About the Cookbook Blogger

My name is Debbie Reynolds, and I LOVE to cook and eat! I didn't always know how to cook, but I have always love to eat! I grew up in a family where my Mom was always cooking great home made meals for our family, and entertaining family and friends, but I never learned how to cook until after I got married.

When I got married someone gave me a Betty Crocker cookbook for my bridal shower and I learned how to cook from that cookbook. To this day I ALWAYS give a cookbook to brides for their bridal showers.

I was a stay at home wife, and once we had children, a stay at home Mom. We were pretty broke when we first got married and our grocery budget was $5.00 per week for the two of us. Needless to say we didn't eat gourmet meals back then! We got government food boxes once a month which consisted of dried pinto beans, rice, powdered milk, blocks of American cheese (like Velveeta I remember thinking), canned shredded pork, and lard. There was probably a little bit more in there but I can't remember, it's been so long ago. I'd get the grocery ads for the week and find out what was on sale and plan out my menu for the week according to what was on sale and what I could create around those items. I lived in Arizona at the time and learned to make tortillas and Mexican food, and you could really stretch your food on that $5.00 per week. I remember eating a lot of burritos and beans.

Little by little as our grocery budget would grow I'd splurge and buy different ingredients and experiment with the recipes in that Betty Crocker cookbook. I discovered then how much I loved cooking and trying new recipes, and trying to be creative and change up the recipes in the cookbook.

My Betty Crocker cookbook is quite worn out, the binding is gone, pages have stuck together and torn, but it's still in my pantry and I still refer back to that cookbook from time to time. My cookbook collection has also grown to several hundred cookbooks over the years (to my husband's dismay). Not only do I collect cookbooks, but I have boxes of cooking magazines as well. I just can't help myself. I flip through cookbooks whenever I'm at the grocery store or Sam's Club or Wal-Mart, and if I see several recipes in a cookbook that I want to try I get the cookbook or magazine. My family give me a hard time about how many cookbooks and magazines I have and I swear I'm going to use them all (at least some recipes in each cookbook) over the course of my lifetime.

Several years ago we bought a Bed and Breakfast Inn, Rocky Mountain Lodge & Cabins, in Cascade, Colorado, and I have the wonderful opportunity of cooking for our many guests. We serve a gourmet 3-course breakfast to our guests each morning. I enjoy finding new recipes and trying out new foods on our guests. I love to serve breakfasts that you don't make at home every day. My philosophy is you're on vacation, you're my guest, and I'm going to spoil you, starting with breakfast!

I often look through my cookbooks and watch TV cooking shows to get new ideas. I've been inspired lately to start using my cookbooks more. There's no way I'll be able to go through every recipe in every cookbook, so I'm just going to pick one cookbook at a time and start cooking my way through them.

The first decision was to decide which of the hundreds of cookbooks I have I want to start with. I went into my pantry this morning and glanced through some of the titles and decided to go with THE BEST OF COOKING LIGHT. There are lots of other cookbooks I could have chosen, but I figured if I'm going to be cooking on a regular basis again I shouldn't start with a cookbook that would cause us to gain tons of weight right off the bat. And I think a gym membership is in the plans as well.

We're empty nesters now and I don't always cook everyday for just my hubby and myself. I'll cook breakfast for the B&B guests, and by the time dinner time rolls around I've had a busy day and I'm pooped and don't have the energy for cooking a nice home made fancy dinner.

However, I'm going to get back to my planning menus days (I do plan breakfast menus for the B&B) and start cooking some good dinners, salads, lunches, desserts, etc. There are breakfast and dessert recipes that I'm sure will make their way to the B&B for our guests to enjoy as well.

Now, off to the grocery store... first dishes will be made tomorrow.