mise-en-place

Mise en Place – misua what??! Haha! French people has a way of making a simple term so classy and sophisticated that you just want to keep saying it… 

At our sales rally yesterday, Jonathan Yabut (our speaker for the afternoon), spoke of his learning in the Apprentice Asia last 2013.

Apprentice Asia is a reality TV series with 12 candidates , all running for the spot to be hired by genius entrepreneur, Mr. Tony Fernandez. So think of this like the Executive Management Trainee Program level 10.0!

Jonathan is an excellent speaker and he had a lot of insights to share to the crowd… which impressed me and made me think about the next steps I aspire to take on for the year. He's also the one who introduced this sophisticated phrase to the crowd :)

Mise en place is a culinary term which means “everything in its (right) place.” If you're going to make taco salad, you have to first do the preps like chopping the onions, thawing and cooking the ground beef, peeling whatever (obvious na hindi ako nagluluto haha!) and placing them all like THIS:

Tadaaaaaaan!

So before you toss everything together, all these ingredients must be ready and within your reach. A taco salad is a much simpler dish to do, but what if you had to make kare-kare or paella? If you just start chopping and peeling at the same time you turn on the heat, then there's a higher chance that those onions will be burned, a few ingredients overcooked, while others --- you got that right -- undercooked! And what if you realized, at the last minute, that you missed to include a few but vital ingredients in your grocery list? 

The prep time is as important, if not more, than the cooking time.

New Year often brings out each one's daring and hopeful side. Suddenly, everything seems possible... and same goes for me :P I have bigger goals this year, it's scary but it's exciting... but with all these excitement, I am reminded that I have to start the work right now.. like whipping out the cookbook, drafting my grocery list, doing the groceries, chopping, grinding, peeling... and then setting everything on its rightful place before the  get-go. :P

This includes research, seeking advice from the experts, attending training, orientation... everything that needs to be done to make you sure that you're ready for the big thing.

Of course, success is not guaranteed. There's always a risk involved, but the more you prepare for something, the more the success ante increases -- giving your goal a higher success rate.

... and I really, really want to give my goals the best chance to succeed, so this period of waiting and anticipating is when the real work starts. :P

Mise-en-place, ladies and gents! It's time to chop those onions!

Photo Credit:
http://daniellelevynutrition.com/2013/03/02/mise-en-place/