God of Cooking

“Michael, you haven’t cooked fruit that much, have you?” Joseph asked.

“Well, I did not often think of using fruit for cooking. Even if I used fruit, I didn’t think about how it could affect the quality of the meat.” Of course, Michael knew how cutting would affect fruit scientifically but just knowing it was of no help at all.

“I felt I was lacking in this area,” Michael said in a slightly annoyed voice.

At that moment, Min-joon felt it quite fresh that Michael was so humble as to admit it like that.

Joseph said, “Cooking is science, but we don’t cook based on science. We cook based on our experience, effort, and senses. You had better stop thinking that you can do anything just by thinking. Of course, science helps you cook. If you stand in front of the kitchen island and think about science, not cooking, you are in trouble…”

After he said that, Joseph didn’t say any more. Actually, he didn’t have to because Michael must have figured out his point deep down.

Joseph came to review Gwen’s Six Meats next. While trying her dish, Joseph realized once again that Kaya’s cuisine became more delicate than it used to be and that her cuisine also resembled Min-joon’s.

‘Yeah, I guess her dish will become more and more similar to Min-joon’s.’

Joseph said Min-joon’s dish would be assimilated into Kaya’s, and vice versa over time. So much so that at some point in the future the strengths of each other’s dishes would be so mixed as to make it impossible to distinguish between the two. Actually, he witnessed even their basic cooking senses resembling each other’s to the effect that they were running on their own path that ten chefs, not two, would have to spend their entire lives to catch up with.

And that factor made Joseph contemplate quitting his service as a judge of the Grand Chef competition. After watching Kaya and Min-joon, he didn’t feel excited or his heart throbbing with anticipation when he saw the participants of the Grand Chef, for he could no longer find the strength of the two chefs in these participants. And he could confirm it most vividly when he tried Gwen’s Six Meats sausage made in sous vide.

He felt as if his reason was melting by trying it, not to mention the ecstatic feeling from the intense flavor of the meat. When he felt it was so soft like tofu, he could barely hold back groaning at the fantastic savor of the meat.

“You’ve reproduced it so well,” Kaya said.

Kaya’s Six Meats dish was never easy to cook. Aside from jelly and meat, it was not easy to cook apple chutney and onion jam to bring out its perfect taste. But Kaya felt that while she was tasting the sourness of onion jam and the sweetness of apple chutney, it mixed well with the taste of meat.

“I’m still lacking a lot,” Gwen said in a slightly sullen voice.

Actually, there was little difference between Gwen’s Six Meats and Kaya’s original Six Meats. But when examined as a whole, Gwen’s dish lacked something in terms of its taste.

Gwen wondered what it was, but she couldn’t figure it out. She thought that after all, the gap in their cooking skills made the difference.

While watching Gwen for a moment, Kaya said casually, “Be confident, Gwen.”

“Pardon?”

“I mean you should have confidence. You don’t have to feel depressed like that. I can guarantee that you’re a good chef. Even if you have this dish based on my recipe, it means you are a good and competent chef because you made it in just one day.”

Of course, Gwen managed to make the dish because she worked hard or because she was smart and competent enough to catch up with Kaya. Either way, it was evident that she was a competent and valuable chef.

A competent chef, and a valuable chef.

As if she was touched by Kaya’s praise, Gwen looked at her with trembling eyes. Even though she felt her cooking skills were recognized by others these days, she herself could not yet recognize it because she thought that just because one was good at cooking, it didn’t mean that one was a great chef. That made sense if one didn’t dream of being a chef.

But what was Gwen looking forward to?

“…Thank you,” Gwen said, lowering her head.

Then she uttered clearly, syllable by syllable, as if she was chewing something.

Kaya turned up one corner of her mouth for a moment but didn’t respond because she knew Gwen’s feelings now. She knew it would backfire even if she tried to encourage Gwen now.

‘I wish she had had a guy like Min-joon like me…’

Of course, it would not be that easy for her to find someone like Min-joon. Kaya snuggled up to Min-joon, who was next to her. He flinched for a moment, then smiled and looked at the front again.

It was time to review Peter’s dish this time.

Instead of saying anything, Peter quietly looked at the pomegranate dessert. He did his best. At least he was sure he did his best. He pumped his brain to make it taste like Min-joon’s as much as possible and tried it many times before making it. He felt he did his best within the given time.

Was it because of that? Even though Min-joon might think the pomegranate dessert he made was lacking in various ways, Peter was not bothered by that at all because he knew he did his best.

Of course, it would be a lie if Peter said he was satisfied with his dish. Nobody would shout ‘Yay!’ before climbing the top of the mountain. Nonetheless, Peter walked the given path as much as he could within the given time. He couldn’t complain that he didn’t achieve the impossible from the start. If he did so, it would be as if he was lamenting that he couldn’t fly.

“I did my best,” Peter said to the judges confidently.

He might feel ashamed that he could not bring out his best cooking skills, but he didn’t have to feel ashamed about the fact that his dish was lacking, compared with Min-joon’s original dish. First of all, there was no hole in the pomegranate dessert. It was easy to get the air blown out when he blew air into it, but he succeeded in getting no crack in the pomegranate toffee. Obviously, he didn’t waste his time yesterday getting it right.

“You got it right by blowing air in it all just once,” Min-joon said.

“Well, if I didn’t do it like that, I found it would get a bumpy surface,” said Peter, nodding at him.

Min-joon smiled deep down because Peter did really well in one day. As a matter of fact, it took him several days to master how to do it.

But Min-joon found just one thing that he felt needed improving. The surface of the pomegranate toffee was smooth, and the lines were not bumpy. There were no cracks. But its shape was not as good as he expected. Given that Min-joon’s pomegranate toffee looked like a real one, what Peter made looked like just an oval-shaped thing. So it would not be easy for ordinary people to associate it with a pomegranate when they looked at it.

“Okay, that’s my first impression. Show me the next stage of your dish,” Min-joon said.

Peter nodded, then lifted a fork and crushed the pomegranate toffee. While breaking it, Peter felt a bit empty because he felt it was absurd for him to have to break it, which he had worked so hard to make last night. He even wondered if everything in this world was like that.

The pomegranate toffee was cracked, and the pomegranate powder ice cream and jelly inside caught his eye. Peter poured hot pomegranate jam over it. The real thing of this dish began only now. The judges had to put it into their mouths before the hot steam of the pomegranate jam and the cold steam of ice cream got mixed.

Each of the judges put a spoonful of pomegranate toffee, ice cream and jelly in their mouths. Min-joon was no exception. He quietly closed his eyes, enjoying the old dessert that he had not tried for a long time. Basically, it was a taste that reminded him of his old memories of this dish.

In fact, Peter’s dessert was good enough to almost satisfy the kind of taste that Min-joon missed. It had all the details that any chef could overlook. For example, the jelly was chewy enough to fill the lack of texture, and the taste of the pomegranate soaked in it had a sourness that would not be found in ice cream, toffee, and jam.

Min-joon even felt Peter had a genius sense of cooking when he savored the taste of the cold ice cream and the hot jam colliding in his mouth when the toffee got crunched. So much so that he admired Peter’s knack of making perfect use of the charm of the different temperatures of cooking.

Finally, the judges were done evaluating the three finalists’ dishes. They looked at each other, exchanged some conversation among them, and agreed on Gwen’s dish first.

“Gwen’s dish was almost perfect. Her Six Meats dish wasn’t much different from Kaya’s signature Six Meats.”

“I agree. In terms of the completeness of the dish, she was the best.”

“Then I’m afraid either Michael or Peter must be eliminated.”