Mise en place your vocabulary with these culinary gems.
A unit of textile fineness that measures how delicate your hosiery actually is, calculated in grams per 9,000 meters. The lower the denier, the sheerer your stockings—and the easier they tear when you walk past a nail.
To prepare (food) for consumption by cleaning, trimming, and seasoning. Also means looking sharp enough that your customers don't question your hygiene standards.
To cut food into small, uniform cubes. The most satisfying knife work for beginners and the baseline expectation before you can advance to fancier cuts.
Angled slices made at approximately 45 degrees to create elliptical pieces that increase surface area. It's the vegetable equivalent of cutting on the bias.
A fine powder sprinkled over a dish for color, flavor, or visual drama—made from dried herbs, spices, freeze-dried fruit, or other ingredients. It's the garnish for when you want to be mysterious.
A gritty saxophone technique where the player hums intensely into the instrument to create a grinding, growling sound—commonly used in blues, jazz, and rock to add raw attitude and edge.
A hasty evasive maneuver, or the aquatic bird that inspired said maneuver. In kitchens, it's that gloriously fatty waterfowl that makes roasts sing and chefs weep with joy.
A packaged snack consisting of chocolate chip or candy-coated cookies paired with a sweet frosting dip and colorful candy sprinkles, produced by General Mills. The snack is designed to be assembled by the consumer, dipping cookies into the icing and then into the sprinkles.
A small, dark purple plum with a tart flavor, traditionally used for preserves, jams, and cooking rather than eating fresh. The fruit grows on a specific variety of plum tree native to Damascus (hence the name), and has been cultivated in Europe for centuries.
A heavy, lidded cooking pot typically made of cast iron or enameled metal, used for slow-cooking and braising on stovetops or in ovens. In slang, it refers to trapping someone under bedcovers after releasing flatulence.
A small, absorbent cloth used for washing dishes, drying them, or wiping down kitchen surfaces. Typically made from cotton, linen, or synthetic materials, it is a staple of kitchen cleaning.
A quick trip to grab fried chicken, usually from a specialty joint like Swiss Chalet or similar poultry-focused establishments. The term makes it sound more exciting than it actually is.
An eating marathon where you and your friends consume so much food that you're uncomfortably stuffed. 'Doof' is 'food' backwards, so basically you're sessioning (hanging out) while destroying massive amounts of grub.
A barrel-shaped rotating machine with a slit-lined saddle that separates cannabis flowers during the drying process, revolutionizing hand-trimming workflows since the 1980s. These industrial finishers save cultivators tens of thousands in labor costs while delivering lab-approved, damage-free results.