‘Why did I come here?’
After she said that, Gwen couldn’t immediately figure out what she did a moment ago. She was neither stupid nor brave enough not to realize how important it was to choose her team well for this mission.
Merlyn didn’t look incompetent, but she was still a teen. There were lots of differences between adults and minors that one could not express in words. She could cook well, but cooking well on her own was clearly different from the matter of her working harmoniously with her team members while reading their minds.
Peter was also not necessarily a good team member. Gwen knew what kind of feuds Peter had with his team members during the Grand Chef competition in the past. As for his cooking skills, people said he was not that good at cooking. Of course, time passed by a lot, and he kept growing. His tandoori mackerel the other day drew a good response from all the judges.
But that was all he showed the judges. His strength did not outweigh his shortcomings enough to ignore many people’s uneasiness about him.
Nevertheless, Gwen came to his team. She rejected other great participants’ requests to join their team and decided to join his team, which looked unstable in many participants’ eyes.
Maybe she was reminded of her teen days when she saw Merlyn, who was in a situation where she asked for other participants’ help but got little support from them. She just felt sorry for Merlyn’s uneasiness and even guilty feelings that she showed in asking for their help. While she was feeling sorry for Merlyn, she just felt frustrated that she could not take the initiative to approach Merlyn first to help her at the same time.
So when Peter reached out to Merlyn, Gwen was delighted. She felt as if she got helped when Merlyn was being helped by Peter. And her delight made her decide to join Peter’s team.
‘Yeah, I’m clumsy in every way, Gwen Queen.’
She felt proud that she could stand next to Merlyn, but at the same time, she had mixed feelings about her decision to join his team that included Merlyn. She vowed to succeed by all means to lead a beautiful life as a respected human, but she once tried to become an ugly adult who tried to turn a deaf ear to this teenager’s request.
Gwen realized again that she had a long way to go. She didn’t know exactly what her path would be, but she just thought about it vaguely.
‘I have to make it somehow.’
In any case, Peter and Merlyn were good chefs who could make great dishes. Even though both of them carried a big risk to Gwen who was eyeing for the championship of this competition, they could bring about excellent results if they cooked well in great teamwork.
And her assumption like that was not wrong because one of the judges, Min-joon, was paying the most attention to Peter’s team right now.
“Don’t you think it’ll be fun, Gwen’s team?”
Even though Peter and Merlyn are there, he was conscious of her well enough to call them Gwen’s team. Joseph, who knew what Min-joon said in the interview, slowly nodded.
“Actually, looking at the situation, it seems difficult for you guys to get good results, but I’ve got lots of expectations from your team. I think I have to cheer for your team in that respect.”
“Well, people tend to cheer for weaker teams in the game, as you know,” said Kaya, shaking her head as if she understood.
Of course, it didn’t mean that Peter, Merlyn, and Gwen were a weak team. Individually, each of them wasn’t that bad. The problem was each of them had their own unique situation and personality.
‘Above all, their overall cooking level is high,’ Min-joon thought.
Peter and Gwen’s cooking level was 7. Merlyn’s cooking level was 5, but the reason she survived until now was because she had a great cooking idea that made up for her lack of cooking skills. When her fantastic imagination that could be found in a teen was added to her dishes, the judges found an incomparable fun in them, compared with the dishes of other participants.
“Michael’s team is the largest one. They’ve got five members.”
“It would be rather disadvantageous in this mission if they had too many team members,” Kaya said, stroking her chin.
If each member of the team had certain skills, it would be a different story. But that was not the case in this competition. Even if they were competent enough to have survived until now, it was difficult to say that their skills were verified by the judges yet. And even those whose cooking skills were verified lacked a lot, compared with the real professional chefs well known in the field.
When even professional chefs tried to work together, it was common that they showed disagreements or discord over the dishes they were going to make. So there was a high possibility that when the amateur participants formed teams on their own, they could have more discord and disagreement while cooking.
“It seems that Michael’s team members are also aware of such problems. I see them wearing worried expressions.”
“Well, Michael alone seems relaxed.”
It was natural that Michael looked so carefree and relaxed because he accepted anybody who asked to join his team without taking into account their individual situation. As if he wanted to prove that he had come to this Grand Chef competition only to make good memories, there was no strong desperate resolve to win in his attitude, compared with others.
‘Nevertheless, he’s the most likely winner.’
Min-joon felt it rather daunting and strange that he didn’t have to understand cooking in terms of cooking alone. Even if he cooked the same dish, all the scientific causes and processes that brought out different tastes, depending on the recipe, were working in his mind. If he cooked after knowing it, his cuisine would definitely be better than one that he made without knowing it.
That was a method that only real genius chefs could take. In other words, genius chefs who were in a different league than Kaya.
In the meantime, Hugo made a team with Ken and another participant. The cooking level of his team was overall high, but because of that, his team seemed to be the safest team.
Min-joon announced, “I’ll give you three hours for the team meeting. You have to come up with your recipe and work out the menu that you want to make for the next three hours.”
It seemed quite a long time for the meeting, but it wasn’t. They had to complete the full course within 3 hours. They had to decide on their role, work out their cooking sequence and come up with the necessary recipes. Typically it took the chefs several weeks to adjust to each other’s cooking sequence, and it would take even several months for them to develop a new recipe.
As a result, it was hard to expect the participants to come up with a great course within such a short time frame.
‘Well, all you can do is just make dishes that are good enough,’ Min-joon murmured to himself.
Actually, he didn’t expect much more than that because he knew how difficult it was to develop a recipe and make an excellent dish within such a short time.
He looked at the participants who gathered around here and there, discussing their cooking ideas. The reality was not always beautiful. Their passion was supposed to breed clashes, which then would ruin their teamwork and ruin their dishes.
He expected there would not be many teams that would produce great results with great teamwork in an amicable atmosphere. And his expectation was not wrong.
“Well, I have some expectations from the team of Gwen, Peter, and Merlyn among other teams this time,” said Min-joon.
“Are you serious? Aren’t they the least stable team?” Martin asked.
“Well, I admit their team members fail to give us a sense of stability, but they are pretty good chefs. By now, everybody knows how pointless it was for them to try to form a team with those who they thought were problematic. In fact, the chef who was occupied with weeding out those who he thought were incompetent or problematic had much more problems, small or big.”
“Problems?”
“Well, I would say their lack of experience is their number one problem. Most of the participants here have never had a chance to cook with other chefs. In other words, they know how to cook on their own, but they don’t know how to cook with others. It’s quite ridiculous for them to kick out a teen like Merlyn, assuming her judgment would be immature because their judgment itself is far from quick or smart. If I have to point out the difference between her and others, it’s just telling a white egg from a black one.”
As a chef, Min-joon’s metaphor was related to cooking. Martin chuckled at his words but nodded as if he also agreed. When he looked at the participants from the perspective of an ordinary citizen or TV producer like himself, it was quite reasonable that they were striving to find better teammates. But Min-joon approached this matter from a completely different angle.
