Now We’re Cookin’!
Once when I was working on a high school science experiment, the teacher, Mr. Lanier, yelled, “You’re just cookbooking it!” Now, I had never heard cookbook used as a verb, and wasn’t sure what he meant, but I knew from his tone that it wasn’t good. It seemed that I was being reprimanded for following the steps as laid out in the instructions. “Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do?” I thought.
I now believe that “cookbooking” is a good thing. Indeed, it’s the first step in a three step process I use in and out of the kitchen. It has helped me to prepare the roughly fifteen thousand (!) dinners I have cooked over my married life, as well as to manage work projects, plan home improvements, learn a second language, and generally keep my house and my life in control.
Step 1: Cookbooking, AKA Read the Recipe First
You must know what you’re going to do before you begin to cook a meal. This means reading recipes, not only to understand the ingredients, but the order in which you will add them, and the processes used. If the recipe calls for minced garlic or tells you to saute the onion until translucent, the time to google mincing or sauteing is before you start cooking, not halfway through the meal prep.
In creating a dinner, you can be juggling several dishes at once. Planning when you should do each step in each recipe is crucial in order to get all the dishes to the table at the same time and at the desired temperatures.
Reading the recipe means doing your research and planning your process. When I decided to start powerlifting, I researched the basics online and got an idea of what type of coaching I would need before I walked into a gym. Before I signed up for the Spanish language course I am currently taking online, I read a number of books and blogs, and watched a lot of videos about how to learn a second language as an adult.
Step 2: Mise en place
The French term, “mise en place” translates as “put in place”. In the kitchen, gather your ingredients; prepare them, e.g. measure, mince, grate; and put each ingredient handy to where you’re cooking. You can see examples of mise en place in every cooking show - the chef always has the ingredients prepared and measured, arranged in lovely little glass bowls ready to be added to the dish.
The benefits of mise en place are twofold. First, you collect all your ingredients, utensils, pots, and pans before you start to cook, so if you find that you are missing something, you have time to run to the store or think of a substitution before you’ve irreversibly committed. Second, having done all the preparatory chopping, grating, slicing and measuring makes the actual cooking smoother, more efficient, and less stressful.
When cleaning my house, I gather my cleaning supplies together first, in a bucket that I can carry from room to room. When I am ready to study Spanish, my desk is cleared of other projects, I have my notebook, pens, and reference books within reach, and the door to the room is closed, so I won’t be disturbed.
Step 3: Clean as You Go
Before I actually start cooking a meal, I first clear my sink of dirty dishes. I fill one side of the sink with hot, soapy water. As I cook, dirty utensils and bowls get a quick rinse and are tossed into the water. During down times, when I’m waiting for water to boil or something is roasting in the oven, I wash and rinse as many of the dirty dishes as I can. When the meal is done, I might only have the serving dishes and the dinner plates to wash.
Use “clean as you go” inside and outside the house. Bring in the mail and, rather than dropping it someplace to review later, run through it now, tossing the junk mail in the trash and opening and sorting bills and other important items. Leaving a room, take a quick look around and grab anything that isn’t where it belongs and put it away. When exiting your car, take any accumulated trash with you. When you’ve finished your morning hygiene routine, grab a rag or paper towel and do a quick swipe at the mirror, sink, and counters. It’s surprising how much neater your house will look.
So there it is, a simple three-step process to make your life easier. Put that in your cookbook, Mr. Lanier!