Noel Rappin Writes Here

Quick and random: The book Ball Four) had a big impact on me as a kid. I stumbled across a copy when I was about 12. If you don’t know, Ball Four, written by Jim Bouton and published in 1970, was one of the first big athlete tell-alls (though it seems much tamer these days than it did when it came out…) Anyway, a lot of the book can be read as the story of an articulate outcast trying to understand and navigate the other teammates that he’s basically stuck with.

Everything I know about the world of fine dining I know from watching Top Chef and from eating at Five Guys. But I do know this: chefs have the concept of mise en place (which does not mean Mice In Place), which is the idea that everything the chef is going to need to prepare the food is done ahead of time and laid out for easy access. The advantages of having a good mise en place include time savings from getting common prep done together, ease of putting together meals once the prep is done, ease of cleanup.