When I studied catering one of the instructors used to say, "Doctors bury their mistakes, caterers cover them up with frosting." "Mis en place" was drilled into our heads but do I always do it? Of course not! I think the most mistakes are made when doubling or halving recipes and not putting the right amounts of ingredients in. One mistake I made recently was when I was baking cookies that called for raisins, chocolate chips and toasted slivered almonds. The cookies are so yummy that I doubled the recipe (which would make 80+ cookies). I found a bag of toasted slivered almonds in my freezer and was so happy to cut out one step. But after baking all the cookies and tasting one I discovered that my slivered almonds were a mixture of toasted slivered almonds and toasted garlic (which I sometimes make and keep to sprinkle on salads). Have you ever tasted garlic-flavored chocolate chip/raisin cookies? Blech! It all went into the garbage!

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