Born in Hong Kong to a Chinese mother and English father who had moved to China ?on a whim,? Mabbott ate spicy fishballs on sticks from street vendors for after-school snacks. On Sundays, her extended family gathered in restaurants for dim sum brunch, where her ?elder aunties would choose a braised chicken?s foot from the steamer for their bowl, only to suck all the skin off the bones and then delicately but deliberately spit all the bones out onto the tablecloth, chopsticks sometimes guiding the way.?
Mabbott chronicles these memories in the introduction to her first cookbook, ?Chinatown Kitchen,? the result of her efforts to cook what she never had the chance to learn from her Chinese grandmother, who discouraged children being in the kitchen. Mabbott?s family moved to the United Kingdom when she was 13; over time, she realized how much she missed the dishes of her childhood. In 2008 she started a blog, ?Hollow Legs,? her childhood nickname, to document her discoveries at Asian supermarkets and recipe research. She traveled to Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia, adding those flavors to her repertoire.
Lizzie Mabbott is available for corporate events, private shows, milestone celebrations (birthday, anniversary), fundraisers, festivals, and more.