Slate article on cookbook recipe times

Didn't see this article posted yet, and thought folks might be interested in it. It's on the accuracy, or lack thereof, on given recipe times: http://www.slate.com/id/2275108/

I agree these times are often pure crap, and I never pay attention to them.

There are so many different factors involved. The size of your kitchen. Whether you set out and measure all your ingredients ahead of time or gather them as needed. How fast you are at prep stages. Whether you wash up as you go along or save it till the end. Whether you're scrupulous about removing every speck of potato peel or more slapdash. How accurate your stove is. I know, for example, that most stovetop recipes will take me more time than the recipe says, because I have cast-iron burners.

A friend of mine just complained that his leg of lamb took twice as long to roast as Julia Child's recipe said it would. All I could think is that either he had a bigger leg of lamb or this oven's thermostat is off.

My first thought as I read it was whether the recipes include the mise prep time. For example, if the ingredient list says "1 onion, small dice" they start the clock from there (not counting the time it took to get the onion to that state.) It was kind of fuzzy on that but, obviously, that would account for some pretty significant discrepancies in the preparation time.

On a side note, I used a recipe last week for my small household food exchange entry that called for 3 days of prep (!!) Needless to say, that got cut down by a third and I can't imagine it would have made any difference in the final result.