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 now a four-volume compilation specifically for use with the electric slow cooker, stressing personal creativity in preparation and selection of ingredients. Hensperger's writing career began when she was chosen as the guest cooking instructor for the March 1985 issue of Bon Appetit. Now she is the best-selling author of over 22 cookbooks, including the best-selling Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook series, which includes NYMSC Recipes for Entertaining, NYMSC Family Favorites, and NYMSC Recipes for Two, along with the blockbuster first volume, Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook. Also from The Harvard Common Press are The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook, The Ultimate Rice Cooker Cookbook, NYM Microwave Cookbook, and NYM Weeknight Cooking. 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 & lifestyle magazines, such as Food & Wine, 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 www.bethhensperger.com and weekly blog at www.notyourmotherscookbook.com .