As I continue to write in the Food & Wisdom Diary, I'll be sharing the evolution of my cooking: how I came to be the cook that I am and how it intersects with my life.

To prepare for approximately 70 people coming to our engagement party this Saturday night, I've been baking cookies for the past month, freezing them as I go along. On Saturday I made the Chewy Molasses Cookies from the latest issue of Cooking Light.

Yes, the cookies turned out great but even greater was that this was the first time I made a batch of cookies that came out in the exact yield that the recipe called for. I doubled the batch and ended up with 48 cookies, double the 24 the recipe says.

Lately I've been finding that years of making mistakes and just plain cooking and baking are paying off: I'm able to make better decisions about changes to make and mistakes have taught me things not to do. And apparently I'm also able to judge exactly how big 1 1/2 tablespoons is when I bake.

Practice does finally make perfect.