recipes: general direction, or to the letter?

photo: deb roby

I was reading a post this am on serious eats about an upcoming cookbook which sounds interesting for those of us who often cook for meat eaters/lovers.  The Meat Lover's Meatless Cookbook: Vegetarian Recipes Carnivores Will Devour by  Kim O'Donnel.
In addition to the review of one of the recipes was the post-author's (Leslie Kelly) thoughts on recipes and how she'd recently been converted to following recipes to-the-letter when working as a professional cook. 
I know Jen always asks if i wrote down how i made something.  I mostly cook by feel (and taste, hopefully), baking excepted.  It works, most of the time, and most of the time i can reproduce what i've made.   I've only recently started thinking more about recipes and writing mine down.

What say you?  are you a recipe-follower or seat-of-pants cook?