Mise en Place

As a chef, I can appreciate the ease of having all of my ingredients set out before assembling. There is a side of the cupboard dedicated to small bowls, ramekins, and even sake glasses for placing all the measured things. Assuming nothing would be left to whim with these calculated elements is, however, an understatement. At least with my style anyways. I cook with a limited palette to keep things simple, which means I don’t always have all ingredients. This typically leads to unique substitutions.

No tomato paste? Ketchup will do.

No pasta? I’ve got potatoes, flour, and an egg.

I’ve used stale doughnuts in bread pudding and frozen peas as a buffer to stretch some pesto for a sauce. Yogurt has been a solid staple in my fridge to replace milk, buttermilk, cream, and even as a sour cream.

It’s created some truly wonderful things in my kitchen and it’s the same philosophy to use in life as well. We don’t always have on hand what we need but in the words of my mother, you either make it or you make do without. Necessity is the mother of invention but frugality is the father to creativity.

So when it came to quitting my full time day job to be a full time…me, I had to have certain bowls with all my necessities in first.

This included:

Bowl 1- “X” amount of money in savings

Bowl 2- Selling my own creations at shows

Bowl 3- Perfect website with commerce

Bowl 4- Studio financially stable and enough to supply me with a paycheck each month

The reality of life, however, is that not everyone works with a fully stocked pantry and I’ve never been one to follow a recipe. I put in my 2 weeks notice yesterday and what I have on hand is precisely half of what I intended but double the spice of life to keep me going.

Forge on, my friends.

Pondering in my thinkin’ kitchen.