Born into a home where caviar was more common than peanut butter and where her father, a famous surgeon, had pigeons flown in from Cairo for dinner, Clarissa Dickson Wright grew up surrounded by fine food.

In her salad days she practiced successfully as a barrister (that's a "lawyer" to Americans) for a number of years before settling on cooking as her true calling. She has cooked on a yacht in the Caribbean, served more than 60 meals a day at her own luncheon club in London and has had her own catering business, Clarissa's Company.

Well known in London where she ran a bookstore, Notting Hill's Books for Cooks, Clarissa took her talents north of the English border, establishing The Cooks Bookshop in Edinburgh, Scotland. Described by Henrietta Green, author of The Food Lovers' Guide to Britain (Parkwest, 1994), as "the world's leading authority on cookery books," Clarissa is always ready to give advice.

Clarissa also is an inspired writer and columnist for the British Decanter magazine and a regular contributor to British House & Garden. Larger than life in every dimension, she has become an English audience favorite on BBC Radio 4's Curious Cooks. She rode into fame in America in the sidecar of a motorcycle on Two Fat Ladies, which was co-hosted by the late Jennifer Paterson.