Min-joon grabbed the plate and stepped out of the kitchen. They knew who he wanted to see at the moment. Maya gulped then took some of the sauce left in the Thermomix to her mouth. And at that moment, happiness flooded her face. With others flocking to the Thermomix after watching her, Min-joon slowly knocked on the door of Rachel’s office.
“Come in.”
Rachel’s voice was heard. He got tense as he did last time when he brought the pomegranate dessert to her. But this time, he was confident he would pass. There was a lot of confidence on his face.
Rachel smiled at him as if it was fun.
“It seems you’re convinced that I’m going to say something good. I see a lot of anticipation in your eyes.”
“Yes, I am sure. Anyone who has tasted this dish will surely love it.”
“Since you say so, I think I can look forward to it. By the way, do you know none of my students has gotten my okay sign in the first try although they brought their own recipe to me?”
“I think I’ll be the first. I’m honored.”
“Well, you’ll know it only after you taste it.”
Rachel raised a spoon. Air and foam, galette and soufflé, and the spoon with which she scooped up the sauce shined like a gem in the light. At least at the moment, it was a gem, a beautiful jewel that would disappear in an instant.
She put it in her mouth. Watching her tasting it with the spoon, Min-joon closed his eyes. In a dark world, a single line of sentence was shining more clearly than ever.
[Five flavors and textures of Parmigiano Reggiano’s cooking score is 10 points!]
10 points. Perfect score.
The impact of a perfect score was quite meaningful to him. He had reached the highest point that a chef could reach in terms of cooking. It meant he could now make such a dish. It meant that he became a real chef, and a pretty good chef at that, no more a late bloomer and youngest chef who had a clumsy hand in the kitchen at the end of the year.
Min-joon slowly raised his eyelids. And at that moment, he was really surprised because Rachel made an expression he had never thought of, something he could not expect not only in this situation but in any situation.
Rachel was shedding tears at the moment.
“Master, are you okay?”
Even though Min-joon approached her, embarrassed, she did not reply.
She didn’t stop shedding tears even though she knew the cameraman was filming her.
Although he didn’t realize it yet, classifying the taste of cheese according to its maturation period was not something a demi chef at his age could think of. It would be difficult for even a professional chef to think this way.
‘It’s Daniel’s sense of taste. Yes, it sure is!’
Daniel used to compare the subtle flavors of aging then brought out its difference in three dimensions. Min-joon’s wasn’t exactly the same dish as Daniel’s, but it was the way Daniel showed her several times. Min-joon’s attitude and method of approaching cooking resembled Daniel that she longed for so dearly.
She finally opened her mouth after a long silence as if she was tired but got a load off her chest. “I feel like my decision to choose you was right.”
He didn’t ask the reason. He didn’t ask her which choice was right or wrong. Before he asked her about it, the first thing that came to his mind was the reason for her choice.
His perfect palate. Perhaps, that was what made her notice him first because she sometimes said that he would see the world differently as his taste developed. Certainly, she began to have high expectations for him. But her prejudice in the name of ‘expectations’ often stressed him out.
But at the same time, such stress became an opportunity for him. Because of Rachel’s expectations and because of the expectations of those around him, Min-joon had to be more obsessed with his perfect palate.
It was a kind of desperate effort on his part. He didn’t want to disappoint anybody. When others didn’t see him, he had to confront his anxiety alone. Really, he didn’t have anything like a perfect palate. He didn’t have what they wanted and thought about.
An ordinary man might have given up at that point. He might have given up everything and tried to turn away. But Min-joon couldn’t. He just liked cooking, so much so that he thought he was born for cooking. No cooking meant no life to him.
So he challenged himself and craved for it. Even if he didn’t have a perfect palate, he always tried hard to cultivate a taste close to it. He pondered over the matter of how to approach cooking if he had a perfect palate. So, people’s expectations and praise were not a carrot, but a stick to him.
“Don’t cry, master.”
“Then, why are you crying, Min-joon?” She said with a smile, wiping her wet eyes.
He also smiled, wiping the tears around his eyes with the back of his hand. He felt like he got a lot of load off his chest finally.
‘She said her decision to choose me was right…’
The reason she said that was because she found what she expected in his dish, regardless of how much she did. In other words, he met her expectations for his perfect palate in one way or another.
As much as Rachel was favorable to him, Min-joon always felt stressed out because he thought he gained her favor for nothing. So, after joining Rose Island, he had one more dream. His dream was to make her dream come true.
Of course, he could not figure out what it was. But whatever it was, he wanted to make it come true. If he was not competent enough to do so, he still wanted to realize it by making up for his shortcomings because that was what he could do for her.
‘Oh my… She is moved enough to shed tears at his dish…’
Watching the recorded video, the cameraman was lost in thought. Was there anybody who had ever put her crying on the air? He was really anxious to know what kind of dish it was that moved her so much as to cry. He wanted to taste it directly.
Unfortunately, he could not have a chance to taste it because Rachel ate everything on the plate, including the remaining sauce. She trembled because she was so thrilled. Apart from admiring the dish, it had been awhile since she felt so much thrill after tasting somebody’s dish.
“Min-joon, it’s no exaggeration to say that this is really an art. I feel like I’m going to be moved to tears because of its delicate taste. I think anybody who appreciates the taste will be moved to tears.”
“Thank you.”
“Did I tell you about it? While being my student, nobody got an okay sign from me on their first attempt.”
“Yes, you already said that.”
“Then, you are the first to get my okay sign, Min-joon.”
Rachel smiled at him softly. Her smile was full of hope, happiness, and anticipation.
If he had seen her smiling at him like that in the past, he would have felt pressured a lot, but he didn’t anymore. Of course, it didn’t mean he was completely free from such pressure.
But he could smile back at her now with pride and confidence. He was convinced that he would not betray her expectations.
When he left her office, other cooks and chefs were focused on him. He showed the empty plate to them silently. Normally, he would not have done so for fear the sauce on the plate would fall off, but he didn’t have to worry because she even had it all.
Janet asked blankly, “Did she clean your plate?”
“Yes, she did.”
“What kind of dish did you make? Let me taste it.”
“Well, it’s not difficult. But I think I have to receive 40 dollars for the dish…”
Of course, he was kidding, but Janet took out her wallet right away as if she was so curious.
She definitely wanted to taste his dish because nobody got her okay sign on their first attempt.
“Okay, here you go, 40 dollars.”
“No, no. I was kidding. Wait, let me make it right away.”
Min-joon pushed her hand and headed toward the kitchen counter. It didn’t take too long for him to make it because he had some ingredients he had saved earlier. A little later, Janet and the others who tasted it looked at him blankly.
Javier muttered with admiration, “I think this is as good as the potato soup topped with bacon foam that Master Rachel made at that time.”
“I thought it was salty because it was only cheese, but it wasn’t. I think I know why you made it for dessert. Did you add a lot of sugar?” Janet asked, looking at Min-joon.
But he shook his head quietly and said, “No. I just covered the salty taste with the flavor of the cheese itself because I focused on showing the taste of the cheese itself.”
“To be honest, I wondered how much the difference between the maturation periods would affect it, but I was also surprised by this. Although you said your cooking method was different, I feel like you have maximized the subtle difference between the two.”
Min-joon smiled silently at her comment. Anderson was concentrating on tasting it without any comment. Then he looked at Min-joon with a little angry expression.
A bit surprised, Min-joon stepped back a bit and said, “Hey, why are you looking at me like that?”
“Man, this is delicious!”
“Then, why are you saying it in such an angry voice?”
“Because you make me angry. Who the hell are you? How come you can make such a delicious dish? Tell me.”
“Calm down, dude. Sometimes you can hit the jackpot, can’t you?”
Although Min-joon tried to calm him down, Anderson still showed a resentful expression.
That was understandable. Anderson thought his cooking level was similar to his, but the dish he offered now was way beyond his level. He could not figure out at all how Min-joon could develop and make this kind of dish.
Anderson held out the plate.
Looking him in the eye, Anderson said bluntly, “Give me another plate.”
“You’re on a diet, aren’t you?”
“Apart from my diet, I want to analyze it first. By the way, how come you hit on the idea of making this kind of dish with cheese? I know you don’t eat cheese.”
“Well, if you don’t eat cheese, it doesn’t mean you don’t like it. And…”
Grinning at him, Min-joon scooped the cheese souffle from his plate and put it in his mouth.
“If you give up just because you don’t like it, it means you give up that part of cooking. I don’t like it. If you don’t like a certain dish, you have to make it like you.”
“What a brute!”
