Ken Hom OBE (born May 3, 1949 in Tucson, Arizona, United States) with ancestry from Taishan, Guangdong is a notable Chinese American chef, author and British television-show presenter. In 2009 he was awarded by HM The Queen with an honorary OBE for ???services to culinary arts???. The OBE (Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) recognizes his achievements and the impressive social and historical impact he has made on the way the UK has ???adopted??? Chinese cuisine, which has now become one of the UK's favourites.

Hom was born in Tucson, Arizona, and raised in Chicago, Illinois, by his widowed mother, after his father died when Hom was eight months old. He went out to California to study History of Art from the University of California, Berkeley.

During this time he taught Italian cooking lessons at weekends to supplement his college fees. This led him on to teach Chinese cookery classes. In 1977 he was invited to join San Francisco's new California Culinary Academy as an instructor.

In 1982, the BBC were looking for a Chinese presenter and chef to do a series on Chinese cookery following the success of Madhur Jaffrey's Indian cookery series. Jaffrey had met Hom in New York and suggested BBC producers audition him.

The BBC then commissioned him to star in a new TV series on Chinese cooking named Ken Hom???s Chinese Cookery . The series was a success. The companion book became one of the best-selling cookbooks ever published by BBC Books, selling more than 1.2 million copies. As of 2008, the book remains in print.

Since 1986 Hom has had a base in Paris. In 1997 he settled permanently in south west France in a restored 13th century tower in Lot . Hom has also spent more time in his adopted homeland of Thailand since 2003.

Hom is an author of more than 20 cookbooks. Alongside his best known work on Chinese cuisine, his works also include topics on Cambodian , Malaysian , Thai , Singaporean , and Vietnamese cooking. He has worked as a consultant for hotels and restaurants and cooked personally for presidents, celebrities and royalty.

Hom also has his own range of cooking sauces, noodles and rice. These are available only in the UK.

Despite semi-retirement, he travels extensively worldwide and divides his time between France and Bangkok. In 2005, Hom was a contestant on a special Chef's edition of the BBC's The Weakest Link. He continues to make occasional radio and television appearances worldwide.

On 12 September 2007, Hom received an honorary doctorate from Oxford Brookes University, England in recognition of his "outstanding success within the international food world".

Hom was recently diagnosed with Prostate Cancer and has been receiving Radiation therapy in Japan.

• Ken Hom???s Chinese Cookery (1984)

• Hot Chefs (1992)

• Ken Hom???s Hot Wok (1996)

• Ken Hom???s Travels with a Wok (1998)

• Foolproof Chinese Cookery (2000)

• Take on the Takeaway (2007)

• Noodle Road ( KBS ) (2008)

• KenHom.com Try this link for Ken Homs website with a few delicious recipes. Also you can see an interview with Ken Hom.

• Ken Hom's Library at Oxford Brookes University contains all the books that he used throughout his career, with an emphasis on Asian cookery, including Chinese, Korean, Thai and Japanese, as well as memorabilia to do with his television shows and consulting work, including menus, invitations, photographs and artifacts. There