Category: Daily Life

Mise en place

Are you impressed with my French?  Don’t be. Not only do I not speak French, I stink at mise en place.  I watch many cooking shows.  In fact, I’m somewhat addicted to them.  I’ve heard Alton Brown and others preach mise en place.  But do I practice it? NO!!! For example, one day I started putting together a great Tuscan Bean Soup but dumped the onions in the oil to saute long before I had even retrieved the garlic from the cupboard or the carrots from the refrigerator.

I’ve been pondering this personal deficit for a while now and it truly baffles me. I’m a person who makes lists.  My daily schedule in on an Excel spreadsheet and I dutifully remove things as they are completed. Usually the tasks are even recorded in order. The list might include thawing meat for tomorrow’s dinner, or staging the items I plan to take to the office the next day.  So my mise en place failure isn’t an inability to plan ahead.

I’m not a terribly patient person though. I can look patient, but on the inside I’m usually quite the opposite. I do find it hard to wait for the things I want or the activities I want to do. I’ve learned to cope with it though, so I can generally stay within a financial or time budget.

After reading an article about mise en place I think I may have found the answer. Mise en place can also be about attitude. If I fail to prepare my attitude or thoughts, the behavior is more erratic. I think this could be a lesson that far transcends the kitchen.

If you have a pre-cooking attitude adjuster that works for you…..please share.

Human Kindness

Christmas CupcakesAlthough I had promised myself that things would be different this year, I found myself standing at UPS with packages to ship with less than an hour before the cost would rise substantially if I wanted them to arrive before Christmas. As you might imagine, the store was packed. To my right was a woman filling out the paperwork to ship a package to her daughter who is stationed in the Middle East for the United States Air Force. She mentioned it quietly but the person behind the counter repeated some of the information to verify accuracy, and another worker got involved while trying to expedite things.

Because the worker was also trying to take care of my three packages while helping the mother of our service member, there were several short periods where I needed to wait. Actually, I’m glad I did.

The man to my left was shipping something large, but finished his transaction quickly. Before he left, he handed money to the clerk and gestured that it was to help pay the cost of the shipping to the Middle East. Then he quietly left. He said nothing directly to the mother.

I was still waiting when the mother was given the total cost for her shipping, then the clerk advised her of the man’s generosity and deducted his gift from her total and shared with her the man’s statement of gratitude for her daughter’s service to our country. She cried. The sales clerk cried. I got a bit misty myself.

It is easy to bemoan the lack of civility and caring in society today but that would be a mistake. It is still there. There are still people who demonstrate human kindness. I’m now challenged that if I’m not seeing it in others, I need to act it out myself. I know that the rest of that day I was just a little happier, a little nicer, and a little more hopeful.