Keeping Organized in the Home Kitchen

Reinvigorate and Inspire Your Cooking with a New Sense of Order

Whether they know it or not, modern-day chefs have Georges Auguste Escoffier to thank for their industry’s ubiquitous “mise en place” methodology, which translated means “put in place.” The turn-of-the-20th-century culinary iconoclast extolled the virtues of organized ingredients and tools in the kitchen to keep the cooking process systematic and streamlined.

Mise en place was ahead of its time. “Organizing in general is having a boom right now, for many different reasons,” says Providence-based professional organizer Carolyn Dalgliesh. “From people reconnecting with their homes in this new Covid world, to being very mindful of not wasting or purchasing anything needlessly, to the widely successful Netflix series ‘Get Organized with The Home Edit,’ organizing seems to be front and center.”

Dalgliesh says rethinking your kitchen seasonally is the key to making your kitchen and cooking run smoothly, just as Escoffier professed. This time of year, outdoor grilling and bountiful produce give way to indoor cooking featuring hearty soups, slow-cooked stews and roasts in the oven. Place seasonal items where they are most handy, she advises, and continue by rearranging everything from frequently utilized small appliances and serving pieces to spices and pantry items.

With Rhode Islanders home more than ever and cooking fatigue beginning to set in (if it hasn’t already), culinary organization can reinvigorate and inspire both meal planning and cooking on the fly. “Anytime we can make the first step of anything easier, we’re bound to be more successful in what we’re doing,” she adds.

“It’s important to have everything in its spot,” says Tarci-Lee Galarza, sous chef at Cara Restaurant and The Café at The Chanler at Cliff Walk in Newport. The chef says that as soon as orders arrive from Farm Fresh RI, local farmers and fishermen, she joins with her kitchen colleagues in assigning everything to its proper place and storage receptacles straightaway. “The storage method I use to keep our produce fresh and organized is what I like to call the ‘friends and family system,’” she says.

Examples include keeping citrus like grapefruits, limes and oranges with other citrus, or stone fruit like cherries, apricots and mangos with other stone fruit. Store berries in the refrigerator in containers with holes; wrap fresh herbs in a moist paper towel. Mushrooms are best kept in towels with proper ventilation. Root vegetables should be laid on a flat surface in a cool, dry area, perhaps the basement. Galarza adds that labeling and dating each item is equally essential.

Yveline “Eve” Bontemp, chef/owner of Garden of Eve in Providence, agrees that an organized kitchen is the foundation of an orderly, effi- cient kitchen. Serving Caribbean cuisine including dishes from her native Haiti, Bontemp says she uses large, translucent containers for staples used en masse, like beans and rice, while appliances used daily, including her pressure cooker, are purposely placed front and center for easy accessibility.

“I have a cabinet for the dry herbs and I make my own spices,” says Bontemp. Frequently used fruits and vegetables, including scallions and habaneros, are stored in her refrigerator in a clear drawer for instant visibility.

“It’s all about mise en place,” says Galarza, “for receiving, for prepping, for your vegetables, your proteins … everything you need for making your dish.”

Here are some tips from Dalgliesh and the chefs in this story on how you can mise en place and achieve an “Insta-worthy” kitchen and pantry:

• Pantry storage works best by grouping foods in categories: baking ingredients, snack foods, jarred and canned goods, pastas/grains, breakfast items, etc., says Dalgliesh. Storing groupings (think baking!) in bins provides easy access.

• Galarza and Dalgliesh both recommend keeping a running list of dry goods and having a system, even just a simple chalkboard or clipboard hanging in the pantry or storage cupboard, so that everyone who uses the space can make note when an item is running low and needs restocking.

• Label, label, label. Bin clips, erasable magnetic labels or, in Galarza’s case, color-coded tape—whatever method you use, labels help ensure spaces frequented by multiple people stay orderly.

• Now trending: lazy Susans. The 2.0 version of these rotating space-savers are deep and have removable dividers so you can adjust the space you need for seasoning packs, sauces, oil bottles, salad dressings and more.

The best (and most challenging) advice might be from Galarza, who says that no matter how tired you may be, tidying your kitchen and pantry at the end of the day will pay dividends.

“As annoying as it is after a long day of work to clean and regroup, there’s nothing quite like walking into a kitchen and having it ready for you the next day. Same thing at home,” she says. “You work happier when your tools and products are the way they should be. It makes your life easier and it makes the end result better.”