When I was a child – long before I became the Kitchen Goddess – two of the few things my mother would allow me to make in the kitchen were Jell-O® and Jell-O Instant Pudding. I thought it was magic: powder plus liquid equals dessert. Frankly, I also thought it was cooking. And I couldn’t imagine eating it out of anything but those Pyrex® 6-ounce glass custard cups.
I don’t think I had any Pyrex cups of my own until I had children, when they were the best things I could find to hold baby food. (The cups, not the children.) Since that time, I’ve discovered how wonderfully useful those little dishes are for a truly vast number of tasks. Storage, baking, microwaving, heating up small servings, but mostly for assembling my mise en place. Chop the parsley and put it into one of the cups. Measure out the curry powder, and put it in a cup. Mince the garlic, and...you get the idea. Then assemble all those little cups next to the skillet, and you won’t find yourself burning the onions as you scream, “OMG – how much garlic?!”
