your goose is probably only half-baked at this point

An argument could be made that Mark Bittman taught me how to cook. First there's his cookbook How to Cook Everything,  which doesn't just have recipes in it, it has methods in it. For like, normal stuff -- the first thing I learnt to cook using this book was French toast. "Who would need a recipe for making French toast?" you might say, and the answer would be me. ME. I didn't know how to do it, Mark Bittman taught me how to do it, and everyone was a little bit happier because of it. Then there was his Youtube series "The Minimalist." In it, he taught me how to make really fancy-tasting meals without fancy ingredients or methods that could go awry in the blink of an eye, and that  played a large part in my confidence in my cooking skills increasing and my knowledge of cooking methods and flavor pairings increasing. I was sad when he retired until I found out that he was retiring to work in his garden, grill out, and play with his grandkids full-time.