Last week I asked our head chef: "What's the most valuable lesson you've learned in the kitchen?" He replied "You're only as good as your mis en place."
Alissa's mom had a few of us over for sukiyaki - Japanese-style hotplate; her mis en place was excellent.
There was a large hotplate in the middle of the table, with prepared ingredients scattered on plates around the table. On one plate: chopped hakusai (Chinese cabbage), beautiful yam shirataki noodles, and enoki mushrooms. On another: Tokyo negi (very large version of green onions), royal trumpet mushrooms, and baked tofu. On the last: thinly-sliced beef.
Keiko prepared a refreshing salad as well. It was a mixture of wilted water cress and spinach, a few dashes soy sauce and dashi, and a few pinches of katsuo bushi (smoked bonito flakes). I really liked it.
Everybody had a bowl in front of them, in which we scrambled a raw egg... it acts like a sort of dipping sauce.
She turned on the hotplate, tossed in a little of everything, added some konbu-soaked water for steaming, and some soy sauce. We ate and ate and ate, all the while refilling the hotplate, until we could eat no more.
Then Keiko said "we must have the udon noodles now... soooo good." She heated up some frozen udon noodles and tossed them into the mostly empty hotplate with some more konbu-soaked water; all the flavors that had been accumulating at the bottom of that hotpot were now de-glazed and soaked up by the udon. It was amazing.
We had pomelo, which I'd never tried before, as dessert. It's like a mellow version of grapefruit, far less sour, so refreshing that I felt like I'd just gone for a swim.