Blue Jean Chef

I am told that as a child, I would go grocery shopping with my mother and “tidy up” the store while she shopped. I would return misplaced or abandoned items to their rightful homes and make sure that all the labels were facing outwards for the customer to see properly. Had my mother [...]

I am told that as a child, I would go grocery shopping with my mother and “tidy up” the store while she shopped. I would return misplaced or abandoned items to their rightful homes and make sure that all the labels were facing outwards for the customer to see properly. Had my mother been a little more entrepreneurial, she might have rented me out, for there are companies who actually pay people to do such work for their product, and clearly, I had talent. Instead, she just kept moving up and down the aisles while I made sure that everything in her wake was in order.

I’m quite sure this little childhood story comes as no surprise to those who know me now. Given my somewhat “overly organized” personality, it is entirely believable. I can live in someone else’s mess for a little while, but in my own world, I like things to be where they are supposed to be. After all, if whatever you’re looking for is in the right place, it is easier to take the next step in doing whatever you happen to be doing that involves whatever it is you’re looking for, no? For instance, if your keys are on the hook right near the door, it is easier to leave the house and lock the door behind you – you don’t need to stop and spend time looking for your keys.

In my overly organized fashion, I like to apply this concept to almost every aspect of my life, and cooking is no exception. Indeed, when cooking professionally on a line, organization is critical. Without structure, the whole kitchen would fall apart. The restaurant line is only as good as its weakest link, and with emotions as raw as they can be in a restaurant kitchen, you do not want to be the weakest link.

At home, preparing the evening meal is usually a solo performance. In most cases there’s no-one else working with you, relying on your effort in order to pull the meal together. Consequently, the home cook should feel a little more relaxed. Why then, do so many people feel stressed out about making dinner, especially when entertaining? The most common answer to this is timing. The home cook has to prepare all parts of a meal themselves, and needs to time those different components to be ready simultaneously. Therein lies the challenge. But more than that, the home cook wants all parts of the meal finished pronto, with no time put into them at all.

So, how can one make timing the meal easier and reduce the stress on the cook? I’d like to argue that being organized is the first step. Mise en place is something that every professional, and many home cooks, understand. It translates from French as “to put in place”, and refers to doing all your preparatory work before actually cooking – chopping what needs chopping, measuring what needs measuring, etc… It is a standard procedure in restaurants and commercial food settings, and for years has been something that I’ve preached to the home cook. Why? Well, it prepares you to cook, prevents last minute rushing and panicking, and facilitates timing parts of the meal. It simply makes the cooking process so much more enjoyable. At least… that’s what I think. But then, I enjoy cooking in general, and as previously stated, I thrive on organization.

But what about all those people for whom cooking at night is a chore, a burden? What about those people who like to fly by the seat of their pants and just get a meal on the table? Will doing their mise en place before they cook help them, relieve them of stress and allow them to enjoy the process? Having given this some thought, I think that unfortunately mise en place will only frustrate and add to their nightly burden, for despite the fact that the ingredients prepared for a meal can look delightful in little bowls or even little piles on a cutting board, the big drawback is that preparing mise en place definitely takes time. It is hard for me to accept this. It is difficult to think that not everyone in the world enjoys food preparation and eating the way I do.

In her latest cookbook, Sara’s Secrets for Weeknight Meals, Sara Moulton touches on this subject. In her introduction, she describes her disappointment in learning that most people these days seem to want to prepare dinner in fifteen minutes or less. “Fifteen minutes?!” she writes, “What’s the big rush? Cooking is fun. Cooking is therapeutic. Cooking is creative. Cooking concludes with a wonderful meal that brings the whole family together.” Still, she succumbs to her readers. This cookbook is a good compromise between someone who is truly a cook at heart, and the general hungry public. She provides 200 recipes that will satisfy your culinary creativity, but can be completed in thirty to forty-five minutes. In order to accomplish this, she’s done away with the concept of mise en place.

“Technique–wise, I’ve dispensed with what the French called mise en place … That’s a smart way to go for a restaurant chef, who has to cook hundreds of dishes to order on any given night. But it’s definitely not the fastest plan for a home cook, who can certainly wait to chop up the garlic and peppers while the onions are browning.”

Reluctantly, I guess I have to agree with Sara, but I’m not happy about it. I don’t want to get off my mise en place soap box. I often find the preparation of ingredients as enjoyable as the actual cooking, but I do understand that not everyone has the luxury of the time it takes to do this, and many would probably rather be watching Law & Order. AND, I have to shyly admit that I too, usually do my mise en place in stages, so as to be as efficient as possible (there’s that overly organized part of me again!). I’ll concur that on a weeknight, when cooking for the family, mise en place is probably not necessary, but I will remain true to the premise that if you want to reduce stress and facilitate timing when entertaining, advance preparation is essential and will ease your tension.

Having softened on my quest for universal kitchen readiness, I’ve created a compromise of my own. I’ve decided that I will now consider my pantry, my refrigerator, my overall food inventory, to be my mise en place. After all, if my cupboards are in order, and I know what lies behind their doors, I’m prepared to not only cook my meal, but do my grocery shopping, AND it leaves room for more creativity, knowing what is there to throw into a meal at the last minute. Not only that, but now I can browse through my pantry and return misplaced or abandoned items to their rightful homes and make sure that all the labels are facing outwards. You see how this works? Now I can satisfy not only my overly organized personality, but the child inside as well.