Mise en Place

Food Network Chef Anne Burrell leveled with her group of home cooks in the premiere of “Worst Cooks in America”: Before you start cooking, you need to have your oven set, and all your ingredients prepped and in place. This act, of setting yourself up to cook, is called “mise en place”.

When I started this blog, two years ago, I failed Anne Burrell. I began well, but then I stopped writing. I neglected to frame my words and failed to put my interests of college, cooking, and Iron Chef America into any kind of context, so that my my poor three entries became the undesirable leftovers in the Internet’s refrigerator. Dear readers, fellow foodies, and Chef Burrell, I apologize. Allow me to introduce both myself and this blog.

My name is Stephanie and I’m a senior at Boston University’s College of Communication. I’m a Public Relations major and a liberal arts concentration in English, whenever I’m not cooking or religiously watching the Food Network. BU’s COM program commendably encourages its students to explore new media and technology while in school, in order to perfect those necessary skill sets that we need to become successful public relations practitioners. Such skill sets include learning to write a blog.

I started “College, Cooking, and Iron Chef America” for a sophomore seminar taught by the very brilliant, Michael Dowding, of Wordscape Communications, Inc. Although the aim of the project was to continue the blog until the end of the semester, Professor Dowding’s class covered a lot of material, and my peers and I, given the choice, unanimously elected to drop the blog project after only three posts.

Cut to the second semester of my senior year, and my COM CM 443 class: New Media and Public Relations, taught by the equally brilliant Professor Steve Quigley, who tasked the class to practice creating content and reaching out to our audiences with our own blogs. On top of that, I stumbled upon my three decrepit little CC&IRA blog posts earlier in the week, so the decision to breathe new, more experienced light into my beloved topic seemed natural.

And so, fellow foodies, with my mise en place in place (enjoy the pun, there will be others), I invite you to relax, let me pull up a chair, as I proudly present my blog.