“Well, when you’re young, you guys are growing while picking a fight like that. Dobby, I don’t know if you’re young, though.”
It was Brandon who cut in.
Dobby said, looking at him with a sullen expression, “I think I’m young!”
“Well, I was already head chef at your age, causing a sensation in Paris.”
“I’ll do the same in America soon.”
“You’re June’s favorite student, right? I guess people would feel you’re June Jr., whatever you do?”
“It’s true I’ve learned a lot from Chef June, but my dish is my own. I think I will bring out something different from her style. Since ingredients are different by region, I think I have no choice but to change my cooking style.”
“Hmm. Well, let me buy your excuse. Anyway, you’re not young.”
Dobby lowered his head, making a sullen face.
At that moment, Min-joon sighed, shaking his head.
“Let’s move on and talk about something constructive. It’s just meaningless for you to pick a quarrel like this.”
“Constructive? Is that possible?”
“You might feel it’s a bit painful, but I’ve got an idea. Would you like to hear my suggestion?”
They looked at him curiously.
Looking at them, he said calmly, “Why don’t we analyze the strength and weaknesses of each other’s dishes and point them out? Then we can make up for the shortcomings of the dishes.”
“Do you want to discuss it now?”
“Well, do you think it’s much better than spending your time and energy for nothing?”
Like all occupations, chefs were also supposed to accept other people’s opinions a little more. But the thing was, they find it very hard to accept their “opinions.”
For example, when somebody said, ‘Man, I sprinkled spices for this reason. Why are you ignoring my intention and criticizing me?’ or ‘If you cook like that, you won’t improve at all. You’re talkative because you have not tried it in person,’ the chef would feel very displeased with such criticism because he didn’t want somebody to disparage his elaborate dish and change his cooking style overnight.
“So, you mean we have to point out the strength and weakness of our own dish for each other?”
“Yes, we have to find it out from our dishes. Maybe you can recreate the dishes you made in the latest round because you must have noticed it in other chefs’ dishes. I think my idea is pretty good. What do you think?” Min-joon asked, looking at the others.
Janet nodded with a dry expression.
“I’m fine. Come to think of it, no one has pointed out the problems of my cooking these days.”
Of course, the judges made comments about her cooking in this contest. To be honest, however, their comments were overly French-oriented. So Janet couldn’t help but welcome Min-joon’s proposal because his criticism was more accurate than anyone else. Perhaps because of his perfect palate or his constant efforts to improve, he got used to analyzing others’ dishes in several aspects
‘I think you can make me review my dish from a new angle that I’ve never noticed before,’ she thought to herself.
Janet knew that she was definitely a talented chef, but she was not a genius like Min-joon and Kaya who could cook anything with their talent alone. It was their help that she needed to make up for her shortcomings, namely one piece of advice from them. By learning and practicing it, she hoped she could share these genius’ senses and perspectives. In other words, she could borrow their talent.
She decided to swallow her pride. She knew she was as good as Min-joon and Kaya as far as her cooking skills were concerned, but she lacked the talent that they had.
She would be lying if she wasn’t angry, but she decided to make use of her anger as something like a driving force of improvement.
She thought, ‘Let me steal their talent and learn it. I can afford to just complain and do nothing.’
Janet already learned some lessons from June’s life. She knew how to lead a life in the future, and June was the right model for her. Of course, there were things that June could not achieve in her life, which Janet also noticed. So, Janet learned something from her mistakes.
Anyway, Janet agreed to Min-joon’s suggestion. He quietly looked at the others. They also did not find any reason to reject his suggestion because they were used to other’s evaluations. So, they didn’t care about his evaluation. Rather, that was what they used to ask him for.
“Okay. I agree. So, shall I cook everything I did before?”
“Sure, let’s do that.”
Min-joon immediately headed to the kitchen. When his restaurant was closed, Brandon allowed them to use the kitchen counters freely. Of course, he might ask Rachel to pay the costs later.
‘I wonder if he is going to ask June to pay on Dobby’s behalf…’
While Min-joon was lost in idle thought like that, Kaya, who was next to her, opened her mouth. “Does this make sense?”
“What do you mean?”
“You guys have already been evaluated by the judges in this contest. Of course, their evaluation might be different from yours, but I wonder if there can be any big difference.”
“The judges’ evaluation is too skewed toward the French style. I know this competition is important, but we all have excellent skills enough to match the results of our competition, right? Do you think we have the skills that match our popularity?”
“Well, I don’t know if I have it, but I think we seem to have it,” Kaya said.
Her answer was rather vague, but he could understand it. Perhaps she wanted to point out that when they joined hands in cooking, they could show their skills more than their limits.
In that respect, her answer made some sense.
But he shook his head and said, “Yeah, we can when we’re together. But we can’t be together all the time. If we go back to Los Angeles as soon as this contest is over, we will head to different restaurants, right? Don’t you think it would be nice if we could cook the same as we do now?”
She was in thought when she heard that. Obviously, she felt happier than ever when she cooked with him. She could come up with a recipe more easily, and she could translate that recipe more smoothly. Anyway, when they returned to America, they couldn’t stand in the same kitchen.
Because she knew this, she felt like she would have to cook all day long with her body tied up if she had to be alone in the kitchen.
When she let out a sigh, pondering over this bleak situation, Min-joon said, “We need to have the cooking skills people expect of us. Even if we are not together, we should be able to cook the same as when we are together. And I guess it will probably be easier than we think because we’re bringing out the best of our skills that we already have instead of something that we don’t have.”
As long as the two were together, they were so competent in cooking that it was almost close to 9. Min-joon wanted to make that potential his own because he could not cook with her all the time.
As he already told Kaya, he didn’t feel big just because they were in the lead in this contest at the moment. He could see other participants’ cooking level. For example, he knew that Dobby, who was here, and Enzo, the owner of ‘Paris Park’, were cooking level 9. Of course, the cooking level didn’t show the level of the chef, but their level would be the same as the chef of western food. It was obvious that the two chefs cooked very well.
Of course, it wasn’t just luck that he got better scores than them in this contest. What they produced when he cooked with Kaya was more like the best outcome of their efforts rather than something beyond their cooking skills.
In the case of Enzo and Theo, probably Enzo would leave a lot of things with Theo rather than him taking the lead. Actually, Theo told Min-joon recently that when it came to a contest like this, Enzo just gave him some feedback when he came up with a recipe. In a way, that kind of mutual interaction was natural because Enzo didn’t want to do anything right now, but he wanted to make Theo gain experience.
‘It’s a little unclear what kind of experience he wants Theo to gain…’
The problem was Dobby. Min-joon was always feeling strongly that Dobby didn’t fully demonstrate his skills. In fact, when Min-joon thought of the dish that Dobby showed him when they met first, he could not understand why Dobby didn’t show the best of his skills. Of course, he received the second-best score in this contest, although he didn’t show his best dish yet.
“Maybe this contest will give him a chance to notice how competent other participants are.”
“Hey, why are you comparing their strength? They’re not fighting here.”
“Ooops… Sorry for my poor English. It’s not my mother tongue.”
“You are making excuses like that in a situation like this.”
He just chuckled at her words.
Since they were supposed to recreate the dishes they made in the finals, they had to make two dishes. Namely, roasted scallops with pea puree and cumin foam, and foie gras with chicken skin and chicken leg patties.
“Let me adjust the heat. Can you take over cutting?”
“What about puree?”
“Well, it depends. We don’t have to be together all along to cook here, right?”
“Good, got it.”
Then, the two started cooking right away.
With Min-joon cutting elaborately, Adrian, one of the French demi-chefs who gathered around to watch them, groaned.
“It looks like Chef Min-joon’s cutting is faster than before.”
“It’s probably because of his mood. How can he do it faster so soon? You can’t improve cutting skills so quickly.”
“Man, he’s so fast…”
When he said that, the demi-chefs began to closely observe his cutting. And they gradually started to feel why Adrian said that his cutting was faster than before. The speed of his cutting itself did not change much. If there was anything different from before, he drastically reduced the time he spent on taking care of the leftover ingredients while removing the chopped ingredients and bringing in new ingredients. They felt like he never stopped moving his hands. Adrian felt it before, but he could clearly realize there was some urgency in his hands that he could not notice before.
“Isn’t it true that he has come to grasp the know-how of cutting so soon?”
“I know we should do things faster in a contest like this…”
“I can feel that he is definitely a smart chef.”
They thought because Min-joon was smart, he realized how to fix his mistake and improve when nobody pointed it out. He must have used each of those minor changes to improve himself and grow as he was today, they felt. When they thought about it, they felt more determined to work harder. He was the role model for them that showed what kind of results each and every effort could bring about over the long run.
“It looks like Min-joon and Kaya can never be complacent during this competition.”
“Yeah, I think they can make the dish we can’t, given the same amount of time.”
Come to think of it, it was their huge merit. It meant that they could make the dishes that others couldn’t because it took too much time to make them. In this competition, it was hard to find a better pair than the Kaya and Min-joon match.
And at that moment, Min-joon was more amazed at his smooth cooking process. He felt like he was already cooking even before he thought of it, just like a master chef. He felt like he was peeking into a master chef’s cooking process. Obviously, he saw how high he could climb in terms of cooking.
