Food & Travel Writer, Cookbook Author, TV Presenter of ‘The Woman Who Ate Scotland’, Gourmetcyclo Touring Speaker

Ask Nell Nelson what her hobbies are and her reply is Gourmetcyclo touring.

Edinburgh-born Nell Nelson has perfected and is perfecting her hobby of gourmetcyclo touring as the best way to see and discover a country and its cuisine.

Passionate about food and cycling, Nell has cycled and eaten in every country she has visited from Mexicos cactus-studded deserts to Pakistans snow-topped mountains. Her hobby has led to a fascinating career in food and travel writing, writing cookbooks and presenting her own very popular eight-part TV series The Woman Who Ate Scotland which was screened on STV in April May 2006 and was screened in August 2006 on UKTV Food Channel. Nell is currently working on the second eight-part series of The Woman Who Ate Scotland which will be broadcast in Spring 2007.

Nell graduated from St. Andrews University with an Honours Degree in English and Watford College with a Diploma in Copywriting. Working as a copywriter in London, she livened up the winter months by taking an evening class in Afro-Caribbean cookery. Based on her goat curry and rum punch knowledge, she reviewed Afro-Caribbean restaurants section for Time Out. She then honed her cooking skills in France, when she cut her ligament skiing and found herself a job as a one-legged chalet girl, where she cooked Cordon Bleu three-course meals for fifteen people.

Keen to discover the flavours of the Orient, Nell went to Hong Kong for a holiday in 1993 and ended up staying for ten years, working as a food and travel writer, editor and cookbook author. She wrote a weekly food column for the South China Morning Post documenting her recent eating experiences and published her first cookbook Eat Cook Hong Kong in December 2000. She was also Editor of Asian Home Gourmet food magazine and food editor for Hong Kong cookbook Cooking up a Dragon, published in December 2002 and food editor of The Mandarin Oriental Cookbook published in March 2003.

In May 2003, after 10 years of eating and drinking Hong Kong for a living, Nell decided to cycle from Hong Kong to Sydney, collecting recipes along the way to write a travelcookbook called The Woman Who Ate Asia It took her seven months to cycle 5,000 miles on her own, through nine countries, eating and discovering recipes such as Vietnamese spiced fish wrapped in banana leaves, Cambodian fried squid with fresh green peppercorns, Thai spicy hot green papaya salad, Malaysian banana fritters fried in coconut oil, Balinese spicy fruit salad and Australian banana bread and Pavlova.

Nell is a passionate engaging speaker who has an incredible knowledge of food from around the world not to mention country contours! She is also inspirational in terms that it only needs a belief in ones self to take on a challenge such as cycling 5,000 miles on ones own just dont look to closely into the mileage before you go otherwise youll never leave!

Why Hire Nell Nelson?