When I started my training at the French Culinary Institute in New York back in 2005 (how is it possibly that long ago?!?!), I knew that I loved to cook and eat, had prepared a few catered events, and that I absolutely didn’t want to be a restaurant chef. At the ripe old age of 32 I knew I was already too old to start at the bottom of the restaurant food chain and the working conditions and wages were appalling (especially for women). This sentiment was echoed by my male French culinary instructors who were openly sexist in their remarks towards me and my aspirations, but also reflective of what the industry still was at the time (and still is in many cases).

While I recognised the value of creating the same dishes day after day and learning technique from those with years more experience and skill than me in great restaurants, I also knew that I wanted to be creative and wasn’t well-suited to that kind of monotony. By the time you’re 32 you should also have worked your way up in the restaurant food chain so you’re not doing as much of the physical grunt work, long hours for days on end, that becomes so much harder as you age. So I started culinary school with the view of becoming a private chef and caterer and building on my master’s in creative non-fiction I’d received from Columbia University several years before to do some food writing. I also knew that interning, or doing what’s called a stage, at wonderful restaurants was necessary and while in school I did work in kitchens to see how things worked (and reinforced my feeling that I never ever wanted to work in one).

I think of my time at the FCI as the starting point for what has become what I envisioned for myself and more. I’ve been terribly lucky in being able to cook for amazing people in unbelievable places (hello glorious sailboat on the Mediterranean) and the foundation for it all started with these few things learned and use almost every day whether I’m cooking for a client or myself. I’d love to know your tips too!

Working hard as we opened the kitchen at Super Vega, Beirut

While mis en place is critical in a professional kitchen, it literally translates to “everything in its place,” you can use the same technique for organisation and preparation in your home kitchen to make cooking a breeze. I have a bunch of small metal bowls that I can place all of my prepared ingredients in before I start cooking and somehow any task seems easier when I do this. You also don’t have to think quite as much when you’re actually cooking, it just comes together and is a joy.
Keeping your knives sharp is day one stuff, right? But I often fall prey to letting them dull as I’m not cooking as often as I would professionally and forget to be vigilant. Keeping a steel around to hone your knives is the easiest way to maintain them, and I take mine to a professional a couple of times a year to get them knocked back into frighteningly sharp shape. Also, a serrated pairing knife is my best friend for tomatoes, stone fruit, little fiddly jobs. Use the right knife for the job you’re doing, and if you small hands maybe use a smaller knife not a huge chef’s knife. Oh, and a wooden handle is super comfy for extended chopping sessions.
Another tip that should be obvious but many still don’t do in spite of everyone telling you to is: taste as you go! Just do it. And you probably should be adding more salt to your dishes than you currently are.
I have piles of cloth kitchen towels in my home (thank you IKEA). They’re scattered around my kitchen and when I’m cooking one is slung over my right shoulder (I rarely wear an apron at home otherwise I’d tuck it in there). I use it as a pot holder mostly but also to wipe up spills and keep my hands dry (I loathe sticky hands). They cover doughs as they rise or keep flies out of things and do double duty as yogurt strainers or nut milk bags. Do wash the towels regularly especially if you use them heavily like I do as they’re bacteria magnets. Hence the big clean stack ready to go whenever I cook!
A small kitchen scale will become your best friend and many recipe writers are now including weights in their ingredients’ lists (thank you!). Not only is it more accurate to weigh things, especially for baking, it creates less mess as you can just weigh everything in the bowls you’ll be using anyway. Mine is a cheapo plastic thing from a dollar store in Amman and it’s done the job for years now.
My mother, who was an excellent cook, used to use the smallest cutting boards in the smallest corner of her kitchen counter (which was overrun with decoration) using a too-small knife and then placed items in a too small bowl or too small pot. It drove me mad to watch her! Your life will be so much easier if you allow yourself a little extra space. Get a large cutting board, mix things in a bowl that is bigger than you think you need because then you can properly toss things together without them flying onto your counter, and allow room in your pots! I know not everyone has lots of kitchen space, but whatever you have, keep it free for prep.
While you’re prepping on your large cutting board, keep a bowl on the side for all of your vegetable trimmings and when you finish for the day place all of them in a plastic bag which you can keep in your fridge or freezer (depending on how long it will take you to accumulate what you want). Keep mushroom stems, tomato peels, stems from all herbs, carrot skins, ends of celery, green tops of root veggies, bits of onions…go wild! Use these trimmings for stocks, and yes homemade stock is worth it.
Whether I’m hosting my own dinner party or catering an event for 200 I write down an action plan. Literally, I write down each part of a recipe I have to complete (salad dressings, toasted nuts, sauces, pickles, each an every process). Then I figure out how far in advance I can complete this process before the event and schedule my prep. Voila you have mis en place ready when your dinner/brunch/party is upon you and you can be much more relaxed and confident in your meal.
A Japanese mandoline is worth its weight in gold, a heat-proof spatula is the perfect tool for everything, a microplane can be used for everything from nutmeg to cheese to citrus to ginger to garlic (although I always keep a separate one for garlic and ginger so as not to cross-contaminate flavours) and a speed peeler makes life so much easier.
At Public in New York, where I worked for a while during school, I toiled under an old-school garde-manger (cold section) chef who yelled at me most of the time. I hated him and how he repeatedly admonished me for working like a “housewife,” but I did learn that working neatly, cleanly, and quickly was valuable. I learned that doing all of one task at a time before moving onto the next was much more expedient (first peel all of your vegetables then chop then…..). Keep your towel handy to quickly wipe down your cutting board (see number 4 above) and try to keep all of your prep equipment close at hand so you don’t have to move around too much.
If you have time to lean you have time to clean. I’d like to drill this into the cooks I worked with in restaurant kitchens in Beirut, quite frankly, but that’s a whole other blog post. This was the mantra of our chef instructors and they were 100% right. Cleanliness is next to Godliness in a professional kitchen and makes life easier at home too, I promise. Clean as you go.
You know those rubber mats you can buy in rolls to line your kitchen cupboards? Buy one and cut it into squares just smaller than your cutting boards. Keep them around and use them as an impromptu jar opener, place one under a bowl you’ll be whisking in to keep it steady, and most importantly under your cutting boards so they don’t slip around on your counter - a hazard, truly!
Have fun! This is the one thing I didn’t learn at culinary school, and frankly it made me question my choice of career a bit. I understand that discipline is important and when you work in a professional kitchen there are so many things that can hurt you or if done incorrectly can hurt your clients, but enjoying time in the kitchen is something I think a lot of us have forgotten to do. Yes, the daily grind of cooking for a family or even just yourself can be tedious (there are days when I can’t remember anything I’ve ever cooked in my life and draw a blank at what to make), but try to enjoy your time and be creative and use the time to clear your head (it’s a bit like meditation, I think) and prepare something delicious for the people you love. You absolutely can taste when a dish has been made with enthusiasm and love.

Twelve Things I learned at Culinary School (and one that I didn’t)

© 2022 chef sally jane