Barbara Swell began her baking career in Martinsburg, WV, on January 19th, 1962, when she whipped up her first batch of sugar cookies from her 4-H Club Pack-and-Snack cookbook. She is the author of a very popular series of historic cookbooks, including Log Cabin Cooking, Take Two and Butter 'Em While They're Hot, Secrets of the Great Old-Timey Cooks, The Lost Art of Pie Making, and others. Barbara lives in Asheville, NC, with her husband and their three children.

"A slender 65-page compendium of pioneer era recipes, Log Cabin Cooking by Barbara Swell also offers tips on hearth cooking, food insults, pioneer dining etiquette, kitchen provers, cake superstitions, jump rope rhymes, and "Biscuit Sayings". Readers will learn how to make a "squashaphone" and "Make-Do Cooking". Enhanced with period photography, the recipes in this little gem of a cookbook range from Sour Dough Bread, to Dandelion Salad, to Poor Man's Pudding, to Dried Sweet Apple Schnitz. " -Midwest Book Review