Minirants

1. Hey, all you "cook with the seasons"/"eat locally" types: I'm kind of tired of cookbooks that are 3/4 recipes involving ingredients that either only grow in the Mediterranean basin (or California) or which are only available fresh for one month a year.
2. Home cooks who are reasonably well organized and good with a knife do not need to do a mise en place. It's nice to prep everything in advance, and it makes doing the cooking easier if you have distractions, but it also makes everything take longer... sometimes a lot longer. Maybe I spend too much time thinking about process optimization, but if you're cooking during the week it's worth putting some thought into logistics so as to avoid having to waste a bunch of time doing prep. This was one of the (many) reasons I enjoyed the Jacques Pepin Fast Food My Way show so much: he didn't make a big deal of it, but he did most of the prep as he was cooking.