I recently encountered a person who, due to their life decisions, eventually will be forced to cook, often and with at least feigned enthusiasm. They don’t know this, but they will. And it will be harsh, because they claimed to me that they “hate cooking.”

There are many reasons why people don’t cook, I suppose, and one of them is that it takes time and effort. I can’t fix that. What I can help with is the main thing that nobody ever tells you about cooking, which is that 95% of it is about staying organized. The French even have a term for this.

Gear

You need knives. Specifically, you need a chef’s knife, which is about 8”; and a paring knife, which is about 4”-5”, to do more fine-grained work.

You need prep bowls. Mine are Vollrath, which are extremely stackable & compact.

Every single home cook needs a bench scraper in order to scoop up random discarded bits, especially when you’re peeling potatoes, beets, or other root veg. They cost, like, $10.

And you need a cutting board. People are very weird about cutting boards. I chop my veggies on a wood one, and my meat on a plastic one. If you want only one cutting board, get a plastic one.

Honing steel is optional, but sharp knives are safer and make the whole thing easier.

Routine

Before every single meal I prepare, I:

• get out the cutting board & compost bin
• remove everything from the fridge that I will need
• move empty pots to the stove & get out any baking sheets, if applicable
• hone my chef’s knife
• get out a few prep bowls

Un-chopped veggies sit to the left of the cutting board, prep bowls sit to the right of the cutting board, and the compost bin sits behind the cutting board. (If you don’t compost, you still need a bowl for food scraps.) Food moves from left to right.

One life hack is to throw a tea towel underneath your veggies on the left, wash ‘em, and let ‘em dry out on the towel while you stage the rest.

I always cut allium first because onion & garlic skins are the glitter of kitchens, and you want to cut them on a dry board.

I cut meat on a separate cutting board with a separate knife.

The make

I go by the following horrible oversimplification:

1. Get organized
2. Chop stuff
3. Get organized again
4. Apply heat to the stuff you chopped
5. Eat the stuff

Sometimes there is a different first step, though, which is to show up. Sometimes your hair is on fire and you truly want to do anything but cook. I’ve never regretted showing up & doing it anyway.