God of Cooking

Just like Lisa wanted, they had dinner with warm food in a warm atmosphere. Except for Anderson and Rachel who were working at the moment, everyone gathered together and enjoyed the meal, as if they were having a Thanksgiving meal together.

When the dinner was over, Min-joon headed to Jack’s room, saying he wanted to talk.

Jack said, “I don’t think I’ve talked with you alone like this before.”

“Yeah, that’s why I think I have to talk a lot more with you in the future.”

“Well, I am not sure if I have enough time for that. By the way, why do you want to talk with me?”

Min-joon wanted to point out the “time” Jack just mentioned, but he didn’t want to make it his topic because it would only make them sad.

He cut to the chase by saying, “I suddenly got curious about Chef Daniel.”

“Daniel? Why now?”

“I just want to know if I really can’t surpass him.”

Min-joon’s eyes shone seriously. At that moment, neither Lisa’s illness nor Jack’s health was on his mind. Jack looked into his eyes quietly. He saw the passion and ambition as well as Rachel and June in Min-joon’s eyes.

Then he slowly opened his mouth.

“Who do you resemble more, Daniel or Rachel?”

“I can’t answer well because I don’t know Chef Daniel.”

“What I can say for sure is you don’t resemble Daniel,” Jack said calmly.

Min-joon listened to his words with his face slightly hardened.

Jack continued, “Daniel has never been worried about people like you. I mean, he has never cared about whether he could be better than other chefs.”

“In other words, was he just faithful to cooking instead of being conscious of others?”

“Nope, he always thought he was the best.”

Min-joon’s mouth opened slightly when he heard such an unexpected answer. As if he felt better just by recalling him, Jack began to giggle and continued, “Yeah, he was such a guy. Even when he was not competent enough to open his restaurant, he believed he was better than the giants of the chef world. I wasn’t just confident, but almost arrogant. However, but I didn’t hate his confidence or arrogance because even his blunders made me think he was cool.”

“Wow, he was a swagger!”

“Haha, yeah, he was almost a rapper. Perhaps because of the power of his words, or perhaps because he was really talented, Daniel really became the best chef in the world. I don’t know when and how he became the best, but it all happened very naturally.”

“When I heard about Daniel from Isaac, he didn’t look good to me. He said Daniel made Chef Rachel difficult in a number of ways.”

“Because I was a liberal guy. As a woman, not a chef, Rachel wanted to rely on Daniel. She hoped she could rely on him. But as you might have already noticed, he wasn’t that kind of man. Even after getting married, he often tempted me to go to a club. Of course, nothing happened at the club, but Rachel was pretty upset with that. Well, she used to go to a club with Rachel later.”

Min-joon found an old man like Jack’s old stories like that pretty interesting. He smiled while listening to his reeling off episodes about Daniel.

At one point, Jack asked in a meaningful voice, “But what you’re curious about is not what kind of person he was, but what kind of chef he was.”

“Yeah. Can you tell me?”

“Well, he was really worthless as a head chef because he had no interest in running a restaurant or anything like that. He was anxious to show off to each of his customers the dishes he thought were the best. So, he left all the kitchen work to Rachel, and he spent most of the time explaining his dishes and a new menu to customers every day.”

“But it means he loved cooking that much.”

“Yeah, I think so. If he wanted to make some food, he did it by all means. He didn’t care about reality or any calculations in his mind. He never longed for any chef, no did he ever say he wanted to be one like a certain chef. He just overcame everything only with the conviction that he was the best chef. That’s why I am saying you don’t resemble Daniel, because if you were Daniel, you wouldn’t ask that question from the beginning If he were in your shoes, I would just tell him to ignore it by saying, ‘Hey, Daniel, you can’t be pushed over by such an old-fashioned guy.’ Haha.”

While listening to Jack, Min-joon smiled bitterly before he knew it. There might be no such thing as right or wrong in one’s personality, but Min-joon thought Daniel was a cool guy, so he wanted to live like Daniel while listening to Jack, even though he knew Daniel would not have reacted like him in this situation.

“Do you want to surpass Daniel?”

“Yeah.”

“If so, don’t try to think you want to be like Daniel. Daniel can’t beat Daniel. Well, it goes without saying someone trying to be like Daniel can’t, either. Just because many people compare you with Daniel, you don’t have to be conscious of Daniel.”

Jack patted him on the shoulder. When his skinny big hand touched his shoulder, Min-joon felt some comfort. Obviously, Jack was like a tree getting worn out by sickness and years, but he was a giant even at that moment.

“You must beat Daniel by being yourself. The reason Rachel didn’t tell you much about Daniel was because she saw such a possibility in you.”

And Daniel was the one even this giant chef Jack looked up to.

He opened his mouth in a faint voice.

“Well, come to think of it, I have to beat that friend of mine at least once before I die.”

“How are you going to win?”

“You’ll find out soon. Oh, wait a minute.”

Jack turned and went to the bookshelf and took something out. It was a hardcover book made of leather that looked quite old.

Jack said, “This is a gift Daniel gave me. This is also a notebook he wrote down while conceiving recipes for his entire life….”

At that moment, Min-joon noticed something strange. He didn’t listen carefully to what Jack was saying. Instead, he looked at the cover of the book blankly.

As if he also noticed Min-joon’s suspicious glance, Jack said with an embarrassed expression, “Well, just understand his naming sense. He made it a long time ago when he was young. Of course, he liked the name a lot when he grew old.”

There was a phrase on the cover of the book, which was more familiar than he thought.

Jack opened his mouth, “<The Cooking Journal of Yorikyoju, or Culinary Sect Founder>. It’s pretty awkward, isn’t it?”

Yorikyoju, or Culinary Sect Leader?

Why was that word on the cover of that book? Min-joon looked at it blankly, as if he saw something he could not believe at all.

Yorikyoju…

That chef was the very man who made him get as far as here and gave him the opportunity. That chef was the very person who made him look at the system and brought alive his dying dream. Was that person Daniel?

Min-joon received the journal blankly as if he was possessed by a ghost. Of course, it didn’t mean that he had never given it a thought. Who was Yorikyoju? Min-joon wasn’t interested in how he could do it, or how he could work a miracle. What he was curious about was why he chose Daniel among so many chefs in the world.

Maybe it was impossible for Min-joon to conclude that Daniel was that person just by checking the name Yorikyoju. Of course, this particular expression Culinary Sect Leader was far from common naming sense, but when he translated Culinary Sect Leader into Korean Yorikyoju, his translation might not match with it exactly.

If Daniel were the Yorikyju that he had in mind, he felt he could find the solution to all puzzles that gripped his mind for a long time. He felt he could understand why Rachel pinned so much hope on him.

“You must feel so good, don’t you?”

Startled by his question, Min-joon looked at Jack quickly, but he didn’t respond. More precisely, he could not answer because he didn’t even realize he had to respond when he had a lot on his mind at the moment. But Jack took his expression differently.

Jack smiled at him and said with a nod, “Well, if you’re a chef, you can treat this book like a treasure.”

“Ah, thank you so much. But is it really okay that you’re giving it to me?”

“It’s better to give it to someone who can use it than putting it in my casket. Daniel said the same thing. One day, he told me I could give it to somebody I might like. If Daniel had been alive, he would have hit it off with you and sought fun every day.”

“Thanks, I’m going to use it valuably.”