God of Cooking – Chapter 111: Reunion in front of the door (3)

 

Jo Minjoon didn’t like crawfish . More specifically, he didn’t dislike the flavor, but how it looked because it looked like an insect . That’s why, when peeling off the shell of the tail of the half-cooked langostino, the Norway lobster, his hands couldn’t be fast . Joanne looked at him and smirked .

“You are quite the scaredy cat?”
“…… . . It’s a bit disgusting . ”
“What disgusting? Look how cute it is . ”

Joanne raised the sautéed langostino with a calm face . Then, she peeled off the shell with skillful movements, and took out the meat .

“See? It’s this easy . ”
“……I know . ”
“Get accustomed to it quickly before the finals . ”

At Joanne’s words, Jo Minjoon let out a sigh for a moment and started to handle it with determination . He didn’t want to look like coward . After taking out the meat and refrigerating it, it was the time of the secondary ingredients . And that was the reason Jo Minjoon got in charge of the langostino, which he didn’t even like . Because there were many things that was easy to change the flavor, just like purée, foam, etc .

Sauce . It wasn’t only one kind of it . In the sauce field like carrot purée, buttermilk purée, and buttermilk foam, Jo Minjoon could perform it the most perfectly . He followed the normal recipe that was Kaya’s, but they were free to change the density according to their judgments .

‘I can make purée better than anyone . ’

But of course, taking into account the whole world, there would be a lot people that did it better than him, but at least it was like that on this competition . He was confident on being able to beat Anderson and Kaya on giving flavor to sauces .

It was also about time he got confident . His cooking level was 7 . His comprehension towards French cuisine, American cuisine, etc . had risen quite a lot . He was confident on harmonising the flavor an ingredient had with the flavor of the sauce, and knew what dishes were delicious when cooked . He could know understand at times the meaning it had when he cooked .

That’s why Jo Minjoon was certain . He believed that Kaya could win . No, that he would bring victory towards Kaya . That he could prove himself .

The dish Kaya got in charge was gazpacho . Since gazpacho was a cold dish, it didn’t matter if they made it ahead of time . It was much better to prepare that and check the condition of the dishes of the others .

Originally, that was what a head chef was . It didn’t happen that they grabbed the pan or knife themselves, except if it was a small restaurant . It wasn’t because of the awareness of superiority . Leading a kitchen was a much more difficult of a job than doing their own dish perfectly .

Just looking at Alan’s case was like that . His cooking level was 8 . Of course, even if he and Kaya were the same level 8, there would be some differences . But regardless of being level 8, he was running a Michelin star restaurant . That was because, aside of cooking skills, his strength for leading the kitchen was certain .

And on Jo Minjoon’s eyes, Kaya was quite a fine head chef because she had her sense of taste . Jo Minjoon could know the cooking score at a glance with the strength of the system, but Kaya could completely understand the state of the dish with just slightly tasting the sauce . But it wasn’t that she only depended on her taste . She could know how well it was cooked just by looking at the external colour, and on those cases, she even sent it back without hesitating .

‘I shouldn’t need to worry . ’

Jo Minjoon’s plating was simple but luxurious . He poured the purée on the plate as if he was drawing, and he placed the seared carrots with duck fat and sauteed langostinos . Next to the langostinos, he placed a sage leaf as if it was a tree, he put breadcrumbs with particles as thick as a railroad . He ended the plating after putting buttermilk foam above the langostino meat . And like that, the five dishes were made . Kaya pierced the langostino with a chopstick and nodded .

“Good . It’s done well . ”
“It’s just the flavor you wanted, right?”
“Almost? Even so, the feeling is delicately different . For it to be the same recipe, but to change according on the hands of the cook, it is marvelous . ”
“If you run a restaurant later on, take a chef that cooks as well as me . Then, at least you won’t receive any claims from the customers?”
“…… . . So confident . ”
“There was no time I didn’t have confidence . I was just worried that my pride became arrogance . ”

But he decided to not do that anymore . The gauge was simple . After Kaya’s fight, Jo Minjoon thought of a lot of things . And now, lowering himself became difficult . He needed a distraction . If Kaya was really depending on him, he would become the pillar for her to depend on . That kind of thought .

Jo Minjoon looked at his dish . The carrot purée, that seemed like melted orange juice, was drawn in a straight line and next to that the buttermilk purée was showing its small and round shape like some macarons . It wasn’t that he just made the shapes to be fine . The flavor was also recognized by Kaya .

“I won’t… . . fall back anymore . The road I have to walk on is clear, and the place I’m looking at is also clear . The thing I have to do is only one . To walk to the front . ”
“Right . I like that side of you better . ”

Kaya said while putting a proud expression . Rather than the wondering Jo Minjoon, she liked the bold Jo Minjoon that came out this much better .

The dishes started to be placed on the table one by one . There were five seat around the table filled with dishes . Marco just touched his fork as if he was wondering what kind of expression he had to show .

“It just feels like a buffet when it’s a course cooking . No, should I say that it is a party?”
“What’s the matter with that? Just eat it in order . ”
“What was the order again?”
“Gazpacho, langostino, pasta, turkey, and then sorbet and tarte tatin . ”

Excluding the gazpacho and pasta, they were all 8 points . The one who made the pasta was no other than Joanne . However, it was unavoidable . First, the score of the recipe of the pasta wasn’t even 8 . And even if that was the case, Joanne didn’t have the skills to easily make 8-point dishes . If Kaya directed her on every point, it would be different…… . But there was no guarantee that she would do well without any mistakes in front of 50 customers .

But even if it was 7 points, it didn’t mean that it wasn’t delicious . For example, thinking of samgyeopsal was like that . Even if it was grilled on good fire, it was impossible for the cooking score to pass 7 points . But no one would be able to say that it wasn’t delicious . The pasta Joanne made, the tortellini was like that . It wasn’t a particularly outstanding dish . However, the ingredients on the dumpling were all alive, and on the seared pumpkin, a fresh sweet flavor was on it .

It was a clear and delicious, a good dish . So much that if she went just like this, there wouldn’t be any problems .

And the other dishes were also the same . The turkey Chloe cooked had a dense aroma just like foie gras, and when eaten along artichoke gazpacho, you could feel the fibres of it and felt that you were eating duck meat wrapped in radish . And of course, the flavor was much more luxurious .

There was nothing to say about Marco’s tarte tatin, sorbet, and before-meal bread . It was a bread that made you feel why Marco was Marco .

Actually, when normal people went to a luxurious restaurant, the thing they felt the biggest difference with normal restaurants was the bread . It would be weird to look at a secondary thing when you went to eat a dish, but it was unavoidable . Most of the luxurious restaurants couldn’t help but to pay a lot of attention to the bread, and a just baked bread was a basic . The result of the bread’s texture was that it turned out soft and that it maximized the aroma of butter and grains .

And right now, Jo Minjoon was feeling that aroma from the luxurious restaurants he had been from Marco’s bread . Just like if your rice is good, you will be able to eat deliciously with basic garnishes, Marco’s bread had a charm that made you happy without any kind of sauces or butter .

However, Kaya’s face that tasted all of these things, couldn’t be bright . But Jo Minjoon couldn’t ask her the reason . He felt that the moment he asked her that, the invisible weight on Kaya’s shoulder would turn real .

That night, or perhaps dawn, Jo Minjoon opened his eyes . He couldn’t discern well whether he woke up or was just closing his eyes and opened it . His body was tired, but his consciousness was clear . Because originally, your head would be the clearest after you slept for 3, or perhaps 4 hours .

As he grabbed his cellphone out of habit, he saw that the time was 3 in the morning . It was an excessively early time to open his eyes . He wasn’t thirsty, but because of that he didn’t even want to go to the toilet .

As he was about to close his eyes to go and sleep again, an alarm that popped on one corner caught his eyes . It was a message from Kaya .

[ Kaya : Are you sleeping?]

It has been roughly 30 minutes since she sent the message . He wondered that she may wake up if he messaged her back, but his fingers were soon moving on top of the screen .

[ Me : I just woke up . ]

The reply didn’t come back immediately . When his eyelids were getting heavier, his phone rang .

[ Kaya : Ah, sorry . I saw it just now . You aren’t sleeping again, right? ]
[ Me : I’m not . But what happened this late at night? ]
[ Kaya : I can’t get asleep . I wondered if we should sing lullabies to each other if you also couldn’t sleep . Reading some fairy tales is also fine . ]

Jo Minjoon kept reading and re-reading the message with an astringent expression . Perhaps Kaya realized that, and quickly messaged back .

[ Kaya : It’s a joke . You got serious again, right? ]
[ Me : No . ]
[ Kaya : Look how you are lying . Leave it, turn on the lights and look at the mirror . Is your face fine? ]

He wondered what was she saying so suddenly, but as he got ahold of himself he was already checking himself on the mirror as Kaya had said . His hair was a bit messy, but it was fine . The moment he was going to send a reply, a knocking sound was heard at the door .

“If you are fine, come out . Let’s have a time for two insomniac patients to sympathize with each other . ”
“……I will put on something . Wait . ”

Jo Minjoon wore a hooded shirt and covered his hair . And as soon as he got out of the door, he laughed in spite of himself . Kaya was the same . A limp white hooded shirt with black pants . Maybe it was to hide her messy hair, but her hair popped out of her hood like some furred headdress . Kaya said while looking vigilantly .

“You aren’t going to tell me anything because I didn’t wash my hair at dawn, right?”
“Do I seem that obvious?”
“You are . ”
“……Thinking about it, I may be . ”

Kaya’s pink gum appeared above her white teeth . When her mouth opened again, it wasn’t her gum, but her bright tongue .

“Do you want to talk for a moment?”
“You came here to do that . ”
“Let’s walk for a moment . Should we go to the garden?”

The two walked towards the garden side by side . After only walking a bit, Kaya jumped up and down . She put her hands on the pocket of her hooded shirt and trembled .

“Ugh, even in summer the wind at night is cold . ”
“That’s why you should have dressed properly . Shorts were too much . Should we go inside?”
“No, I’m fine . I even roamed with shorts on winter in New York . I won’t crumble with this much . I’m not that weak . I’m strong . Kaya Lotus…… Is that kind of girl . ”

At her voice that turned bitter at the end, Jo Minjoon just smacked his lips without saying anything . It could clearly be felt that she was feeling uneasy . It was unavoidable . The finals . On the boundary of victory and elimination, one step could earn you everything, or make you lose everything . But of course, even if Kaya didn’t win, her future wouldn’t fall to **** .

“You will win . ”
“How do you say it so easily?”
“Because I will make you a winner . ”
“It’s kind of strange . To suddenly have gotten this confident . ”
“I told you before that I won’t fall back anymore . We are cooks, and in the end, even if this road is complicated there is only one thing we have to do: to make delicious things . And my dishes are delicious . ”

The moon was bright . It was a bright moonlight he hadn’t felt like this even once when he was at the city . The streetlamps were all turned off, but there was no problem on looking at Jo Minjoon’s face with just the moonlight . No, perhaps that wasn’t because of the moonlight . Because his face was spread brightly, it could be seen more clearly .

“I had forgotten this, but what I wanted in the end was that . It is also important for many customers to come to a cool restaurant… . . But in the end, making a good dish was my dream . And now, I think that I half-accomplished that . So now, I should at least get some confidence . ”
“…… . I am sorry for last time . To have made a tantrum for nothing . ”
“No . I understand . And now, I will tell you honestly . You saying that I was your lighthouse, I felt happy . Only that it was difficult to receive it . Because if I was your lighthouse, I would have to light all the paths you took . I wasn’t confident on doing that . No, perhaps I just lacked trust . On me, and on you . ”

He didn’t know why, but while he was saying that, he felt like he was confessing a sin he had hidden for long . Kaya’s eyes shone faintly . At that instant, he felt that she was crying, but she didn’t . But her eyelids were trembling as if wanting to hold back something .

“Are you saying that…… You believe now?”
“Yes . I’m confident on being able to clean your path, and even if you can’t do it, you are someone that can reach your dream . It’s late, but I came to realize it . ”
“Promise me . Holding pinkies . ”

Kaya extended her right hand . Her pinky was trembling on the cold air .

“Make me win . At least for this competition, let me believe that you are my lighthouse and depend on you . That’s everything I want . Can you… . promise me?”

Jo Minjoon looked at Kaya’s pinky . It was a long, slender and white finger . Her nails were cut shortly, and the wrinkles between the spaces of the finger was sharp and shallow . Maybe it was because of the cold, but because her skin was originally like that…… Many places of the finger had turned bright red .

The pinky fingers of the two slowly intertwined . The feeling he got of Kaya’s hand was cold, soft and smooth . And the thumbs extended . The thumb was slightly different to the pinky . The elasticity was stronger and rather than being smooth, it felt rough .

They each felt heat and cold at the same time . They themselves didn’t know if their hand was cold, or the hand of the other was cold .

Even after the thumb separated, their pinkies couldn’t do so easily . Something came between that small and thin skin . Was it simply heat and feeling, or was there something more than that?

Their hands separated . Slantly, and slowly . The finger that lost their pair hid in the fist . The two of them didn’t say a word . The still silence was saying thousands of words instead .

Dawn . The weather was probably clear .
Today, the moon was closer to the street lamp .
5 days until the finals .
4 days .
3 days, 2 days, 1 day .

…

0 days .

< Reunion in front of the door (3) > End