Seeds Of Hope

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On our day trip to visit Kiwi chef-to-the-stars Amber Rose, we’re warned that the road down to the cottage she’s living in is very steep. And it’s no exaggeration. Our Auckland-only off-road vehicle groans as it nervously heads down, and at one stage starts beeping frantically for no reason. But we make it, and the pay-off is immense. Close to the Leigh wharf, there’s a little inlet with a small white cottage, where Amber lives. To add to this of-the-past feeling, four days before our photo shoot, a tree fell onto the lines that service the cottage and the power is still out. Oh and there’s a hulking storm hanging over us, periodically battering the French doors with rain and hail. And it’s about six degrees.

But soon, Amber, who is unfazed by such conditions, having grown up on a 160ha farm in Kaiwaka, has a fire roaring in the hearth and the cottage is warm and cosy. It’s small but beautifully decorated with evidence of a life lived well both here and abroad: a velvet throw from London; a colourful blanket from when she and her eldest child lived in India. Jars of preserved lemon and cauliflower line the kitchen. Behind a velvet curtain is the master bedroom, its whitewashed floors and walls dominated by a bath and a giant four-poster bed in lilac velvet that once belonged to the upmarket Auckland hotel Mollies. “Beyoncé slept on that bed,” Amber says offhandedly.