The first organizational book inspired by the culinary world, taking mise-en-place outside the kitchen. Every day, chefs across the globe churn out enormous amounts of high-quality work with efficiency using a system called mise-en-place —a French culinary term that means “putting in place” and signifies an entire lifestyle of readiness and engagement. In Work Clean, Dan Charnas reveals how to apply mise-en-place outside the kitchen, in any kind of work. Culled from dozens of interviews with culinary professionals and executives, including world-renowned chefs like Thomas Keller and Alfred Portale, this essential guide offers a simple system to focus your actions and accomplish your work. Charnas spells out the 10 major principles of mise-en-place for chefs and non chefs alike: (1) planning is prime; (2) arranging spaces and perfecting movements; (3) cleaning as you go; (4) making first moves; (5) finishing actions; (6) slowing down to speed up; (7) call and callback; (8) open ears and eyes; (9) inspect and correct; (10) total utilization. This journey into the world of chefs and cooks shows you how each principle works in the kitchen, office, home, and virtually any other setting. “Finally, a book that shows the rest of the world that a chef’s meticulous need for order isn't about obsession—it’s a way to set them up for success.” —Chef Marcus Samuelsson “A distinctive and fascinating read! Work Clean shares the skills used by chefs to help you manage your time and resources to effectively get the most out of life.” —Chef Alfred Portale “The concept of mise-en-place can seem stoic or robotic even, but Dan Charnas has revealed otherwise in Work Clean . It is a means to completing successfully what is right in front of us - whether in or out of the kitchen—through consideration and action.” —Chef Sam Henderson “Systems and organization have always been a key to my success in the food service industry. Work Clean uses excellent examples to explain the necessity of structure as the foundation for not only restaurants but everyday life as well.” —Chef Marc Djozlija “Dan Charnas writes informatively about the sometimes unglamorous, yet undeniably crucial role of organization in our kitchens and our lives, with clever wit and eloquence. Work Clean should be required reading for all aspiring chefs.” —Chef Rob Halpern “In Work Clean, Dan Charnas outlines a valuable parallel between the systems used to organize a busy kitchen and the ways we organize our everyday lives. As a chef, I know all too well the importance of preparation, planning, and working clean. Charnas describes how applying these principles of mise-en-place to tasks outside of the kitchen can improve efficiency and quality of work, and ultimately, quality of life.” —Chef Eric Ripert Dan Charnas is an award-winning culture, lifestyle, and business writer. Recipient of the 2007 Pulitzer Fellowship for Arts Journalism, his first book, The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-Hop, was called “a classic of music-business dirt digging as well as a kind of pulp epic” by Rolling Stone. He lives in New York City. FOCUS How mise-en-place works CHEF DWAYNE LIPUMA'S entire kitchen staff just quit. He's looking at reservations for 40 people for lunch, then another 140 for a banquet tomorrow. To make all those meals, LiPuma's bosses have provided him with 19 recruits, some of whom have never cooked in a fine-dining restaurant. Aside from LiPuma's assistant and a pastry chef, not one of the staff has ever seen the menu, much less prepared the items on it, all gourmet dishes with elaborate presentations. But by the end of the day, the diners will leave satisfied. In fact, the customers--some of whom have waited months for a reservation at LiPuma's restaurant, American Bounty--will scarcely notice that their entire meal was made by neophyte cooks. A miracle perhaps? Nope. It's a regular day for Chef LiPuma. In 3 weeks, when LiPuma has his crew trained and confident, they will leave and a new group of inexperienced cooks will replace them. He will repeat this process every 3 weeks, thus providing the penultimate course for students who will soon graduate from the Culinary Institute of America. What makes this impossible rhythm possible is not a miracle. It's a system called mise-en-place. LEARNING TO COOK, LEARNING TO WORK The Culinary Institute of America, called the CIA without irony by people who think more about the epicurean than they do espionage, sits like a citadel on the banks of the Hudson River almost 100 miles north of New York City. Its grand campus in Hyde Park, New York, centered around a former seminary--housing an average of 2,400 students, 140 full-time faculty, 49 kitchens, and four student-staffed restaurants--the CIA is among the world's most renowned culinary schools, with branches in Texas, northern California, and Singapore. From the first day of classes to the last, CIA students will hear the