Tonight: Boeuf Bourguignon!

We have an eye round roast that needs to be cooked today, so tonight, I'm making a Boeuf Bourguignon.

I have the Julia Child cookbook open and I'm planning out the cooking. I have learned that I need to prepare everything before I start, or I get stressed and rush. Cooking shouldn't be like that, so the first thing I'm going to do is go through the recipe and mark everything I need, including my pots and pans. The French call this a mise en place. The literal translation is "putting in place", but it really describes a method for preparing all of your individual pieces ahead of time into individual containers, measured and organized so the cooking is easier.

If you had a recipe that called for:

• Four cups of red wine
• Two bay leafs
• Two springs of parsley
• A tsp of thyme
• 1 lb of mushrooms, sliced

You would have your four cups of wine measured out already, a container for each spice (or one containing all of them mixed together, if they went in at the same time), and a bowl of your mushrooms. You do all of this before you really begin the process of applying heat to anything.

As a German, it appeals to me in the way I struggle to explain. The Germans have a common phrase "Alles in ordnung" which means "Everything's in order." You usually say it when someone asks you how you are. We say "Okay" or "Going well", but the Germans say "Alles in Ordnung." The Berliners will sometimes say "Alles in Butter," which means the same thing, but gives life a deliciously rich and fatty sense, no?

If you've ever been to Germany you know that order is very important. I think there's a tiny Teutonic taskmaster in my heart somewhere pacing the halls and snapping brisk instructions when things fall out of balance. "Säubern Sie das Haus!" "Waschen Sie die Teller! Schneiden Sie das Gemüse! Gießen Sie den Wein!" (He may be bossing me, but he's very polite about it.)

And so I go about trying to get everything ready ahead of time. For me, the mise en place is not just about getting the ingredients ready, it's not just about making sure I have all the right tools, it's also about preparing me, the chef. I need to be ready, so I'm putting myself in a place where I can cook.

Luckily, with this dish, I will be able to do large parts of it ahead of time. The onions can be stewed now, the mushrooms sauteed as well and put aside, so at 2.30 I can put in the roast and be, generally, stress-free about the whole affair.

I'll never be completely cool about cooking. Even dishes I breeze through worry me when I'm finishing them up. Are the bits uniform enough to be pleasing, is the sauce spiced enough without overpowering everything, are all the vegetables cooked just right? I feel much like an expectant father in the last minutes before serving.

Still, it should go okay.

I'll post pictures and thoughts tomorrow.