161008 - Cooking with Louisa

This week starts a series of blog posts by our own Louisa. Louisa graduated from the Culinary Institute of America and enjoys bottomless mimosas, bacon and knitting. She'll be blogging about ways to be more efficient and effective in the kitchen and provide recipes and instruction to help folks do more at home!

Mise en Place

There’s a concept in professional and home kitchens alike called “mise en place,” meaning, basically, a place for everything and everything in its place. This is about having your components (recipe, ingredients, tools, etc.) organized and ready to go before you start cooking. It is also applied to mental acuity, making sure your mind is in the game and you’re constantly anticipating your next step.

It’s frustrating to start cooking or baking and realize halfway in that you don’t have the right size pan, or you added things too soon, or you don’t have some random spice that you don’t usually buy. OR, the absolute worst in my experience, you didn’t notice the instruction “let rest overnight.” That’s a killer and has put the kibosh on many a culinary plan in my past.

Sometimes we overcook or burn things; sometimes recipes just don’t turn out the way we’d like. But if you truly own the variables that you can control, right from the get go, a lot of little pitfalls along the way can be avoided. “Mise en place” can be applied in the gym as well, and makes a big difference. Read through the entire workout; collect your equipment; ask questions before 3-2-1 Go; organize your space and your brain, taking a few extra minutes to set yourself up for success. It seems small, but these small things sometimes make all the difference.