Helpful Hints

You can save a lot of time, trouble and extra trips to the store by reading a recipe all the way through before you start making it. Actually, before you even shop for it. There’s a name for doing this. It’s called “Mise en Place,” literally “putting in place.” It means not only having all the ingredients measured out before you start, but having a real sense of the flow of the entire recipe. Had Penelope’s pal Ellen read the whole recipe for the Chicken Pot Pie before blithely engaging her once feathered friend in mortal combat (and for a good while the chicken was winning), she would have bought packaged chicken parts that were boned, skinned and ready to go. Instead, she spent a precious hour (when she could have been practicing archery) dismantling the chicken, which added nothing to the success of the pie. Although it did improve her surgical skills, in case one of her producer friends needed her to fill in on Grey’s Anatomy. Still.