We nearly always used packaged biscuits and pie crusts. After a continuous series of disasters with the crusts, we gave up and looked around for a good commercial brand. I really think that's the key - experimentation because there is so much to choose from out there.

One pseudo-mishap comes to mind, but it has nothing to do with baking:

Around 15 years ago, I gave my late father and The Bee-yotch (his wife) our recipe for pasta with tuna and olive sauce (I posted it in another thread in this forum). I mailed them the full instructions, and waited to hear how everything turned out.

After a couple of weeks, I still hadn't heard anything, so I called him and asked him what they thought of the tuna sauce recipe. He said it was terrible. I was shocked, to say the least. I asked him if they had followed my directions exactly, and he said they had. Then I asked him if there were problems with the spaghetti. "Spaghetti?" he replied. "Yeah," I said, "What happened with the spaghetti?" There was a silence on the other end of the phone, then he sheepishly confessed that they hadn't made any! He had forgotten all about that part. I gently reminded him that it was a sauce, meant to be served over pasta, and that they should try it once more, but the proper way. But, stubborn person that he was, he wouldn't do it.

After that, I gave up. I don't believe I ever sent him another recipe.

Signor V.

"For me, there's only my wife..."

"Sure I cook with wine - sometimes I even add it to the food!"

"When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies?"

"It was a grass harp... And we listened."

"Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? Every, every minute?"

"No. Saints and poets, maybe... they do some."