Someone’s in the Kitchen at Esperanza

The class, a wide-raging group from their twenties to their fifties, listens attentively as Chef Anita Krissel lectures, highlighting their notes about dry-heat cooking methods for chicken. As they are about to break from the lecture portion of the evening and move to the hands-on cooking, Krissel drills them: “What do you do first in the kitchen?”

The class responds: “Wash our hands.”

“And second?” she asks.

“Set up our mise-en-place,” they reply, using the French term for kitchen prep like it’s an everyday term.

Krissel pauses and then says, “And what do you do before anything else?” There’s a tiny moment, and one student suggests, “Have a cigarette?”

Want to read the rest then do so at the Indy's site.