breaths and are blown out of the water because of the length of my recipes, and as a result, I almost NEVER have to worry about them making what I've served! And the folks who do forge ahead typically tell me that their end result wasn't nearly as good as mine because so many people don't know the proper cooking/baking techniques anymore.
I got really tickled to read cheezz's recent tea comments regarding not getting consistent results even though several cooks were given the identical recipe. It is a nightmare trying to help troubleshoot something like that--believe me, I've tried helping friends and have ended up shooting a whole day because I basically had to give them a compound-complex cooking lesson! Kids are not taught the basics anymore when growing up at home like my mother taught me, my sister & brother.
It dawned on me again this morning when I read the recent test as posted by cyalexa2 on how to determine if bread/yeast dough has risen enough--I've known that tip since I was 10 years old because Mother made all our bread, hamburger & hotdog buns. I had an excellent role model in the kitchen.
Until coming to this site and/or reading Cooks Illustrated and/or taking cooking lessons as an adult, I oftentimes haven't known WHY I would do certain things the way I did when cooking, but only that it was because that is the way Mom or my grandmother had taught me.
Of course, I would have picked up the whys and wherefores much earlier if I'd only read the beginning pages in my myriad cookbooks instead of skipping those parts to get right to the recipes! lol.