Renowned Chinese chef and food writer, Jen Lin-Liu was raised in north America and is a graduate of Columbia Univeristy. Moving to China in 2000, initially on a Fulbright fellowship, she then became a food critic for Time Out Beijing and co-authored a guide book to Beijing.

She then went on to found Black Sesame Kitchen, a Beijing cooking school and was the author of On the Noodle Road: From Beijing to Rome with Love and Pasta; a history of the noodle (and the dumpling!) along the ancient Silk Road which she researched from China right through Central Asia, Iran, Turkey and eventually Italy. The book deals with a mosaic of cultures across the continent and confronts gender divides in the deeply conservative countries of Central Asia and the Middle East.

As well as running the Black Sesame Kitchen she has writtin about food, culture and travel extensively.