I am a writer, broadcaster, and food anthropologist with fingers in several pies! As a single parent living off the beaten track in the Scottish highlands it is the only way to survive. In the media, I have been dubbed ‘The Original Spice Girl’ and ‘World Food Expert’ but really I’m simply a hospitable hermit! I love to live a little bit wild but I also love to share what I have. I spent my childhood in East Africa and my teenage years in Scotland, followed by a Cordon Bleu Diploma in London and a degree in Social Anthropology from Edinburgh University. After working and travelling in Europe, Turkey, the Middle East, North America, India, Southeast Asia, and vast chunks of Africa as an English teacher, journalist, and food and travel writer, I returned to the Scottish Highlands. Here, in a remote part of the Cairngorms National Park I have gradually turned a ruined croft into a home where, snowbound in winter with a 3 mile cross-country ski to and from the car to bring in supplies, I have raised my children on my own. Abridged from Ms Basan's website