The Order of Things: A Life-long Practice of Mise En Place

It’s late afternoon and I’m riding home on the school bus with my friends Laurie and Sandra and a few other girls. It stops at the bottom of my lane but I don’t get off. I watch my brothers climb off, cross in front of the bus and start to run up the lane jostling and pushing each other as they yell back and forth. The bus is quiet as Mr. Bennett shuts the door, puts it in gear and slowly lets out the clutch lurching ahead to the next stop.

It’s Thursday and we’re riding to Afton Hubbard’s house for 4-H. Using the four leaf clover as a symbol it’s a club where we learn skills to improve our head, heart, hands and health. There are 4-H clubs for sewing, raising sheep, pigs, horses and chickens. Some clubs even learn to weld, plant crops and practice conservation. At the end of the year the clubs enter their projects in the County Fair to be graded on what we’ve learned.  For this club we’re learning how to cook. 

The bus drives down the dugway, a steep incline into a canyon and back up to the other side. We get off the bus several yards from Afton’s house where a girl who will be in our 4-H class lives in a double-wide trailer with her parents who have recently moved here. The house is set back in a plum orchard and we make our way through the tall grasses covering the lawn.  Her house is filled with furs from different animals draped over couches and chairs and hanging from walls. Her mother reminds me of a gypsy with colorful turquoise and rose silk skirts, scarves and large colorful jewelry. Their family is unlike my country girl friends and me. She takes us to her room to see her clothes and dolls before we head to our first 4-H.  

We cross the road and walk up to Afton’s house and drop our books and bags just inside the door. The house is dark and cool with dark wood paneling. We make our way to the kitchen where a card table is set up in the center with measuring cups, a mixing bowl, measuring spoons and a spatula neatly placed on the table cloth. The clock on the stove is illuminated green showing the big hand on the 12 and the little hand on the 4 as a buzzer goes off signaling the start of our class.

Our first responsibility is to wash our hands with soap and water. We crowd in the small bathroom with a white cast iron sink and talk in subdued voices as we soap up our hands and rinse them with running water. Unlike my house that’s filled with a cacophony of voices, crying babies, laughter, clutter and younger brothers and sisters running in and out of doors, our instructor’s home is quiet and solemn. We dry our hands and return to the kitchen to begin our first class.

Afton Hubbard is in her 50’s and married to Jack, a gruff old man who refuses to show his face while we’re there. Her son Alan is two years older than us and disappears outside as soon as we walk in the house.  

Our class begins by standing and reciting the 4-H theme: I pledge my HEAD to Clearer thinking, my HEART to greater loyalty, my HANDs to larger service, and my HEALTH to better living, for my club, my community, my country and my world.”

When we finish the pledge, we look at each other and giggle then sit down on kitchen chairs facing the card table. Afton begins our first class.

“The first order of cooking,” she says, “Is to have everything in place and ready to begin.” Mise en place, a French term means planning, preparing and presenting in order. A term every good chef understands. Counters and tables are clean before starting. The recipe is read, ingredients gathered and measured before combining, an essential part of culinary art. And finally she says, one of the most important tasks is cleaning up when we are finished.

We begin to put our first recipe of Snickerdoodles together. I have never heard of Snickerdoodles and think it's a funny name. Nor have I heard of cream of tartar, an ingredient that goes in the recipe to make it rise and taste tangy. We make the dough first then make it into little balls and roll them in sugar and cinnamon, placing them neatly on a cookie sheet before putting them into the oven to bake. We set the timer and begin cleaning up.

Afton impresses on our minds over and over again the importance of keeping counters, tables and stove neat and clean. She is emphatic and militant about having our ingredients for demonstrations prepared and neatly organized before we start cooking. As we finish, we put cups, spoons, bowls, and spatulas in the sink, wash them with soap and water before we rinse, dry and then put them away. We also put sugar, baking soda, salt, and other ingredients used in our recipes back where they belong on shelves or in the fridge.

These are the cardinal rules we follow for the next 9 months of class as we learn to make baking powder biscuits, cookies, cakes, pasta, soups, and salads. We take turns demonstrating in front of each other on the card table in Afton’s kitchen the skills of following a recipe from start to finish and then show how we put things away, wash our utensils and wipe the counters and table off after we are finished.

The school year ends and that summer we prepare for the Caribou County fair by practicing our skills at muffin making that will be judged and awarded ribbons. Dozens of muffins are made at home and during our class at Afton’s.

We are seasoned chefs by now and proud of our skills. But the skill I’ll remember most is cleaning up after each session of baking. As soon as I use an ingredient, it goes back on the shelf or in the fridge or cupboard. I wipe the counters clean and wash up the mixing bowls, pans and utensils so everything is clean when I am done.

Since those first classes years ago I have married and raised a family cooking hundreds of meals and baking thousands of loaves of bread. Each time I think of Afton and our 4-H club and the skill set she gave us as young girls to prepare, cook and clean up. I feel indebted to her for teaching us how to follow a recipe, reviewing it often to make sure every ingredient has been added and I still automatically put things away after using them, washing bowls, mixers, utensils and counters after I finish.

Thank you Afton.  I wish I could have told you how often I think of you when I bake bread or cook and how I’ve tried to teach my children Mise en place, the order of things.

Written by: Paula Dawn Webb

Paula is our mom. She is a professional writer, baker, and life-long promoter of a whole-food, plant-based lifestyle. She writes weekly for our blog at plaingrains.com where she shares her experiences and love of mindful nutrition.  

Paula earned an Associates of Food-Science Nutrition, Bachelors of English/Professional Writing and a Master's of Communications.