I've been cooking for a long time, and many of the kitchen practices I employed at the beginning of my culinary journey have gone by the wayside. I no longer cook pork chops to well done, I stopped putting oil in my pasta boiling water, I don't use glass cutting boards anymore, the list goes on. In all cases, I learned that what I was doing was at worst harmful (glass cutting boards on knives), ineffectual (adding oil to keep pasta from clumping), or based on outdated information (trichinosis is no longer a major health threat).

One-pan steak with potatoes, mushrooms, and asparagus from The Ultimate Meal-Prep Cookbook by America's Test Kitchen

The older I get, the fewer changes I make to established kitchen practices. We can debate why this is happening, but I like to think it's because I have landed on a really good method based on the most up-to-date scientific principles and/or after much trial and error. However, even after decades in the kitchen I can be convinced to learn new tricks. The most recent of those relates to preparing asparagus.

For years I followed the practice of snapping off the tough ends of asparagus spears, leaving only the more tender parts to roast or grill. Sometimes I would throw the cut ends into a pot of vegetable soup, but often then ended up in the compost or garbage can. I noticed that when I asked my husband to snap the spears they would end up shorter than when I did it. Despite this observation, I continued using this method. After learning about an allegedly better way to trim asparagus last year, I tried that method, which is a little more work but results in a lot less waste. Instead of bending and snapping (which can lead to inconsistent results and a lot of waste), I cut the spears about an inch from the bottom and peel the tough outside layer, exposing the tender core within.

I don't know if I first learned about this through America's Test Kitchen, but they do have an excellent article explaining why this works better. Why didn't I discover this years ago? This change illustrates the fact that even after cooking for more years than I care to admit, there is always room for me to grow in the kitchen. That is one reason I enjoy cooking and baking: there is always something new to learn.