What Chelsea Did Next

This Christmas will be different for best-selling cookbook author Chelsea Winter, with the addition of her latest – and cutest – creation. The new mum tells Sharon Stephenson about how life has changed.

- Sharon Stephenson

For some, the festive season is full of pressure – what to buy, what to cook, how to avoid over-committing by agreeing to every invite that comes our way. Not so for beloved Kiwi cook and new mum Chelsea Winter. This has always been her favourite time of the year, and 2019 is set to be a magical one as Chelsea and her partner Douglas Renall spend their first Christmas together as a family.

First she’ll be heading to Karapiro, where her mother and step-father are based, for a large, loud, fun family gathering. “I love everything about Christmas but the older I get, the less important things like lots of presents are to me. In my family, we play the present game, where everyone has to contribute a mystery gift, and then you get a number and have to either pick one or steal one, which is always a bit outrageous.”

In the kitchen she’ll be making her popular fudgey truffles, pavlova and her famous kumara salad. She’s also thinking about whipping up the cheesecake and baked camembert she’s recently been testing for her new cookbook. “But whatever I make, it will be stressfree,” she insists.

The reason she’s opting out of chief cooking duties this year is because her time is mostly taken up with her latest and greatest creation: her four-month-old son Sky Leonardo.

“Christmas probably won’t mean anything to him, but it will be the first for our little family, which is exciting. I’m not sure what we’ll buy Sky, but I’ve been really conscious of not accumulating baby stuff just for the sake of it. We’ll look at getting him something he can keep, like a great book, rather than plastic toys.”