have known her forever. The result is a giggling catch up between two women who love to muck about, a celebration of Kylee’s Nan who raised eight children by herself and still found time to put a plate of freshly baked scones on the table for her 23 grandchildren. Kylee talks about her efforts to recreate the perfect scones of her childhood for her forthcoming book and how the process took her right back to basics, learning to bake by feel and not numbers.