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Mise en place (me's on plas) means setting things in their place. It's a technique I've started to use in the kitchen, but I've found it's applicable well beyond the kitchen.
If you watch a cooking show from Everyday Cooking with Jaques Pepin and The Rachel Ray Show to the Tasty YouTube channel, you'll see little glass and ceramic bowls full of chopped veggies and spices. This isn't just a convenience for TV cooking; if you eat at a restaurant with an open kitchen you'll see these little bowls with single ingredients. It may seem neurotic to prep all the ingredients in neat little aliquots before turning on a burner, but it avoids several cooking pitfalls: the accidental four course meal, the scramble to chop garlic while onions burn, and the dreaded salt-for-sugar substitution.
Preparing for a meal using mise en place streamlines the actual cooking process and makes the part that matters - usually the application of heat - less prone to error. In my kitchen, I've occasionally served a side dish fully 20 minutes before the main while waiting for 4 quarts of water to boil. I've burned onions only to add garlic that itself only gets warm, never breaking down into those garlicky flavor compounds. Worst of all, I've entered the Total Meal Failure (TMF) spiral. While waiting for risotto to cook and thicken, I've paused to cut asparagus. For those of you who haven't made a risotto, while not stirring, the bottom will be burning onto the blazing hot base of the pan. The burnt flavor then infects the whole dish. That risotto had to be tossed. If the asparagus had been cut beforehand, the risotto could have been saved.
Setting out the ingredients beforehand is a way to minimize decisions and hurries in the heat of the moment. A recipe I made today said "Add scallions, nutmeg, sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 3/4 teaspoon pepper, and minced sage; cook, stirring occasionally, until scallions are softened, about 3 minutes." Since I had done my mise en place, that instruction meant tipping a little glass bowl into the pan and stirring for a few minutes until I needed to add broth. If I hadn't prepared my bowl beforehand, I'd have 3 minutes to go outside to collect sage, chop a shallot, and fiddle with measuring spoons to get my salt, pepper, nutmeg, and sugar measured. I have to say it - that's a recipe for disaster.
Most people do some form of mise en place during common kitchen tasks. When making a sandwich, the assembly is usually done after all the toppings are collected from drawers, countertops and fridge shelves. When making a stir fry, which cooks quickly, all the ingredients are often at hand. Most kitchens have staples easily accessible - salt, pepper, maybe oils, bacon fat, or butter. All kitchens I've seen have easily accessible utensils like spatulas and wooden spoons. Moving outside the kitchen, many nearly-universal tasks are recognizable as mise en place: organizing Legos before a build, packing for vacation by setting things on the bed, laying out clothes the night before an interview. Each of these is a way of off-loading decision-making from stressful or hurried times to when things are relatively calm. You certainly can pick out your clothes in the morning before a 9am job interview, but you'll be splitting your attention between remembering that list of three things you innovated on the job in 2015 and making sure your socks match. It's easier to make some decisions the night before, during the relative calm.
"Why are the keys not on the hook? I didn't realize we were out of oatmeal... I have a lot to carry, I should chuck it in a bag. Where is the bag? I can't leave the door open or the cat will get out... I'm going to miss the bus."One. Damn. Thing. After. Another. In cooking, this may manifest in a ruined dish, but a morning crowded with rushed decisions can ruin a day. Hurried packing can lead to a ruined vacation. Everything in its place; mise en place. If your morning is going to be rushed, off-load as many decisions as you can to the night before. What's for breakfast? What are you wearing? What do you need to bring? These decisions don't need to be remembered in the moment. You can lay things together so you just need to bring everything in that pile you made last night, or my favorite, making a checklist the night before? Is everything on the checklist checked? Leave. You've got everything.
To broaden this idea one final step, the core idea behind mise en place is helpful beyond moving physical objects on your countertop or in your house. Each of the following three examples is a bit of a stretch, but I believe the sentiment still applies.
1) I try to live by the Kant-ian categorical imperative to never lie. It's an ideal, and I fall short occasionally, but it keeps my life so much easier to manage in the long run. Everything is in its place. If I'm asked something, I answer honestly, and because I have done this for many years now, I only ever have to compare my answer with reality, never some version of it. If I tell a friend that I love their acting, but acknowledge to a third party that I think they're no good, I've filled a can labeled "salt" with sugar and stuck it in the pantry of my life. I now need to remember that that can contains sugar, not salt. When I'm asked later on if I like my friends acting, I need to figure out what to say. I need to figure out which reality to represent - the one in which I like their acting, and the one in which it's rubbish. Which can of salt do I grab? Lying creates a cluttered cupboard, and keeping things in their place means I always grab the right thing - everything labeled "salt" is filled with salt because I'm only ever comparing what I say against reality.1
2) Browsing around on Netflix or Amazon Prime can occasionally lead to discovering a good show, though I've often found that recommendations from friends are far likelier to resonate. Making a decision in the moment while browsing means you're likely to be swayed one way or the other by factors like the autoplaying trailer or show thumbnail, which can be misleading and end up wasting your time and attention. Applying mise en place, you can have shows lined up, ready to watch when you find yourself searching for a show. If a friend recommends a show or movie off a steaming site, you can add it to the service's watchlist. When you want a new show, that list will guarantee two things: you've heard enough about the show to warrant checking it out, and you'll have someone to talk to about it.
3) Most people prep for meetings unless they're hyper-qualified and ludicrously competent at their jobs. You have some questions to ask and some things to offer. This prep work makes the meeting less stressful, and allows you to think on your feet, knowing some of the bases are covered. I've prepped for conversations like meetings. I noticed a while ago that conversations catching up with old friends have often had a certain characteristic. When asked "what's new?" I often mention recent things that are relatively mundane in the scheme of the time they're asking about, but since they're recent, they are on my mind.
"What have you been up to?"
"Been baking bread. It's nice because I can eat it before heading off to a grad school class and it fills me up before I can cook a good dinner."
"Wait, you're in grad school?!"
Before catching up, I put a few 'ingredients' in bowls, knowing we'll get to those topics. Important things going on in my life I want to share, and important things in theirs I want to know about. Knowing I'll have these bases covered means I can listen and engage with what they're saying rather than planning on how to talk about x, y, or z. Mise en place; having a few ingredient bowls ready to go, to flavor the conversation.
This last example illustrates one last thing about mise en place. It's helpful to reduce decision making to the relative 'calm before the storm' of a stressful or hurried task, but its best application to reduce decision making and increase engagement when a task is meaningful.
Cheers,
- Scott
Email list:
1: Always telling the truth comes with some hard conversations. I once received a gift I knew I wasn't going to use, and after two years finally fessed up and said that I didn't need it. It turns out that the gift itself was a regift, so I sent it along on its journey to a spot where it gets used at least once a week. The hard conversation can be difficult, but it often leads to more genuine interactions, and occasionally a better outcome than the alternative. Another 'white lie2' that is easy to fall into is the 'everlasting compliment.' Always saying exclusively positive things when asked for feedback may lead to short term happiness, but I find that giving honest feedback, even when negative, has one huge advantage - when the feedback is positive, they are certain you mean it. That authenticity goes a long way.
2: I ask people all the time to come up with scenarios in which 'white lies' are either harmless or lead to a better outcome than telling the truth, and I haven't yet found one where a lie is truly the better alternative. Fight me.
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