When I married, the only thing I knew how to cook was corn bread,” Paula Powell Beck said as we talked about the culinary skills she’s acquired during 54 years of marriage. “The first time I tried making gravy was a disaster; it turned out thick as pancakes, she said.

“I learned that there are no recipes for making gravy.”Soon after her 1956 wedding to Etowah High School sweetheart, Gary Beck, she was shopping at Snellgrove’s Drug Store in Gadsden when a bright red and white plaid cookbook caught her eye. Thumbing through the pages, she became intrigued upon reading a few recipes and the “how-to” information it contained.

Little did she realize then that she would be using that cookbook into the 21st century. The magazine Better Homes and Gardens had published the hardback book containing hundreds of recipes three years earlier. It quickly became a best-seller and, through several revisions, remains a staple in many American kitchens.

Paula laughed while telling how one of the book’s first recipes she attempted was the one for buttermilk biscuits. “Gary was accustomed to eating biscuits for breakfast every morning; I had never in my life cooked a biscuit, but BHG taught me how,” she said. The young bride soon learned to make pie crusts and meringue for the delicious recipes for coconut cream pie that all her family loves.

“I used the BHG Cookbook for counting calories, canning, freezing, making meatloaf, baking brownies, peanut butter cookies and finding out how long to cook a sweet potato,” she said. “The book taught me what to use as a substitute for buttermilk and the weights and measures section told me how many teaspoons are in a tablespoon.”