God of Cooking

The moment people see Chloe’s gentle smile or hear her friendly voice, they instantly think this woman has an incredibly tender soul. They think she will be pushed around by others without ever speaking her mind.

Even Min-joon and Kaya thought Chloe was tender-hearted and weak. Because of her gentle and calm look, they thought that she was just meek and good-hearted. But they were wrong from the beginning. She wasn’t weak. Perhaps, her calm attitude might have overshadowed her toughness, but she was a woman with grit.

‘In fact, her plan had too many shortcomings from the beginning,’ Chloe thought to herself.

Chloe couldn’t tell Kaya about it, though. As a matter of fact, Kaya’s ideas and vision about the new restaurant were almost like a playing house. There was one reason for that. Kaya didn’t think her new restaurant was her business. She thought it was rather a challenge for her dream. In other words, she fastened the first button wrongly.

“She may cook well, but she can’t do business with ambition only.”

Chloe looked at her restaurant concept in that respect from the beginning. The reason she didn’t stop Kaya from speaking her mind was because Kaya was so stubborn. Besides, Kaya used to solve what seemed impossible. In her eyes, Kaya looked like an almighty god to Chloe.

But in the end, Kaya was not a god. She was just an ordinary person. She was just a chef. When Chloe discovered that, she was a little happy because she finally came to realize that Kaya was also living in the same world, not a different world from others.

Kaya also needed others’ help. Kaya needed Chloe’s help. If that was the case, it was time for Chloe to start doing something for Kaya.

With Delia in front of her, Chloe opened her mouth in a calm voice.

“What do you think is our problem?”

“Well, do you have any problem? If I have to point out one thing, you are using amateurs in the kitchen.”

“That’s not the only problem. People are even saying that we have asked you for excessive compensation, using our popularity as a weapon.”

“So, am I wrong because I have given you good compensation?”

“No, that’s not what I’m talking about. So, calm down. Delia, I’m always grateful to you.”

Chloe calmed her down with a calm smile. At that moment, Delia, who was about to turn sullen, put her ass back on the chair, pouting at her. She opened her mouth, touching her fingernails painted with the Milky Way.

“Then, what’s the problem? So, the problem is your generous compensation and the part-timers, right?”

“No. That’s a superficial reason. But it’s not the real reason.”

“Then tell me the real reason.”

When she demanded, Chloe took a deep breath.

Then she looked at Delia with terribly subdued eyes.

“First of all, it’s their jealousy.”

“Jealousy?”

“If the other chefs in the hotel hadn’t been jealous of us, such an interview story would not have been printed in the newspaper. No matter what happens in the future, if there was someone right next to us who intends to harm us behind our back, even trifling things would become a big issue that the reporters want. If that happens, you will find it hard to run this restaurant. Have you found out the anonymous guy who leaked out such a story?”

“No, I tried to find out, but they are very protective of the sources.”

“Don’t dig into it too much. You can’t solve this problem by finding out the sources.”

When Chloe said that, Delia just sighed. As a matter of fact, she didn’t know things would work out like this when she first brought Kaya and Chloe here for the opening of her new restaurant. Honestly, what she expected from the two was they would make her restaurant an attraction rather than boost sales. It was true her restaurant became an attraction to lots of people, but things worked out ugly like this. She could not run the restaurant as it was, for Min-joon would be clearly keeping an eye on Kaya. Delia didn’t want to invite his hatred.

“Then, how do you want to solve it?”

“I’ve thought about it. How should I deal with their jealousy? It seems difficult to have them stop being jealous, but I thought it would be better to make their perception or thinking meaningless.”

“How?”

“Well, all I have to do is make what they say or argue just meaningless or utter nonsense. As you know.”

The anonymous sources took issue with the problem of the kitchen, which was to make the food price cheap by hiring cheap part-timers. They argued that such an attempt itself was ridiculous and nonsensical. Their point was that a typical restaurant might try that, but it was impossible to make such an attempt at a hotel restaurant. They pointed out that it was just ridiculous for a five-star hotel, one of the top hotels in New York, to sell such cheap and cost-effective cuisine.

Honestly, what they argued had a point. Even Chloe would have objected to Kaya’s ideas of a cost-effective menu if Kaya had not developed such a menu on an experimental basis or for a short period of time for an event purpose. However, the only place where Chloe could work comfortably right now was Delia’s hotel restaurant because Delia didn’t ask her to boost sales or any other thing in return.

So, Chloe could not let her newly opened restaurant collapse like this.

She said, with her eyes glaring, “We have to change our menu.”

“Menu?”

“It’s true that some of the dishes we served to our customers were terrible. And it’s also true that we didn’t cook the dishes well enough, according to our customers’ order. We have to solve that, first. And the second problem is the part-timers.”

“Yeah, I think they are a problem. What’s the point of hiring such clumsy part-timers without any cooking skills? Just hire cooks. I can pay for them.”

“Thank you so much for the suggestion, Delia.”

Chloe looked at her with a gentle smile. Delia felt a bit bashful at Chloe’s warm look. Few people looked at her warmly like that.

“But it’s okay. We have to overcome this. If we don’t use part-timers, it’s like denying all our efforts completely because we’re thinking of a restaurant that runs perfectly with some chefs and most of the unskilled people.”

“Oh, you have a very clear purpose…”

“I’m sick and tired of living with a vague purpose,” said Chloe, smiling brightly.

When Delia looked at her curiously, she continued, “We’re going to hire part-timers again. And we’re going to have a total review of all the problems that we made light of until now.”

“Perhaps it’s too late. Those costumers who quit coming to my restaurant won’t come back easily. We need to make our restaurant a social issue to forget our disappointment and start anew. Do you think you can do it?”

“Wouldn’t that be the easiest?” Chloe looked at her with a meaningful expression. “Because we ourselves are a bunch of issues.”

***

After opening a restaurant and facing all sorts of criticism, Kaya and Chloe had to hear some comforting words from concerned people who knew them. When they looked at the two with concerned expressions, they felt so frustrated as to choke, but only one person was as calm as before. He was none other than Min-joon.

Honestly, Chloe or Kaya was nervous at first because Min-joon was concerned about them more than anybody else. When that nasty story about their restaurant got printed in the newspaper, he was even more distressed than them.

However, on the day the news about them broke out, Min-joon treated them calmly as if nothing special had happened. When they came back to their lodgings after work, he just said, “You guys must be very tired. Come in.” At that moment, they even thought that he was too busy to check what happened to them right.

But it took three days for them to realize that they misunderstood him. During the three days, there was no change in Min-joon’s attitude, so Kaya had no choice but to notice something strange because it was impossible that he didn’t know about their difficult situation. Perhaps, those who knew him must have asked him about the articles about Chloe and Kaya and their new restaurant.

Of course, he knew all the circumstances from the moment when the accident occurred. But he didn’t ask them. Perhaps, he was considerate of their feelings, but he trusted them at the same time. He believed that the two could overcome their problem on their own. In particular, his trust in Kaya was much stronger because he knew her future.

Several days passed. As if she wanted to ask something this time, Chloe called him.

Chloe said, “I need your help.”

“My help?”

“Yeah, I want you to evaluate our dishes,” she said in a tense voice.

When they were together, she often forgot that she and he were already at different cooking levels. It was when he developed the Cho Reggiano dessert that her cooking level began to fall behind him. After all, he won the Paris International Cooking Competition.

Nobody doubted Min-joon’s dishes. They did not doubt his abilities. Regardless of whether he was a chef or not, his name itself already became a reliable brand among lots of people. In terms of reliability, Kaya and Chloe could not compete with him anymore.

“I really want you to rate our dishes. If you say our dishes are delicious or think our dishes are as good as high-end dishes, they will really begin to believe so.”

“Well, I’m not going to give you guys a fake evaluation.”

“Of course I don’t want it, either. Just evaluate our dishes frankly. We’ll show you the best we can do. If you think our dishes are lacking in something, just criticize it without any hesitation. You can even swear at us.”

He looked at Chloe quietly.

As if he was pondering over something for a while, he said, “If you promise you won’t be angry, I can.”

“Why am I going to get angry?”

“Because I’m going to evaluate harshly enough to make you upset, just about every shortcoming.”

She nodded as if she was prepared to accept his criticism. And he headed to their restaurant whenever he had time. As expected, he poured out harsh and critical comments.

“What do you want to make here? Plausible fast food? Or something they can just eat? It seems to me that these dishes you guys are making here are like that.”

“Hey, you guys really don’t feel it? I know how competent you are. You already know your dishes are lacking in something, but you are just compromising with such dishes, thinking your customers will be satisfied more than enough, right? Do you think you can make a delicious dish with such a complacent mindset?”

“Set your direction right. You have thought that by fully controlling the unskilled part-timers, you can perfectly reproduce the dishes as well as those served at a high-end restaurant, right? Do you think customers can like your terrible dishes? Hey, come to your senses! Kaya, Chloe, you will end up being the subject of ridicule among your customers if you don’t change. Your idea is good, and your motivation is good. But that doesn’t mean that it will necessarily make your dishes good and delicious. Also, control your part-timers properly.”

After all, Kaya and Chloe recalled that he was not always meek and good. They keenly discovered that he was as harsh and critical as anybody else when it came to cooking.

‘Gosh, did I mess up with the wrong guy?’

As always, it was too late for them to have regrets like that.