I am originally from York and it was there where I spent a happy childhood. I went to the local villiage school in Upper Poppleton and then studied at Queen Anne Grammer School. After "A" levels I went to do a Private Secretaries Certificate at Leeds College of Commerce. When I was 19 joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and in 1970 was posted to the British Embassy, Warsaw. From there I was posted to the British Embassy, Kabul. While working in kabul I met my husband, and Afghan engineer. We were married in 1972 in England and returned to Kabul where we lived until 1980. During this time I continued to work at the British Embassy for the Commercial Secretary

We had to leave Afghanistan in 1980 because of the Russian invasion and we came to live in England with our then 3 and a half year old son Alexander. We settled in Putney, London. In 1983 I decided to write an Afghan cookery book. I wanted to try to record Afghan cuisine with its rich and vaired cultural traditions before they became lost due to the war and the massive exodus of refugees to countries all over the world. Noshe Djan - Afghan Food and Cookery was the first published in 1986 by Prospect Books and was beautifully illustrated by Abdullah Breshna.

In the eraly 1990s I worked with Alan Davidson on The Oxford Companion to Food. This magnum opus was finally published by the Oxford University Press in 1999 to great acclaim. It was such a fantastic opportunuity for me to have worked on this book with Alan and I feel very proud and houred to have ben, in hs words, his co-pilot in completing the book.

Afgter the Companion was completed Alan and I worte a little book, a sort of frothy light dessert to the main course of the Companion, called Trifle. We had great fun writing this book together, testing recipes and enjoing the fruits of our labours.

After Trifle I went on to help Alan revise three regional seafood books: Mediterranean Seafood; North Atlantic Seafood; and Seafood of South-East Asia and these were republihed by Prospect Books in 200x, 200x and 2003. Also during this time I helped Alan edit the Anthology The Wilder Shores of Gastronomy published by Ten Speed Press, Berkely in 200x. This was also a fun project and we both enjoyed work on this tremendously

In 2003 Alan was awarded the pretigious Erasmus Prize in the Netherlands. In a way it was a kind of glorious farewell for shortly after enjoying a week in Amsterdam receiving the Prize presented by Prince Bernhard and Queen Beatrix, Alan died peacefully at home in Chelsea on 2 December.

I am now working on a new book about the Silk Road, I also continue to take an interest in Afghan affairs. My husband returned there after the fall of the Taliban to help with reconstruction at the beginning of 2002. I have visited Afghanistan three times since then and have recently become involved with a charity called Friends of Aschana. I would also like to mention a few other very worthy charities working in Afghanistan so that if you are interested you can visit their websites. AfghanAid, The Sandy Gall Limbless Fund, Khorasan and there are of course many others.