Chapter 339: If You Don’t Have It, You Can Make It (5)
What he just confessed went to her heart. So much so that she felt scared of the intensity of his concentration on cooking while making such fine dishes. It wasn’t that she led a haphazard life, only pursuing the sweetness of life until now. She had sweat and toils and shed tears until she came as far as here. But she couldn’t love her sweat and tears.
However, Min-joon had a different perspective of cooking from hers. He had no sense of obligation or burden while walking the laborious path of cooking.
So, Laura could not help but ask once again, expecting he had some other reason.
“Why do you focus on cooking? Do you want to get something from cooking? Or do you simply like to cook?”
The moment she asked it, Laura felt like she already heard his answer, for what he showed her until now answered her question.
Actually, his answer was largely what she expected.
“Well, you asked me why I focused on cooking, right? It’s because I like cooking. After all, what you can get by cooking fine dishes are money and prestige. If I had wanted it, I would have engaged in politics or business. Or I might have become an entertainer.”
“But while you’re pursuing your career, don’t you sometimes feel insensitive to cooking because you’re doing it every day or you don’t feel anything fresh?”
When she expressed her opinion more seriously, the participants around her began to gather around her. She felt a bit embarrassed, but she could not take back what she already said.
So, she chose to speak frankly instead of trying to keep her dignity by being silent.
“I don’t want to mince words. These days, I often feel like I’m in a rut. Even if I make the same dish and a new recipe every day, I don’t seem to feel much difference between them, so I often come to think about what my dishes taught me rather than my own dishes. What do you think?”
“Does what I think matter to you, Laura? It’s your own matter,” Min-joon said.
“It’s important to me because I think you’re pretty respectful right now. Maybe for a while, I wouldn’t doubt if you were making a steak with red beans because I’ve been stimulated a lot by your dishes.”
Min-joon looked rather embarrassed at her flattering in a casual voice. He was lost in thought for a moment. Since she asked seriously, he could not help but just remain silent. While he was agonizing over how to reply. Brian said in a blunt voice, “Hey, Laura, you just cook your own dish. Why do you care about what others say?”
“Man, what are you talking about? A chef is supposed to be like that. As a chef, you can survive when you always pay attention to what the customers are saying. Even if the customer is not a gourmet, but a man with a dull palate who can’t properly distinguish between sweet and salty, you have to listen to his or her voice. That’s why you have to listen to what your fellow chefs are saying to you.”
“But you never tried to listen to me, right?” Brain asked.
“I’m sorry, but I didn’t feel you’re cool enough to make me listen to you.”
Brian made a smirk at what she said jokingly.
At that moment, Min-joon opened his mouth, pointing to the plate.
“Let me tell you after you try my dessert first.”
When he said that, not only Laura, but others turned their eyes at the dessert. It was the very dessert that Laura admired as soon as she saw it. Licorice tuil was put on the cream made with licorice and Bergamot, and the cream made only with Bergamot was beautifully contained in orange jelly. Sorrel leaves with red veins were placed around it, while several drops of licorice puree were also placed around it.
At first glance, it was a plate that reminded them of a forest with banana-shaped wood chips and gray rocks. Laura carefully picked up the orange jelly with Bergamot cream. When she brought it to her nose, the smell that touched her most clearly was orange. When she felt like even her breathing was purified by the fragrance of the orange, she swallowed the jelly. And at that moment, she turned her head toward Min-joon unwittingly.
‘Who the hell is this guy…?’
She thought that she was already impressed enough when she tried his appetizer and main dish. So, this time, she decided that she wouldn’t be surprised no matter what dish he offered. But she immediately knew she had to revoke what she decided a moment ago.
“The texture of the jelly is really fascinating! I really can’t express how to describe my …”
Joseph also shook his head, so impressed with the taste of the jelly. Jelly seemed to be simple enough to make, but it was surprisingly difficult to make. You might think that all you had to do was to dissolve the gelatin in water, but it was never an easy process to harden it while adjusting the concentration and temperature of the water appropriately.
However, Min-joon found it was the easiest to make jelly. It was a little hard, but he could easily make it by checking the expected cooking score in real-time. And that was why he put a lot of effort into the dessert the most. In the case of dessert, almost everything was taken care of by him except for the initial preparation.
It didn’t take too long for them to show feedback because they didn’t want to be distracted from focusing on the dish at the moment. The same was true of Kaya. She put a lot of licorice and Bergamot cream in the crispy licorice tuil and put it in her mouth. She felt like she was eating it by putting the original mustard on Nachos. What was different from it was that the refreshing taste of licorice and Bergamot made her feel like she was eating a fruit worth hundreds of dollars.
‘I wish he could make it for me at home if he knew how to.’
Kaya knew he could not afford to do so at home, but she stared at him, a bit upset.
The moment he looked embarrassed at her unexpected sharp glance, Laura opened her mouth. “Is this your answer, Min-joon?”
“Yes. Isn’t it fun? I mean the taste.”
Laura couldn’t answer easily. Bergamot, a balm made from orange peel. In fact, she was supposed to taste it on the outside, but it was inside as a cream while the real orange flesh became jelly to wrap the cream. She was not sure whether he made it like that for a dramatic effect.
Laura said, “You are doing arts with cooking.”
She didn’t mean to praise him. While enjoying his dishes, she naturally thought that way.
She thought that a chef named Min-joon was both a chef and an artist. And he did not deny that because he also thought that there was no need to distinguish between cooking and art.
Min-joon replied, “I’ve never thought that my cooking was the same because I always tried to make something new. Of course, I feel that I’m in a rut while making the attempt itself, but my cooking is always different. At least, that’s my opinion.”
“I think you may be right. Maybe it wasn’t that I was different, but I lamented that the world of cooking was so limited while making similar dishes every day. Yeah, you’re right. In fact, I’ve never imagined a recipe you developed like this.”
“In fact, I was like you until a few months ago. I found it so challenging even to make delicious food. But I’ve changed a lot after I started learning under Chef Rachel…”
“Wow, you love your teacher too much.”
“Because I received so much from her.”
Min-joon smiled in satisfaction. Laura put down her fork and looked at the half-eaten dessert. It was not because she lost appetite or she was full. It was because Min-joon’s dessert was delicious enough for her to covet another plate.
She put down the fork for two reasons. First, she wanted to put off cleaning the plate as much as possible. Secondly, she wanted to remember and analyze it while she could keep its image on the plate because she would be able to make something like this if she could understand it.
Min-joon’s dish wasn’t overwhelmingly delicious, compared to Laura’s. Laura had cooking level 8, which was the same as Min-joon’s. In terms of bringing out the taste of the ingredients, she might be better than him.
However, Laura could not catch up with his sophisticated sense and unusual recipe ideas. She could not understand how he could develop such an innovative and unusual cooking perspective when the two were raised in a similar kitchen environment.
‘Is it because he is becoming more like Kaya?’
Laura now began to seriously think about it.
While she was lost in thought, other participants were in a completely different dilemma among them. Min-joon’s dishes were delicious. They were not only delicious, but fresh, shocking, artistic, and fun at the same time.
They understood what Laura said to him, “You’re doing arts with cooking.”
Now that they tasted all three dishes made by Min-joon, they were not only thrilled but at the same time, they felt dejected in some respects.
“It is difficult to make something delicious, but how can I satisfy various stuff?” Jaden muttered in a weary voice. “This was the longest three-course menu in my life.”
Another participant mumbled, looking at the plates with a confused expression.
Jaden made eye contact with other participants. Looking at their eyes, he thought that all of them would be cooking in the kitchen instead of falling asleep.
Jaden looked back at Min-joon. His eyes full of admiration seemed a little hungry for something.
“I want to be such a chef,” he murmured before he knew it.
Other participants nodded unconsciously to his murmur. Min-joon cooked only for a short time, but he showed them a lot of things. He showed them what a wonderful and beautiful job cooking was, and how great their dishes could be beyond what they thought.
Until he first stepped into the Grand Chef last year, Min-joon was just a nondescript stone that nobody paid attention to. But he was different now. In the eyes of the judges, he was already like a beautiful statue, and in the eyes of the participants in the Grand Chef, he was like a rock with its top never seen, something they had to climb, though it was tough.
