I can imagine that "just the recipe" is useful for very novice cooks, but most of the time it's much better to learn the patterns and techniques than to follow the precise recipe. You'll be much more prepared that way when things don't go to plan, or when you're missing a few ingredients.
And this may be unpopular here, but I often enjoy the "life story" too: for me, many of the joys of cooking are in the connections made to other people. And if the recipe writer wants to build a connection with the cook because they poured so much effort into the recipe, I'm open to that -- and whatever it may bring to the actual cooking.
(Maybe I should make a "just the code" browser extension for Github that deletes README files ;) )