'WE'RE COOKING UP A SURPRISE!'

Double threat! The pair are bringing their individual special talents to the table

- Hayley McLarin

Wairarapa friends Manz Goodman and Jax Steventon have learned to have an agenda for their phone calls – and a strict time limit of only two hours a day – even though they often exceed that.

The contestants in the latest series of MKR New Zealand are only 10 minutes from the centre of Martinborough but in opposite directions. With poor cellphone coverage, they use their landlines, but it’s a toll call that costs money if they talk any more than 120 minutes.

You only need to spend 30 minutes with them, though, to truly understand the struggle – they will never run out of words.

“We both have a passion for food and gardening, and we’re forever coming up with ideas and doing projects,” says Jax, 56. “We bounce ideas off each other – that’s been the centre of our friendship – and our sense of humour.”

They met through work at the Martinborough Visitor Centre 23 years ago and Manz, 48, remembers sharing recipes and talking about what they’d be making. They’re now so in-tune, they will often unintentionally cook the same meals for their families on the same nights.

The pair hail from farming backgrounds – Manz lives on a goat farm with her husband of 20 years, Lindsey, and their three children, Emily, 18, Sam, 15, and Phoebe, 14, while Jax recently sold the family sheep and beef farm.