My upbringing, as with most contemporary Americans, left me with absolutely no cooking skills, and no confidence in the kitchen. After feeling too long I was missing out on something, I set out to learn to cook and build my confidence around 5 years ago. I found C.I. invaluable in the beginning, like each issue came with a pair of training wheels, pads, and a helmet. I believe it took me as far as it could in a year, which was probably about halfway towards my goal. It was only after that year I began to feel confident and experiment more, or follow other much less thorough recipes (which many foreign cookbooks or older cookbooks are full of, those 4 sentence recipes that assume you already know how to cook) with verve.
I canceled my subscription to the magazine then, but still subscribe to the website and find it to be a unique and useful quick reference if I'm about to buy a tool or appliance, or just can't remember a certain fool-proof technique