On Tue, 3 Jun 2008 14:22:11 -0500, "jmcquown" >
wrote:


>The idea of mise en place freaks my mom out a little bit. I like to do
>vegetable prep early. So I'd be in the kitchen at 2PM and she kept saying,
>"It's not dinner time yet, why are you doing that now?" LOL I find it
>works better if I go ahead and (for example) mince the onion, dice the
>tomatoes, grate the zucchini ahead of time. It's portioned, in the fridge
>and ready to go. I assemble everything else I'll need by the stove/oven.
>Then when it's time to cook, it's all there. It definitely makes cleanup
>easier
>
>Jill
>

And it definitely saves on the angst of being in the middle of cooking
a particular thing, and finding out you don't have such and such
ingredient, or utensil, or pot, or whatever.

I have learned to read through a recipe thoroughly and go see if I
have all the ingredients, before I even start. And then I start
chopping, measuring, etc. I even measure out liquids, spices, dry
ingredients... If I find that I have only a certain amount of an
ingredient, I can decide beforehand if I want to go ahead with that
particular recipe, or substitute, and not get in a panic in the middle
of the recipe when I find that I am out of something or only have a
tiny bit.

I have a drawer full of glass bowls of all sizes and some larger ones
that double as glass salad bowls. I got most of those at Dollar Tree:
they come in little packages of about 3-4/$1.

Anthony Bourdain, in his Les Halles Cookbook stresses this ad
nauseam...the "meez", as he calls it.

It has taken me a long time to get to this point, but it really pays
off in cooking, whether it be a stirfry, or a stew, or baking, or some
other type of cooking.

And if it is done right, with everything measured out, and "in it's
place", it does make cleanup a lot easier.

Again, I don't always do it, but I find that my cooking goes much more
smoothly if I do..and the place is neater. My goal is to do it every
time, and to wipe down my space between each prep.

Christine