Apparently, I should have explained this sooner.
After publishing my first post, I very excitedly sent it to my husband to read. He didn’t finish it.
Naturally, I asked why, and his answer was basically, “Because I had no idea what the hell you were talking about.”
Excuse me?
Then I realized the problem: Mise.
I’ve spent the last few years surrounded by culinary people, so apparently my brain has reached the point where I assume everyone knows random French kitchen terminology.
They do not.
My husband certainly does not.
So before I get any further into this whole blogging thing, we should probably talk about what Mise in Progress actually means.
First things first: How do you even say it?
Mise is pronounced roughly like “meez.”
It comes from the French culinary term mise en place –pronounced like “meez ahn plahs.“
The phrase translates to something along the lines of “everything in its place.”
In the kitchen, your mise en place is everything you need to have ready before you start cooking. Your ingredients are measured, your vegetables are chopped, your equipment is where it needs to be, and your station is organized.
Basically, you’ve done everything you can to prepare before the chaos begins.
And if you’ve ever worked in a kitchen, you know exactly why that’s important.
So why Mise in Progress?
Because “everything in its place” is absolutely not an accurate description of my life.
Like…at all.
I love the idea behind mise en place. Prepare. Organize. Know what you need. Have a plan. I even own a planner and get an unreasonable amount of satisfaction from writing things down and checking things off.
You would think I’d have this down.
I do not.
My life right now feels more like I’ve gathered most of the ingredients, I’m pretty sure I know what I’m trying to make, and somewhere along the way I realized the recipe has changed.
A few times.
Some parts of the plan are finally starting to come together. Other parts are still a giant question mark.
And honestly? That’s kind of the point.
I think that’s why the name stuck.
When I started thinking about this blog, I didn’t want a name that only had to do with baking.
Pastry is a huge part of my life, and you’ll definitely see plenty of it around here. But I’m not only a pastry chef.
I’m also a student, a future teacher, a mom, a wife, someone who reads romantasy when I should probably be sleeping, and someone who plays video games when my brain desperately needs to shut off for a while.
There are a lot of different pieces of me that I want to be able to write about here.
Mise in Progress still has that little piece of the culinary world that started all of this for me, but it also describes where I am outside of the kitchen.
I’m not writing from the other side of everything with some perfectly finished story to tell.
I’m writing from the middle of it.
Some ingredients are measured. Some are still sitting in the pantry. I’m probably missing at least one thing I could’ve sworn I bought.
And the recipe?
We’re working on it.
So no, everything isn’t en place.
It’s in progress.
And apparently, from now on, I’ll remember that not everyone speaks kitchen.
Especially my husband.
–Mise
Mise in Progress 