Heard a line cook say mise en place is just organized stress, and it stuck with me

Last week I was doing prep for a Saturday rush and this kid who's been on the line for maybe 6 months said to me, ‘mise en place is just organized stress.’ At first I laughed it off, but then I thought about how true it actually is. We spend hours chopping and portioning just to handle 90 minutes of chaos. Has anyone else ever had a throwaway comment from a coworker change how you see your own routine?

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1 Comment

christopher_hunt7d ago

Man, 90 minutes? That is brutal. We do 4 hour dinner rushes here and people still complain. I don't know how you survive a Saturday packed into an hour and a half. That kid got a point though. All that prep work is just making the chaos feel like it's under control even when it's not. I guess that's the whole trick of it - tricking yourself.