Setting Out Ingredients

When I watch a cooking show with a master demonstrating his or her creativity, they do not work with measuring cups or teaspoons.  Instead, all needed ingredients, are arrayed on the counter or other flat surface in small containers, usually porcelain, all premeasured, and in roughly the order they will be used.  While the TV stars usually only present one dish at a time for videotaped preparation, the reality is more likely that what they prepare is really one component of a larger menu.  That's a lot of porcelain mini-cups, certainly more than I have.

With an esteemed guest on the schedule for shabbos, I have generated the full menu, from Kiddush to start to Stuffed Monkey to conclude.  I will have a half day to assemble all the components, starting with an ingredient list, pared down to a shopping list. Non-perishables can be set around the dining room table, sorted by dish.  Turkey half breast out of freezer to its new temporary home on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator.  Prep vegetables the night before.  Portion seasonings the night before.  Shop for perishables and other things I don't have two days before.  Make sink fleishig that morning to enable me to clean as I go.

Then for an afternoon, wearing a blue striped apron, I can function like a TV chef.