Degrease the censer, for I’m about tread on hallowed ground. Today I tackle how to most effectively prepare coffee for human consumption.

“OMG”, you’re saying, “hasn’t that been laid to rest?” You snort and adjust your sleeve for dramatic effect before continuing, “the best technique—hands down—has clearly been proven to be X.” Where “X” is shorthand for your interminable ramble on flat burr grinders, grind densities, solubles concentration, solubles yield, and brewing time. Not to mention water temperature, brew volume, conical filter sections, and metastatic percolation.

Yesterday afternoon, Agathe, my poissonnière, wandered into the kitchen with too much time on her hands. She quietly watched us prep, but I noticed that she seemed eager to get our attention. A giddy glee bounced her weight from one foot to the other.

Unable to resist, she finally screamed, “Mise en place!!? HAH! More like “MISERY en place!”

Agathe grinned at us, still bouncing. We glared back. Kali quietly finished slicing chives before acknowledging her with a glance. Zao cocked his head and scratched his back with a spatula, sizing her up. Time passed.

Remember the sheet cake? The darker times of our recent history found us as drooling jackals eyeing one another’s styrofoam plates as we jockeyed to be the next to gnaw at the kill. The kill being a sheet cake from Costco. We wore our desire for the premium cuts in the toothy facade of a smile that thinly grinned, “get between me and that sugar rosette and I’ll snap your neck.” It was medieval. We were destined to destroy ourselves—our culture relegated to a thin smear of greasy frosting on a golden cake drum. Fortunately, Los Angeles invented the cupcake to save us all. The cupcake: a little cake that is sanitary, individualized, modern, and civil. Everyone gets a rosette. No one has to die. We’ve come so far.

Appearances define your success. It is expected that a master chef can rattle off the comprehensive ingredient list of any foodstuff with a dip of her finger and a tap on her tongue. To maintain this appearance, you must have a good nose—training will only get you so far. You can spend your 10,000 hours tasting everything in the market. You can invest in a good aroma kit. But if you don’t have natural nosing ability, you’ll simply never be a master chef by relying on your sense of smell and taste. So, is it hopeless if you can’t tell tuna from turnip? No! Our industry offers tricks that you can use to augment your limited olfactory sense. Though we refer to them as “tricks” because we employ them as magical acts to impress, they do represent a large, technological body of knowledge developed hundred of years ago and handed down through the tradition of culinary education.

Nougat is easy to make.

Step 1 – Place eggs and several other ingredients next to a big mixer.

“Chef Enis!”

I cringe whenever my pastry chef, Pétard, shrieks my name. Pétard is a nervous, wiry boy who sneaks out of bed in the early morning to pilfer hummingbird feeders on his way into his 4am shift, where he re-ups with Red Bulls throughout the day. It’s hard not to stare at the burnt sienna hummingbird food stain around his lips when he’s talking. With the pale skin, he looks like some sort of vampire clown.

“It’s terrible! I just learned that our vegetarian ham isn’t vegetarian! At all!”

Uniformity defines a good slice of bread. Knots, whorls, and grades hallmark the rough ware of swarthy, unkempt bakers of ages past. Industrial bread slicers now produce pristine planes for industrial chefs, but what of the small commercial kitchen or home? Are prosumers relegated to the dark days of irregular bread? No! Stop wrestling with that awful “bread knife” (seriously, whoever decided to serrate a turkey calfer and call it a “bread knife” should be deboned) and invest a few measly dollars in a hand-held multi-slicer—the best invention since sliced bread!

Sometimes recipes call for fish. Don’t panic! Fish is easy to make.

Start with high-quality meat.

It’s been a busy few weeks, gentle readers, and I appreciate your patience with my day job. It’s not an easy thing, running an exclusive restaurant. Your threats of death have motivated and inspired. I thank you for limiting yourselves to threats. I reciprocate now with the following challenging, but rewarding recipe.

Yesterday, our saucier, Fredrick, approached the refrigerator with a quick glance in my direction. Hesitatingly, he used a crude FIMO-covered magnet to tack to the refrigerator door a drawing from his daughter. The drawing was of a flower in macaroni relief. A piece of macaroni detached itself and fell to the floor with a succession of soft clicks that diminished as I approached Fredrick.

“I hope it’s okay,” he said with his eyes on the crack under fridge where the macaroni had disappeared, “Emma makes so many of these. I’m not sure what to do with them any more. We’ve run out of space at home, so she asked me to bring this to work.”