They’re the only married couple on the new season of MKR New Zealand and it’s no exaggeration to say that a passion for food is what brought them together. But when Bay of Plenty pair Vikki Gorton-Tibbits and Pascal Tibbits first met, neither of them was expecting to fall in love.
“I was in my mid-forties and single again,” Pascal tells Woman’s Day. “I thought I’d be happy if I met a nice person to have companionship, then wham! I met Vikki and it was pretty intense. I was like a teenager in love. She’s a more cautious person, so it took her a bit longer, but I knew I just needed to give her time.”
In some ways, it’s surprising they didn’t bump into each other earlier. Both work in the same industry – Vikki as an interior designer, and Pascal as a landscape and architectural designer – and at one point, they lived within a couple of blocks of each other in Auckland, and even took their kids to the same park.
“But it wasn’t until we both moved down here that we finally met,” says Vikki, 40. “Pascal came into work to discuss a project with me, then he came back a couple of days later to discuss it again, then a third time, which was when he asked me out for coffee.”
With kids (from left) Sabine, Elijah, Alex and Charlie.
Straight away, they found a connection in their shared obsession with good food.
Pascal, 50, smiles, “We had a couple of dinners and we started to compete, trying to outcook each other. It was our wooing language.”
Fast-forward six years and the pair are now married, having tied the knot just three days before New Zealand’s first COVID lockdown at their Te Puna lifestyle block, with Vikki overhauling their home especially for the wedding.
“I’m a recidivist renovator,” she confesses. “I even sanded, prepped and painted the entire exterior of our house in my summer break so it looked perfect before we got married at our property.”
Although they insist the place isn’t huge, they share their home with their blended family – Vikki has an 11-year-old daughter named Sabine, while Pascal has three teenage sons, Elijah, 18, Alex, 17, and Charlie,13 – which means that life can get chaotic.
“I’m a focused person and don’t like distractions,” admits Pascal. “I can get a bit tetchy when I’ve got all this noise around me, like yelling and playfighting in the lounge while I’m trying to cook. But this hubbub of noise and fun is bloody awesome.”
Nods Vikki, “Yes, we wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Pascal loves to cook Italian-style food and describes his cooking style as “flamboyant”, while Vikki’s forte is Asian fusion and she’s a more precise, tidier cook. Often the couple will experiment with new dishes when cooking for their family.
Vikki laughs, “Just before we went on the show, when we were practising, the kids said, ‘Can we just have meat and veg please? Just give us a Bolognese or a sausage casserole!'”
For her, it’s been a long-held ambition to appear on MKR. “I’ve never been brave enough to do it on my own, but now I’ve got Pascal by my side. Also, this year, I turned 40 and it’s my year to do new things. I thought the show was going to be either a good experience or a learning experience – and it was both.”
Pascal and Vikki wooed each other with fancy dishes.
Vikki admits she missed the advertisements calling for contestants for the latest series and nearly didn’t make the deadline, shooting a last-minute video entry while driving to Auckland. When filming started, her husband earned a reputation for speaking his mind when critiquing dishes cooked by fellow contestants.
“Anyone who knows me will know that when I speak, it goes from brain to mouth without any filter,” explains Pascal. “I’m passionate about food and get very involved in drilling down into what I’m tasting, so there’s nothing I’ve said that I regret.
It was true. And I wasn’t criticising contestants – I was critiquing the food.”
Now filming has finished, Pascal and Vikki have a new challenge on their hands. Pascal also has a passion for theatre, in particular William Shakespeare. In fact, he has a quote from the play Hamlet tattooed on his chest: This above all, to thine own self be true.
The founders of Summer Shakespeare Tauranga, the couple are now planning an outdoor production of The Tempest at the amphitheatre in Te Puna Quarry Park in February, with Pascal as the director and Vikki as producer.
Meanwhile, though they confess they haven’t formed close bonds with any of their MKR co-stars, there has been some socialising post-filming. “The whole group has had several catch-ups,” reveals Vikki.
And despite the stress of competitive cooking, they have no regrets about taking part in the show. “We loved the process,” insists Pascal. “In actual fact, the main thing we’ve realised is how much we’d like to do it again!”
MKR NZ screens 7.30pm Mondays & Tuesdays on TVNZ 2.
