It’s French for “everything in its place,” and it’s how cooks are trained from the outset to prepare recipes.

It simply means that before starting to cook or bake, everything needed to prepare the recipe is gathered, pre-prepped (chopping onions or measuring flour, for example) and set on the counter in easy reach. Only then is a cook ready to begin.

It’s surprising how many home cooks don’t follow this simple system. If you’ve found yourself looking for the lemon to zest, stopping to hunt for a kitchen tool or realizing that you don’t have enough butter, you’ll find that cooking is more efficient and unharried when you put mis en place in place.

Thanks to Chef Louis Eguaras, author of 101 Things I Learned In Culinary School, for this tip.

All in place and ready to cook. Photo courtesy RestaurantWindow.com.

Although National Mushroom Month draws to a close today, these tasty, low-calorie fungi should be enjoyed all year round.

Learn from The French Culinary Institute’s Marc Bauer how to slice mushrooms evenly and with little waste.

Substituting part or all of the meat in your recipe with mushrooms can help stretch your food budget.

For more how-tos, visit our Food Videos Section.

This 10-cup manual drip Melitta Coffeemaker set is just $12.95 at Amazon.com.

Before 1908, coffee was a gritty affair. The percolators of the time tended to over-brew the coffee, making it too bitter. Espresso machines left grounds in the cup. Reusable linen bag filters were an option, but who wanted to empty and clean them?

Housewife Melitta Bentz (1873-1950) of Dresden, Germany sought a solution.

In 1908, Mrs. Bentz tested different ways to create a permeable barrier between the grounds and the brewed coffee. She hit pay dirt when testing blotting paper from the notebook of her older son (in those pre-ball point, pre-felt tip days, people wrote with pen and ink, and used the paper to blot up the ink spills).

Mrs. Bentz tweaked the product and received a patent in 1912 for “a coffee filter with a curved and indented bottom and with slanting extraction holes,” to be used in combination with “filtration paper.” It was a hit. Today the company, run by Melitta’s grandchildren, has a workforce of some 3,800 people in 50 countries. In the U.S. alone, it sold $100 million worth of filters in 2009.

You can see the original device here. It doesn’t look like today’s sleek plastic cone and cone-shaped filter, (shown in the photo), but it did the trick.

Make your French fries or sweet potato fries crisper by doing what the chefs do:

Let the raw potatoes stand in cold water for at least 30 minutes before frying.

To get them extra-extra crisp, double fry them.

First, par-fry the potatoes at 325°F for three minutes, until soft, but not brown. Remove and drain on brown paper bags.

Next, bring the oil temperature up to 375°F. Cook the fries a second time for 4 minutes, until golden and crispy. Drain on fresh brown paper bags, then paper towels. Season and serve.

How should you season your fries?

Photo © Idaho Potato Commission.

Hate to slice the potatoes with a knife? Treat yourself to a vegetable/French fry cutter, which also makes zucchini fries a breeze.

Photo courtesy Right Foods.

John McDougall, M.D., physician and nutritionist, has been studying the effects of nutrition on health for more than 20 years. A founding father of the modern wellness movement, he established the McDougall Program in Santa Rosa, California, to help people improve their health.

His line of foods features oatmeal cups—add water and heat, (loved ‘em)—soup cups and low-sodium soups (bland). The newest entry is a line of heat-and-eat soups, about two cups per carton.

The soups are packed full of good things—veggies, brown rice and other whole grains, plus black beans, peas and lentils. Some are so thick, they could be a side dish!

Needless to say, we enjoyed these fat-free, dairy-free vegan soups as a light lunch, snack and dinner course. Read the full review.

• Find more of our favorite soups plus recipes in our Soup Section.
• How to garnish 20 different soups.