No matter how much one is satisfied with one’s life, one sometimes feels another man’s life is more worthy and beautiful. For example, a child might say he wants to be a boxer after watching a boxing movie, no matter how grand a dream he might have.
Min-joon felt like he was an elementary school student who just watched a movie about a Chinese chef. He liked Daisy’s dishes from A to Z. So, he wanted to make her dishes his own. He wanted to absorb her know-how, her flavor, and her point of view.
“You remember that I told you I would like to apologize for tempting you, right?”
“Yeah, you have really tempted me…”
If he thought about it rationally, he knew how meaningless it was to feel such desire because it would be impossible to find a master chef who was versatile in all the cuisine in the world. It was also impossible to be good at all the dishes in the world even with the help of the system.
As a matter of fact, Daisy’s dish was different, not better than others in Min-joon’s eyes. So, even though he might feel her dishes were attractive, he didn’t feel the urge to change his path.
Was it because he was so greedy as to make her dishes his own?
“Well, if I calm down over time, don’t you think I might be less tempted?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I don’t have to be tempted by your dishes, right?”
She didn’t immediately answer his question. Instead, she just looked at him with a meaningful expression. So, he also looked at her for a moment then her system window. Cooking level 9, gastronomy level 9. Although there were more differences within the cooking and gastronomy levels, she was better than most head chefs in top restaurants, given her current level.
So, he had some expectations that she would reply to his question. He expected some mature reply from her, but what she said was somewhat weird.
“The air in Beijing is dirty.”
“Pardon?”
“But I still love this city. It’s not just because I can use spices for food. It’s because I have chosen to come here. Try to love your own choice a little more.”
“You’re saying I should not be tempted.”
“Not necessarily.”
She said with a mischievous smile, “What I mean is never forget your specialty in cooking. Of course, you are free to be tempted. You can steal my know-how on my cooking. As long as you know what cooking is, it won’t ruin your cooking. Even if they come to my restaurant, there are some who are stimulated and others who are not. So, if you’re stimulated, that might mean that it’s the right path for you in the first place.”
“If I want to steal some of your know-how in your dishes, would you please approve it?”
“Since you proudly declare you want to steal it, just do it then.”
Only when she didn’t raise any objection did he feel a little more comfortable. As a matter of fact, he didn’t always specialize in western food, nor did he so in Korean or Japanese cuisine. He was just walking the path he had been following.
In the meantime, he continued to use chopsticks to try her food. He emptied all the dishes in front of him except for the sauce. When he was done eating all the dishes, he looked at her with a serious expression, and said, “You are great, Daisy.”
“Why is that?”
“Well, you don’t look up or you don’t look down. You just look at what you want to see. I think that’s really cool.”
“Don’t flatter me too much. I want to show off, but I was pretty depressed when Michelin reduced my stars.”
He just smiled at her embarrassed expression, but he wanted to say that even that was great.
She might have thought she had to change her current way of cooking if Michelin reduced her stars, but she was still making the dishes that she wanted to make. In some respects, she was the opposite of June.
“Can I take a look at your kitchen?”
“Sure, please.”
Min-joon moved to the kitchen with her permission. While the chefs who secretly overheard the conversation between the two went back to their places, clearing their throats, Min-joon scanned each and every part of the kitchen. He didn’t feel that it was so spacious and comfortable because as an open kitchen, it focused on its practical use rather than style and grandeur.
He turned to Daisy. As if she knew what he would ask, she nodded happily.
“Use whatever ingredients or tools you want to use. You know I’m not that narrow-minded enough to be stingy to my junior.”
“Thank you.”
He looked around. He was a little worried that there were only knives for Chinese food only, but fortunately, there were quite a lot of knives for western food. He picked one sharp knife for western food and brought one pine mushroom. He was thinking of making a fried dish made with the eel and pine mushrooms that he saw a little while ago.
As if she noticed his intentions, a female chef who appeared to be Chinese stopped him.
Then she said in some awkward English, “It looks like you want to chop pine mushrooms with the knife, but it’s more difficult than you think. I’m also pretty good at cutting, but it took me a few years to get used to it.”
“Really?”
He shrugged, then raised the knife again. The female chef tried to say something, but gave up, folding her arms and watched him curiously.
Of course, he wasn’t confident right now because he was better at measuring the ingredients for the best combination and boiling them. But he felt he could do it better for some reason. Actually, he wanted to try even if he couldn’t.
But the female chef didn’t think at all that he could do it. Besides, the knife he was holding right now was used for making western food. He needed a rather heavy knife for Chinese food to use its weight to cut the mushrooms even like a thread. it was almost impossible to take out a long thread of mushrooms with the knife mainly used for making western food.
‘The moment he can’t concentrate, he’s finished.’
If mushrooms were not cut even, it would continue to affect his cooking. So, he had no choice but to concentrate as much as he could. But he had no problem at all because he was pretty good at it.
Time passed gradually with everybody in the kitchen holding their breath. With their eyes filled with disbelief, amazement, or envy, they watched him cutting the mushrooms. Whenever he cut the mushrooms with intense concentration so carefully and subtly, they even wondered if he was a human because the chopped mushrooms kept coming out thinly like a thread.
Soon the whole pine mushroom turned into evenly chopped threads.
“Oh my God! Did he really do it?”
The female chef who stopped him at first murmured with a stunned expression.
She couldn’t believe it while watching him. She wondered how he could produce such evenly chopped mushroom threads with the knife for the western food. Since he was not so famous in China, it was not unreasonable that she took a dim view of his skills at first.
And only now she realized why Daisy was so favorable to a sous chef like him from Rose Island’s branch in America. When she looked at him again, it was clear that he was not satisfied with just making pine mushroom threads alone. He now began to make onion sauce with pickled eels in it.
One thing that really made her get goosebumps was that the onion sauce he made was almost the same as their recipe as if Daisy tipped him off in advance. While all the chefs except Daisy got carried away with his fantastic cooking, Daisy looked at him with a mysterious smile.
‘Alright. I now know why June has made the decision to have him as her sous chef with Rachel’s blessings.’
There was definitely a reason for Rachel and June to have great expectations of him. It wasn’t just because of his perfect palate. It was also not because of his talent alone. He was shining among the stars, and he had what the chefs needed most, namely, passion for cooking.
Someone might ask if every chef had such passion. Who would try to rack his brain to reproduce the same dish just because he was impressed by the dish? How many chefs like him would be there?
Min-joon was the type of chef who loved cooking so much that he just linked everything with cooking. Daisy had never seen not many chefs who had such a personality. And the people she had seen produced results that were incomparable to ordinary chefs.
She was convinced that Min-joon would be such a cook giant like them.
‘So, what kind of decision would you make?’
She wondered if he would want to be like June, Dave, Rachel, or someone else with his own distinction.
While she indulged in such idle thoughts, Min-joon was already preparing several dishes.
He reproduced not only the eggplant sandwich, fried matsutake and eel, and crab legs covered with a sauce made using pistachio starch, all of which that her kitchen staff made as a rule.
Of course, Daisy didn’t have to taste them because she watched his cooking process all along. And he didn’t make any mistake in that process. He perfectly made all the dishes with the recipes that he had never tried before in the strange kitchen at his first attempt.
Who would not shudder at this kind of “monster chef”? Who would not covet him? It was natural for June and Rachel to covet him. And it was natural that Rachel wanted to keep him as a secret card forever.
‘Shall I covet him, too?’
She suddenly thought about it, but she shook her head in no time.
Even if she wanted to take him away from June, she would not allow it.
Everybody had a window in their eyes.
Min-joon was like a mirror beyond the window in her eyes.
The mirror was so complete and beautiful that it made her look back on herself.
