Olivia "Livvy" Potts is a British food writer and caterer. [1] [2] [3]
She grew up in Newcastle and studied English at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. [4] During her time at Cambridge she was president of the Cambridge Union. [4] She then studied law at City, University of London [5] and was called to the bar in 2011, practising criminal law for five years. [1]
Soon after Potts had qualified as a barrister, her mother died suddenly aged 54. Potts found that cooking, especially baking, helped her to cope with her loss, and took this further by enrolling for a nine-month pâtisserie diploma course at Le Cordon Bleu in London. She wrote about this part of her life in a memoir, A Half Baked Idea, which was published in 2020, [6] [7] and won the Debut Book section of the Fortnum & Mason Food and Drink Awards. She won the Guild of Food Writers award for Food Writing in 2020, for her writing in Slightly Foxed , The Guardian , Grazia , The Spectator and Glamour . [8] Her second book, Butter, a cookery book, appeared in 2022; [9] [10] Nigella Lawson said of it that Potts "explains, educates, inspires, and writes like an angel with devilish wit". [11]
She writes on food for publications including The Spectator [12] and North-West England website Confidentials.com. [13]
On 27 February 2023, Potts was a guest on BBC Radio 4's The Museum of Curiosity . [14] Her hypothetical donation to this imaginary museum was a jar of marmalade.
Potts lives with her husband and child in the west of Greater Manchester. [13]