welcome...to mise en place...
This blog was originally called "food porn". That name was inspired by my friend Carol who once used that term to describe my cooking. Well, not excatly my cooking alone...
You see, I cook. A lot. And sometimes with my friend Tom (see his link on this page). Carol is his s.o. and she commented once that Tom and I (as well as the other guys who cook with us) don't merely cook food, we create "food porn".
Nice compliment. Most of the time, I'd rather look at food than porn anyway.
However...after thinking about it, I decided having the name "porn" in the title was too easy and way too joke-y for a subject that I take great pride in. I thought at length what cooking terms are my favorites.
"Charcuterie" is my absolute favorite cooking term and indeed, making sausage and other items in that realm is one of my favorite things to do but I couldn't come up with something ultra clever using that word.
Then I flashed upon the one thing any chef ends up setting up when cooking: a "mise en place" (say 'meez-ahn-plass'). "Mise en place" is a French term for "put in place" and refers the various bits of starter, garnish, and often-used items while cooking. Mine often looks like olive oil, kosher salt, chopped shallot, garlic, black pepper (in a grinder of course) and other stuff to make my life easier when either prepping or cooking off a dish. It's stuuf that is either at my immediate left or right so that I can stay centered and in front of the task at hand...
So I had it. The writing here is a collection of items that are hopefully and ultimately useful to whoever is reading them. Hopefully, one of the "meeeez" you use will be this one. Cheers.