Olivia Potts

Author / Journalist

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Agent: Zoe Ross

Zoe Ross

zross@unitedagents.co.uk

Assistant: Olivia Davies

odavies@unitedagents.co.uk

Books

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Olivia is a barrister turned writer and cook. She grew up in Newcastle before reading English at Cambridge. She was elected the twenty-second female president of the Cambridge Union in 2008, and was called to the bar in 2011. She won the Arden Scholarship, and practised as a criminal barrister for five years.

Now, Olivia spends her time writing and cooking. She is The Spectator’s Vintage Chef, and writes about law and popular culture in the New Statesman.

In September 2017 she won the Young British Foodies Fresh Voices In Food Writing Award, and in April 2019 she was shortlisted for the Fortnum & Mason Cookery Writer of the Year Award. She is the winner of the 2020 Fortnum & Mason Debut of the Year Award and the 2020 Guild of Food Writers Food Writer of the Year Award.

Her memoir is currently in development for TV drama.

Current publication:

BUTTER: A CELEBRATION - Headline - 15th September 2022

The Times 'Best Cookery Books of 2022'

A Celebration is a joyous immersion in all things butter, revelling in its alchemical power to transform almost any dish, from good to transcendent.

Award-winning food writer Olivia Potts takes us on a grand tour of butter and its many varied applications, from old school chicken Kiev to millefeuille, from oysters Rockefeller to Iranian tahdig. This is a book to be savoured for its wonderful writing, as well as for its irresistible recipes and expert introduction to patisserie, too. Full of history, anecdotes and, of course, delicious recipes resplendent with butter, it includes:

*Turkish eggs with yoghurt and chill butter
*Butter-basted rib eye steak
*Steamed artichoke with anchovy butter
*Grilled kippers with horseradish butter
*Buttermilk pancakes
*Sticky gingerbread
*French salted butter biscuits
*Brioche feuilletée
*Damson plum crumble

Praise:

This is, quite frankly, my dream book. Buttery bliss from cover to cover.-- Nigella Lawson

The last word on butter. Everyone who cooks needs this book. -- Diana Henry

A love letter to the household staple. ― Stylist

An uplifting tribute to the singular power of butter to elevate any dish, whether basted onto juicy grilled scallops or drizzled over brioche. ― Harper’s Bazaar

Olivia's book walks through the fundamentals of cooking with butter . . . then ventures into recipes and techniques to bring the best out of butter and transform your cooking. ― BBC Good Food

Butter is a mighty subject and Olivia Potts knows more than a thing or two about it. This kind of book can be daunting for both author and reader - there's so much to cover - but Potts has been masterful in her choice of recipes and the techniques she focuses on. Her voice is warm, never dry or instructional. As she stands by your side in the kitchen, she makes even the most complicated buttery confection seem possible. If you've always wanted to get to grips with butter - to understand how it works - this book is essential. I'll be working my way through it. -- Diana Henry ― Telegralph

Praise for A HALF-BAKED IDEA - Fig Tree - 2019

'Potts's memoir is many things at once: a heart-wrenching yet humorous portrayal of grief, a delicious collection of recipes, an inspirational tale of changing careers, and a feel-good love story.' - Vogue

'This is a heart-warming book about death and new beginnings that will delight cake lovers; it manages to be moving, funny and mouth-watering in equal measure – a difficult literary confection to master.' - The Guardian

'Wit and warmth on every page... a book of courage and consolation.' - Laura Freeman, The Times

‘An utterly beautiful, moving, bitter-sweet book on love and loss. I loved it.’ - Dolly Alderton

‘I loved it so much. It’s funny, sharp, sad and full of clear observations about food. I laughed so much (and I cried)’ -Ella Risbridger, author of Midnight Chicken

'A brilliant, brave and beautiful book: funny and charming; utterly inspiring and life-affirming' - Olivia Sudjic

'An honest, brave and funny account of what it is to love, to lose love and how to make macarons' - Red Magazine

Non-Fiction

Publication Details	Notes
2019 Fig Tree	At the moment her mother died, Olivia Potts was baking a cake, badly. She was trying to impress the man who would later become her husband. So she ate the cake, completely unaware that, 275 miles away, her mother was dying. Afterwards, grief pushed Olivia into the kitchen. She came home from her job as a criminal barrister miserable and tired, and baked soda bread, pizza, and chocolate banana cake. Her cakes sank and her custard curdled. But she found comfort in jams and solace in pies, and what began as a distraction from grief became a way of building a life outside grief, a way of surviving, and making sense of her life without her mum. And so she concocted a plan: she would begin a newer, happier life, filled with fewer magistrates and more macaroons. She left the bar and enrolled on the Diplôme de Pâtisserie at Le Cordon Bleu, plunging headfirst into the eccentric world of patisserie, with all its challenges, frustrations and culinary rewards - and a mind-boggling array of knives to boot. Interspersed with recipes ranging from passionfruit pavlova to her mother's shepherd's pie, this is a heart-breaking, hilarious, life-affirming memoir about dealing with grief, falling in love and learning how to bake a really, really good cake.

Publication Details

Notes

2019

Fig Tree

At the moment her mother died, Olivia Potts was baking a cake, badly. She was trying to impress the man who would later become her husband. So she ate the cake, completely unaware that, 275 miles away, her mother was dying.

Afterwards, grief pushed Olivia into the kitchen. She came home from her job as a criminal barrister miserable and tired, and baked soda bread, pizza, and chocolate banana cake. Her cakes sank and her custard curdled. But she found comfort in jams and solace in pies, and what began as a distraction from grief became a way of building a life outside grief, a way of surviving, and making sense of her life without her mum.

And so she concocted a plan: she would begin a newer, happier life, filled with fewer magistrates and more macaroons. She left the bar and enrolled on the Diplôme de Pâtisserie at Le Cordon Bleu, plunging headfirst into the eccentric world of patisserie, with all its challenges, frustrations and culinary rewards - and a mind-boggling array of knives to boot.

Interspersed with recipes ranging from passionfruit pavlova to her mother's shepherd's pie, this is a heart-breaking, hilarious, life-affirming memoir about dealing with grief, falling in love and learning how to bake a really, really good cake.