God of Cooking

“You did a great job!” June said.

After Min-joon had the first testy interaction with the kitchen staff, she called him to her office. He scratched his nose with an embarrassed expression.

“I’m embarrassed because I feel like I’ve shown them I’m overly confident.”

“Of course, you should if you have to. If you just wait for people to recognize you, you will have to wait forever. It’s good that you are shouting to others to recognize you as a chef.”

He would probably ignore it if somebody said so, but he took her words seriously because she was a woman who liked to reveal herself to others better than anybody else. She raised her arms and began to tie her black hair back.

“How long do you think it will take?”

“Pardon?”

“I mean, how long will it take for you to get used to this restaurant and become perfect as a sous chef?”

“I’m not sure because I haven’t worked as a sous chef before.”

“Two weeks,” she said casually. “I’ll give you two weeks. During that period I want you to fully understand how you should cook, and even make the kitchen staff follow your leadership.”

“Sure, I will.”

“Do you understand what this means to you right now? Two weeks is not a short time, but never long enough. Sometimes a demi-chef, who becomes a sous chef for the first time, complains that it’s hard for them for the first several months.”

“You are with me, Chef June. If I have a good head chef like you, all I have to do is just check individual demi chefs and convey your instructions to them. So, I don’t feel that pressured.”

“Do you trust me?”

She looked at him as if she thought his words were rather unexpected. He also looked at her as if he could not understand.

“Did you think I wouldn’t trust you?”

“Well, I’ve never thought like that. But come to think of it, I’ve felt like that before.”

“Chef Rachel has always said Chef June and Chef Dave are the best of all the head chefs of Rose Island’s local branches. And the main course served at the New York branch was the best I had tasted.”

She didn’t think he was flattering her now because when it came to food, he never lied. So, she thought his comment was quite meaningful because the very person she had been caring so much about recognized her. Of course, it would make no sense if he didn’t recognize her. As a matter of fact, those gourmets who visited June’s restaurant and tried the food heaped praise on June’s course menu.

‘It feels strange…’

She once decided to embrace him, but she had no choice but to admit that she had not been able to embrace him sincerely. If she had thought he was under her wing, she would not have felt strange about his reply at this moment.

She cleared her throat and changed the topic.

“One of the things Chef Rachel can’t teach you, but I can is just one thing. In other words, how to get your position right.”

“My position?”

“What do you think is a chef’s proper position?”

“In the kitchen?”

“Generally speaking, you may be right. I don’t want to deny that. If you want a restaurant that simply makes the customers feel good about our delicious food, you will be happy about being in the kitchen alone, assuming you have such capabilities.”

“Then, what about our restaurant here?”

“You have to get out of the kitchen,” she said in a calm voice.

There was no skepticism or doubt in her voice. With full confidence, she looked at him.

“You have to let people know about you, your dishes, and your kitchen. You should not be content with just letting them know about it. Make those who hear it like you and envy you. Make yourself their idol because they think there is nothing more delicious than one that their idol makes.”

“Got it. Then, what kind of dish do you want to make?”

“A dish that’s as good as anyone else’s. More precisely, a dish that’s better than anyone else’s. A dish that makes our customers wonder if there’s a chef better than June. That’s my ambition. My goal is to be the world’s best chef.”

He was lost in thought after hearing that. He had also thought about it, but he had no choice but to give up even before he had such ambitions. It wasn’t because he wasn’t confident, for the definition of the world’s best chef was rather ambiguous. People tended to treat a chef’s dish subjectively while evaluating it.

Even if he heard from people that he was the best chef in the world by appealing to their subjective judgment, could he say he was really the world’s best chef?

As if she noticed him questioning her ambitions, she opened her mouth with a pretty bitter voice.

“Yeah, I may rely on others for my ambitions. But you can’t say that is bad, right?”

“In the end, it’s up to you how to think about it. But if I’m outside the kitchen, don’t you think the quality of the dishes will go down?”

Depending on who heard that, his comment might sound provocative, so he spoke in a cautious tone. Fortunately, she thought he was considerate enough, and nodded calmly.

“Of course, the quality of our dishes will go down.”

“Then that’s not what you want, right? After all, the chef should be in the kitchen, not outside it…”

“But I’ve never told you to cut down on your working hours in the kitchen.”

He could not understand what she was talking about. If he didn’t cut down on working hours in the kitchen, how could he make himself available outside the kitchen?

But it didn’t take long for him to find out the answer.

***

‘Man, she looks like a monster…’

After following June all day long, Min-joon could not help but be astonished. It was true that she would not cut down on his working hours in the kitchen.

After constantly going back and forth to the kitchen and her office, starting with preparing for the opening of the restaurant and during business hours, she took him to a party as soon as the restaurant was closed for the day.

The party was not just for fun and enjoyment. At a party held by chefs in New York and those in the foodservice industry, June continued to talk about New York’s gastronomic trends and Michelin’s changes.

She introduced Min-joon to almost everyone at the party as her new chef, but in fact, most people already knew about him to the extent that she didn’t need to introduce him at all.

Some of them were familiar to him because he met them last time when he visited June’s restaurant. So, he let his guard down and talked with them in a relaxed mood.

“What do you think about Chef June as you now work with her?”

It was a bald man who asked that question. Considering his awkward foreign accent, he looked like a French or an Italian, so Min-joon replied with a calm voice.

“To be honest with you, I’m just amazed! I wonder how she could take care of such a tight schedule.”

“She is not easy to deal with, but there is a reason for people to like her. She’s sort of a workaholic that makes people even pity her, sleeping only a few hours because she keeps thinking about cooking all the time.”

“…”

Instead of answering, Min-joon sipped a little non-alcoholic cocktail. In fact, he was reflecting on his prejudice against her. Before he came here, he arrogantly suspected that she didn’t focus on cooking properly because she was absorbed into socializing with celebrities and consumed by her ambitions.

But anybody who had seen her at a stone’s throw could never say that. She was faithful to her job as the head chef, and she spent time meeting people and doing other things during her leisure time. She also prepared for the changing trends of the restaurants and their menu.

Honestly, this kind of daily routine didn’t suit a chef who was so successful like June.

Michelin gave her restaurant a three-star, and she had the solid backing of that famous Rose Island. In that respect, she didn’t have to pay so much attention to the new trends, but she cared about even little things about what was happening in the restaurant world. How could they describe her lifestyle like this? Excessive sincerity? Obsession?

Even if it was an obsession, Min-joon did not want to blame her at all. He rather respected her because she could not have done so without her passion for her restaurant. Not just today, but also during the past ten years when Rachel was away and several years prior to that, she must have pursued the same lifestyle as hers right now.

Could he make it if he is asked to spend a day or two like her? Frankly speaking, he felt it would be very hard to do so. It was easy to do what one liked for what he liked. But it was a different story if one did what one didn’t like for what one liked.

He was a chef, so he liked the moment when he cooked more than anything else. So, he could endure it every day no matter how hard it was working in the kitchen, but if he had to lead a busy life, meeting people every day and giving up even a little rest like June, could he endure it?

“I would call her lifestyle something like self-sacrifice?…”

“Well, she has given up her life for her dream, so I guess your description is right.”

When the man shrugged, Min-joon looked at June with a pretty complex expression.

She had been doing what he could not do not just one day but during most of her life.

In some respects, it was because her love for her restaurant and cooking was as valuable as her possessions, or bigger and more intense than that.

‘Maybe I can learn more from her than I think.’

He might have misunderstood her until now just because of his impression that she also focused on things outside the kitchen with no interest in cooking, consumed by her ambitions.

He looked at her again. When he could finally read the fatigue hidden beside the calculating smiles she made while dealing with lots of people, he felt so sorry for her.

He was still feeling sorry for her when he was going back after the party. It was natural that she read his mind because she had to check the feelings and moods of numerous people everyday. So, she could easily check out what he was thinking now.

“Did you like the party today?”

“It’s nice to socialize with people, but if you want me to come to a party like this everyday, I’m afraid I will be sick and tired of it. How about you?”

“Well, I’ve never thought about it. If there’s something to do, I have to do it. It’s more terrible when I feel I can’t do something that I have to do than feeling frustrated when I don’t do what I have to do.”

“Only now do I think I know about you more deeply.”

“Oh, I don’t really need your understanding. All I need now is Chef Min-joon who can properly work as a sous chef here. Remember. Two weeks isn’t that much time. You have to work hard enough to push your limits right now.”

“Like you?”

She looked at him blankly in response to his question. She got curious and even felt creeped out because he suddenly began to talk to her softly. She could even read his good feelings toward her in his twinkling eyes.

“Stop joking and focus anyway. It was nice to see you get the start on them today. But keep in mind that the kids aren’t fully ready to accept you yet. You will find it more difficult to make them your men rather than adapting to your sous chef job.”

“If I work hard like you, I think I will have no problem.”

Without any blind trust in her, he would not have said that.

Still unable to understand his abrupt change in attitude toward her, she turned her head with an awkward expression and murmured, “Oh I see…”