Elizabeth Lambert was born 17 June 1915,[1] in Harrow on the Hill, Middlesex, United Kingdom, she was the middle child of three sisters.
[2] Lambert Ortiz moved to London in 1949, where she had intended to work as a journalist, but instead wrote a drama for the BBC before writing the novels The Sleeping House Party and Father Couldn't Juggle.
[1][3] She moved with her husband when he was posted to Mexico City, where she learnt to speak Spanish and about Mexican cuisine from her Ortiz Tinoco's extended family there.
[2] Lambert Ortiz travelled with her husband across Latin America and Asia during the 1960s, with her first cookbook, The Complete Book Of Mexican Cooking, published in 1967.
After her husband retired in 1980, they settled in Ealing, West London and her cookbooks began to be published in the UK as well as a book on nouvelle cuisine entitled A Taste Of Excellence in 1986.