Popular blogger helps viewers get food on the table

Li Ruowen demonstrates how to cook foods in her Amanda Tastes, a program that she posts on video-sharing websites.[Photo provided to China Daily]

During the recent Chinese New Year celebrations, many Chinese had the same dinner menu, as they followed a recipe and cooking direction from a video that taught them how to prepare a delicious celebration feast for their families, leisurely and just by themselves.

The video was an episode of Amanda Tastes, a Chinese-language cooking program on China's leading video-sharing websites, such as Youku and Tudou. It's also on YouTube with English subtitles.

Amanda, a young Chinese woman, demonstrates how to prepare and cook foods - and how to make meals good-looking and tasty.

Each episode of the program often gets hundreds of thousands of clicks. Some get millions. Many fans and followers say that they like to watch the program because Amanda makes cooking easy and enjoyable for them, even if they once considered cooking complicated and tiring - or if they just got cold feet in the kitchen.

Many fans would be surprised to learn that Amanda once trained to become a scientist.

Born in 1983 and named Li Ruowen, she earned her bachelor's degree in medicine from China's top-rated Peking University, and studied cognitive neurology for a master's degree at the prestigious University of York in England.

She was fascinated with cooking since childhood, and while living in England she found herself missing the flavors of home. So she learned to cook dishes she liked most.

In 2010, she started blogging about her cooking on Sina.com, and soon attracted a growing band of loyal fans, including many Chinese living abroad.