MISE EN PLACE

 July 9th, 2026

Earlier I saw a video on my TikTok feed called 'mise-en-place'. I thought long and hard about where I'd heard that term before, and my brain took me back to the 9th or 10th grade (I honestly can't remember, but I think it was 9th). I had a really sweet culinary teacher (whose name I have also forgotten :/) who taught us that term our first class, and it ended up being the keystone of her teaching principles for the duration of that entire course. 

I guess as a Virgo rising, I sort of understand the importance of it, but historically, I haven't always been the best at it. These days, I am sort of. A lot of resources I'm used to having a lot of are now scarce (for instance - time) and so I have to make the best of what I have. As the saying goes, what's scarce is highly coveted. It's true. Twenty minutes used to feel like nothing to me, and now, it's the difference between getting home early enough to set up for the next day without any obstacles. When I had hours to waste, twenty minutes was nothing but a drop in a lake:  inconsequential at best. 

Anyway, back to mise-en-place. I suppose it's always easier to have something and not need it, than to need it and not have it. In my HD chart, my motivation is 'fear' and it checks out. I am painstakingly risk averse. Of course, given my life circumstances, I've had to learn to take risks, otherwise I just wouldn't have survived this long, but my relationship to risk is still strained. When taking a risk, I don't bank on the unknowns, and admittedly, that has made me super controlling.

I'm working on this, of course.  

I'm having a love hate relationship with this concept and how it applies in my life at the moment. I resent having to walk such a tight line, being this ordered is not something I'm particularly used to, and yet, it undoubtedly makes my life easier and simpler. That's a plus. 

For the time being, mise-en-place serves a particular purpose: to avoid unnecessary friction. 

I still want a lot from life, and I like to think this is helping me sift through the bullshit and get to what I ultimately want. 

Above all, I'm grateful to always have the answer to my problems within reach. What a blessing it is to never have problems too above you. I never want to take that for granted.

- vetiveroil