Mise en Flaws

There's this phrase in the culinary world: Mise en Place. It's French for "putting in place" and refers to the organization and set up of ingredients prior to cooking a dish. It was a basic concept we learned in culinary school the first week, if not the first day.

Oh yeah, I went to culinary school. Or at least I attempted culinary school. Prior to enrolling, I was going to a nearby state college with "Nutrition" tagged as my Major. Math was a close second, but I didn't want to be a teacher.

There came a point in my one year at this state college that my parents encouraged me to step out of my comfort zone, my little town, and try something new somewhere else.

I googled "Christian schools with culinary major" and there popped up Bob Jones University in Greenville, SC. We visited Greenville that summer and I fell in love with the downtown, the food scene, and the idea of a new adventure in a new place. My plan was to get my culinary degree, then go on to become a certified nutritionist. I was excited and on my first day I had all the butterflies flying around in my stomach. But they were the good kind.

In the beginning of the semester, we were often paired up to work on things together. I got lucky one day and was paired up with my new best friend, Abby. Besides the fact that I really enjoyed her company, she was a good baker, I was doing well in my savory class, but my baking class proved to be difficult for me and I needed all the help I could get.

Do you need proof? I made scrambled eggs instead of lemon curd, rolls instead of biscuits, and butter instead of buttercream, twice. I literally iced a cake in butter. Those are just the ones I haven't blocked from my memory.

The day Abby and I got paired up was the day we would make challah bread. Now I could be wrong, but I don't think we set up a mise en place. In my memory, which is questionable, we worked through the recipe, adding the ingredients, as they came up, into the commercial sized mixer.

We were about 2 ingredients from starting to mix. I checked the next ingredient and looked around for it while Abby had walked off to do something. The table beside me had quite a few bowls full of different baking ingredients. I quickly grabbed one of the bowls that resembled the next ingredient and threw it into the mixer. Abby walked up and quickly noticed something was wrong. She looked at me, surprised and concerned as to what had happened.

What had happened was I took part of my classmate's mise en place and threw it into our challah mix. It was not the right ingredient, the right mount, or even our ingredient. In a fury of panic, Abby and I quickly started removing all we could from the mix all while hearing our classmate in the background say "where did my powdered sugar go?" We didn't answer and my heart was racing with embarrassment. The challah bread turned out great, well because, Abby. So Andrea, if you're reading this, I'm sorry for taking your powdered sugar.

After I dropped out of Culinary School, I didn't bake for a long time. Thankfully, I never lost my love of food and I slowly gained confidence to try again. Just a couple years ago I called up my friend Abby just to tell her I made a successful lemon curd.

I don't enjoy cooking and baking because I'm the best at it. Because I'm certainly not and I still make mistakes often. I do it because I enjoy the creative process, the way different foods work together, and that the end result is enjoyed with family and friends.

You don't have to be perfect at something to do it.

In fact, God uses imperfect people. I have always seen myself in the Biblical Moses. He made an excuse as to why he couldn't follow God's calling, and the excuse had to do with his self-perceived abilities (Exodus 4). This is me. All the time. I was given the book, Do Hard Things, when I was in high school and that phrase reverberates through my mind anytime I am presented with something that I find intimidating.

But God. He uses imperfect, broken vessels. Look at what He accomplished through Moses, Paul, Jonah, Rahab, the list goes on...

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Jeremiah 18:1-6

1 The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying,

2 Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words.

3 Then I went down to the potter's house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels.

4 And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.

5 Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

6 O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the Lord. Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel.

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I am certainly imperfect. Mistakes, flaws, and all... I am a child of God. A broken vessel. He is the potter, I am the clay. I am in His hands and I pray He uses me to His glory.