Chapter 580: Envy and Disappointment (4)
Chapter 580: Envy and Disappointment (4)
Minjoon wasn’t like Anderson. Of course, at times he was too exhausted to show his full cooking skills, but he approached every moment of preparing three meals a day with joy, as if it were a festival. He took it seriously, always.
I’ve been slacking lately.
Suddenly, Anderson felt an intense urge to cook—not the dishes demanded by a head chef or a sous chef, but his own creations.
He had grown. He had become a father. He had learned to prevent envy from turning into jealousy. Yet Minjoon was always one step ahead of him, as usual.
Meanwhile, Minjoon frowned sharply as he encountered a shocking scene.
“Who the hell are these women?”
“Oh my God! I can’t believe this…”
When Minjoon and Kaya returned to their hotel room, two women were sprawled on the sofa, completely drunk. Bottles of wine littered the table, the scent of alcohol heavy in the air.
“Well, they seem to be in good spirits, considering the cheese and wine.”
“Yeah, a drinking party always starts off splendidly.”
Minjoon shook his head with a sigh. He considered taking the women to bed but decided against it—they didn’t appear uncomfortable in their positions on the sofa, and besides, he wouldn’t touch them in front of Kaya.
Later, he heard it was Chloe who had brought Delia here, to his surprise. Chloe had no friends in New York since Minjoon and Kaya had flown to Los Angeles as judges for the Grand Chef competition over the past several days. He asked Chloe what had happened during their absence, but she remained silent. Still, he guessed the truth as best he could.
In truth, Minjoon and Kaya now spent one or two days a week at the Grand Chef House. Strangely, their lives seemed more centred there than in New York. Maybe the brief experiences there were just so rewarding.
More than that, they could no longer visit as many restaurants for the Jotus Guide as before. They’d vetted nearly all the well-reputed eateries in New York, but time constraints meant they couldn’t reach those further away. Had they not gone to Los Angeles for the competition, they might have squeezed in a couple of visits per week, but reality was otherwise.
Still, the current situation wasn’t bad. In fact, in their cooking careers, Kaya and Minjoon boasted an impressive record. Being selected as judges of the Grand Chef for their age was testimony enough to their skills.
Despite the busyness, it helped Minjoon focus on cooking.
Cooking, sensuous cuisine, kitchen leadership.
He needed to master these three aspects to reach cooking level 9.
Among them, sensuous cooking was the one Minjoon could consciously focus on. Ultimately, cooking revealed a chef’s skill, and what determined skill was how much time was devoted to it. He had enough time, so that wasn’t a big issue. In terms of kitchen leadership, he had ample experience as a sous chef at Rose Island. Granted, he might have honed leadership better as a head chef, but he wasn’t at that stage yet.
As for sensuous cooking, he spent much of his free time practising it. Sensuous cooking, as its name implied, was one of the hardest requirements for level 9. He needed to master making delicate, demanding dishes such as Jo Reggiano and Six Meats.
Maybe Kaya will master it faster than me.
Thinking this emboldened him. Kaya had indeed reached cooking levels 7 and 8 faster than he had. But this time, he wanted to reach level 9 before her.
He even aimed for level 10.
Many chefs didn’t know exactly what level 10 entailed. In fact, many had given up on reaching it. Even June and Rachel never imagined they’d reach Daniel’s cooking level. But Minjoon wanted to help them reach level 10. He also wanted to reach it himself, however delusional that might seem.
His immediate concern was level 9. Since he already knew the three conditions, it would be foolish not to master them. With that in mind, he dedicated himself to making sensuous cuisine.
Yet the first condition he satisfied was completely unexpected.
At first, when he decided to make sensuous cuisine his own, he was confident it wouldn’t be so hard to perfect such dishes. More precisely, he felt he could achieve sensuous cooking within his self-set time frame. Whenever he had a goal, it was rare he couldn’t achieve it.
At some point, he had started to take success for granted. He felt the same about sensuous cooking — until he realised it was harder than he thought.
The toughest part was that he couldn’t get a good feel for it. He’d spent time on sensuous cooking before, focusing on analysing tastes artistically and in three dimensions, but realised this approach made little difference.
It wasn’t that he disliked artistic cooking in the past. It just meant he could now consciously pursue what he’d always aimed for, differently than before.
He also spent time developing his own recipes, but soon realised that wasn’t as significant as he’d thought. The system helped him explore recipes, so cooking himself was validating ideas he already had.
Moreover, sensuous cuisine’s exact nature was unclear to him, so he often felt listless while cooking, unsure if he was on the right track.
Yet he didn’t know how fortunate he was. The system empowered him greatly, but he rather complained about it to excuse his slow progress in sensuous cooking.
His slow growth might be a blessing; he didn’t impatiently obsess over the level he once aimed for. Realising he couldn’t achieve that goal overnight, no matter the time spent, relaxed him immensely.
At that moment, he seized the opportunity.
The chefs at Rose Island were professionals — a word that hardly sufficed. Many had skills surpassing sous chefs or demi chefs at any good restaurant, though some remained typical cooks.
No wonder Rose Island chefs outshone those at ordinary reputable restaurants.
So it was natural Minjoon compared the Grand Chef participants to these pros. The gap was stark and wide.
By fate or chance, he now faced leading the Grand Chef participants.
Team mission...
Two weeks had passed since the team mission began. One personal mission had intervened, whittling the survivors to fifteen. The number fifteen was perfect for splitting into three or five teams.
In fact, the Grand Chef organisers had always intended fifteen participants: three judges and three teams. What did that mean?
“Alright, I’ll call the trio with the best results in the last mission. Hugo, Gwen, Merlyn. Please step forward.”
They might have been surprised by the unexpected roll call. Aside from Gwen, the runner-up, and Hugo, whose cooking skills the judges recognised, Merlyn—the most disliked team member—was included.
She really is talented.