I was doing some prep the other day. Rolando thought I might like to have some time in the kitchen, and he was right. Joe put me to work juicing 2 crates of lemons for lemon juice, and then I made a couple batches of muffin batter. I hadn’t done serious prep for almost a year. When I first started, I would work the lunch rush at MIT, then race to our commissary on the Orange Line, to do prep for the next day. I had never really worked in a kitchen before Clover, and it took me a while to master the recipes and to not make a mess when I was making hummus.

One of the things I learned with prep is efficiency. If you position all your ingredients and equipment so that you can have a good flow, so that every movement makes sense and doesn’t waste energy, you can shave a lot of time off whatever you’re making. I noticed the kitchen crew has taken this to another level. Here are everyone’s best times for prepping certain items.