Recipe Rock Star #2: Mise will change your life.

Entremet mise en place at Tabla

This is lesson #2. Missed lesson #1? It's back here.

Recipe Rock Star Lesson #2:
Mise will change your cooking. And maybe your life.

In my experience, professional cooks populating the high-end kitchens of America love to butcher the French language. It's how we poke the 800 lb gorilla.

You see, back in the day, it was the great French chefs — Escoffier in particular — who codified, modernized and organized the professional kitchen. Yes, Escoffier elevated the trade from random gangs of drunken knife-wielding degenerates roaming the kitchen to orderly lines of drunken knife-wielding degenerates working quietly at fixed stations with swanky French titles. Titles such as "Garde Manger," "Sous-chef," "Saucier" and "Grilliardin" which deteriorate into bastardizations like GM, Sous and Grill.

With a little imagination, the interested amateur can probably parse the original Frenchy intent of the titles. It may not be so easy to determine why cooks are so worried about their mise (meez), a word that sounds more like baby talk or nonsense than what it really is: the most important thing at a cook's station.

Mise is pidgin kitchen-French for "Mise en Place" (MEEZ ahn plahs), a phrase that literally means "setting in place," and philosophically means that everything is in its place and you, the cook, are locked, loaded and ready to rock.

The knives are sharp. The cast-iron pans are seasoned. The oven is preheated. The recipe is firmly implanted in the mind. Tongs are twitching. Ingredients are diced, sliced, blanched, caramelized, grated, marinated and whatever else they need to be in order to make the food happen. Everything is easily accessible in tidy, convenient containers. You are organized — physically and mentally — and there is no way in which you could be more ready for what you're about to do.

This, friends, is the concept of "mise en place." I watched far too many episodes of The A-Team as a child, so the vision of mise in my mind always returned to siege preparations that crack commando unit made three-quarters of the way into every episode. For you, inspiration may be different. Rachel Ray's organized set-up on 30 Minute Meals or mental reel of Rocky Balboa training to the tune of "Eye of the Tiger," perhaps.

The most important thing in attaining "mise" is thinking about how to make your own kitchen station as ready as possible before you begin a recipe. Are the tongs at hand? The colander? Invest in a set of small bowls or custard cups so you can place everything within easy reach.

If you have to dig for herbs at the bottom of the fridge and chop them in a hurry while the dish simmers away on the stove, you're far more likely to wreck the meal or chop off your fingers.

Once you're ace at "mise," you'll find it makes your whole life easier. Mise your bathroom. Mise your workout. Mise your desk. Mise your DIY projects. A little upfront mise makes you better at anything you do.

Thanks, Escoffier. Thanks for the mise.

In the next Recipe Rock Star lesson, we'll see why it's important to conjure visions of Plato while grocery shopping. Meanwhile, happy cooking!