When Jim Caudill's first wife sat him down and explained that she wanted a divorce, she had a long list of complaints: He didn't help enough with the kids. He didn't do his share of the housework. They were more devoted to work than to each other.

Then she brought up the English muffins. "She said, 'You never butter them to the edges, you just pat it in the middle,'" says Mr. Caudill, a 59-year-old winery marketing representative in Santa Rosa, Calif.

Mr....