Beth Hensperger , a New Jersey native who has lived in California since her teens, has been educating, writing, and demo-lecturing about the art of baking for over 30 years. In the last few years, she has shifted focus to countertop appliance-driven cookbooks that embrace adapting traditional and professional recipes for the home cook: the bread machine, the rice cooker, the microwave, and a four-volume compilation specifically for use with the electric slow cooker, stressing personal creativity in preparation and selection of ingredients. Hensperger is the author of over 22 cookbooks, including the best-selling Not Your Mother's series, which includes: Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Recipes for Two, Not Your Mother's Microwave Cookbook , Not Your Mother's Fondue , Not Your Mother's Casseroles Revised and Expanded Edition , and Not Your Mother's Make-Ahead and Freeze Cookbook Revised and Expanded Edition , along with the blockbuster first volume, Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook . Her other books include highly-acclaimed titles such as The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook and The Ultimate Rice Cooker Cookbook . She is also the author of The Bread Bible (Chronicle Books), winner of a James Beard Award in 2000. She has twice been nominated for the Julia Child/IACP Cookbook Award. Hensperger wrote a San Jose Mercury News food column for twelve years, Baking with the Seasons. She is a contributor to dozens of national and online cooking and lifestyle magazines, such as Food & Wine , Every Day with Rachael Ray magazine, Veggie Life , Cooking Light , Working Woman , Victoria , Prevention , and Family Circle , and is a sought-after newspaper and radio interviewee speaking on slow cooking, bread baking, and entertaining.

She lives in the San Francisco Bay area. Visit her website at bethhensperger.com and blog at notyourmotherscookbook.com.