Chapter 6: On 92nd Street in New York (2)
Chapter 6: On 92nd Street in New York (2)
Jo Minjoon chased after the pickpocket with all his strength, but there was no way he could catch someone who knew the area so well. The thief darted from alley to alley and soon disappeared from sight.
“What the fuck…”
Jo Minjoon looked around helplessly. Nothing like this had ever happened to him in Korea, yet he had not even been in New York for an hour before becoming a victim of pickpocketing. When people had warned him to be careful of pickpockets, he had never imagined he would actually become one of their victims. He had been far too careless.
I really underestimated New York.
He was at a loss for words. He had not been carrying much cash, but all of his cards had been inside the wallet. Now he could not even properly take a taxi.
With no strength left in him, Jo Minjoon trudged back to the place where he had been robbed. The man who had been sitting on the ground smiled at him and held up the five-dollar bill Jo Minjoon had given him earlier between his fingers.
“Do you need this?”
Jo Minjoon sighed before answering. It had been a while since he had spoken with a foreigner, but his English came out quite fluently.
“It’s fine. Giving something and then taking it back would be petty. Buy yourself something to eat.”
“Do I look like a beggar?”
He did not sound offended. He seemed to be asking out of genuine curiosity.
Jo Minjoon looked the blond man, who appeared to be in his forties, up and down. He wore an old coat and a tattered scarf. If it was meant to be vintage fashion, it was certainly an unusually shabby version of it. He was sitting on the ground as well, with a hat placed in front of him as though he were asking for money, so the impression was even stronger.
“Aren’t you?”
“I have a house.”
“…So at least you’re not homeless. Can you give me the five dollars back?”
“Didn’t you just say it yourself? Giving something and then taking it back is petty. Since you gave me this five dollars because you mistook me for a beggar, I’ll take it as compensation.”
The man said it with such a broad smile that Jo Minjoon could not think of anything to say in response. Besides, there was not much he could do with five dollars anyway.
Jo Minjoon sighed and sat down beside him.
“I’m Lucas Dean. What’s your name?”
“Jo Minjoon. Jo is my surname, and Minjoon is my given name.”
“Korea? Japan?”
“Korea.”
Lucas glanced at Jo Minjoon’s travelling bag.
“Looks like you came here to sightsee, but things have gone wrong from the very beginning.”
“…There’s nothing I can do about it now. Other than sleep on the streets, I suppose.”
He could not exactly call home and tell his family that he had been pickpocketed the moment he arrived in the United States. His mother had already been worried enough before he left.
Has my trip already turned into wandering around homeless?
Jo Minjoon took out his mobile phone. He had prepared it for use overseas beforehand, and fortunately, the internet connection worked without any problems. After reporting his cards as lost, he wondered whether he should contact the police.
“The police probably won’t care much about a pickpocketing case,” Lucas said. “It’s too minor. Especially when the victim is a foreigner.”
“…This really is a frightening place.”
“Do you have somewhere to go?”
Jo Minjoon shook his head.
Lucas looked at him, smiled, and asked, “Would you be willing to stay at a beggar’s house?”
Lucas’s house was not even twenty metres from where they had been sitting. After they entered the red-brick house, Jo Minjoon looked around and said, “For a beggar’s house, this is pretty impressive.”
“Enough with the beggar this and beggar that. It hurts every time you say it.”
“…Thank you.”
“Oh, please. Don’t thank me like that.”
The supposed beggar’s house was surprisingly luxurious. The ceiling was high, and the floor was marble. Jo Minjoon estimated the house at around 230 square yards. If he included all the rooms on the second floor, it might have been even larger.
As Lucas stepped further into the house, a blonde woman in the living room stared at him in shock.
“Lucas… Is that really you?”
“…Jane. I’m sorry.”
The woman called Jane turned frighteningly pale. She staggered as she walked towards him, and Jo Minjoon thought she was about to collapse. In the end, she did not, only because Lucas hurried forward and caught her before she could fall onto the hard marble floor.
“Jane!”
“Ah… I can touch you. It really is you.”
“…I’m sorry I came back so late.”
Watching the exchange between them, Jo Minjoon did not know where to look and awkwardly lowered his gaze instead. Only then did Jane seem to notice him. She clearly had many things she wanted to say to Lucas, but with a stranger standing there, she could not bring herself to do so.
“And this person…?”
“Oh, he’s someone who helped me. Say hello. His name is Minjoon.”
“Oh, nice to meet you. I’m Jane Dean.”
“I’m Jo Minjoon.”
Jo Minjoon shook Jane’s hand lightly, then looked towards Lucas. Someone who had helped him? What was that supposed to mean? The only thing Jo Minjoon had done was give him five dollars. Judging by this house, Lucas certainly did not look like someone who needed those five dollars.
He was curious, but it did not seem like the right time to ask. Jane’s eyes were moist, and Lucas’s were red as well. There was clearly a story here that Jo Minjoon knew nothing about. Had Lucas run away from home? At his age, the idea sounded absurd, but looking at the clothes he had been wearing, Jo Minjoon could not help considering it.
“He lost his wallet because of me,” Lucas said. “It may take him some time to sort things out, so I want him to stay with us for a while. Would that be all right, Jane?”
“Of course. It feels like a dream that you’ve come back. Jessie will be happy too.”
At the mention of Jessie, Lucas’s expression darkened.
“Do you think Jessie will forgive me?”
“…Think about that later. There are plenty of things I want to ask you, but first, let me ask you this.”
Lucas looked at her. Jane met his gaze with eyes that seemed to be smiling.
“Have you eaten?”
While Jane prepared dinner, Lucas showed Jo Minjoon to a room on the second floor.
“Can I ask what happened?” Jo Minjoon asked cautiously.
“…I ran away. I wandered around for quite a while, and I only came back just now. Thanks to you.”
“I didn’t understand before, and I still don’t. What exactly did I do to help you?”
Lucas held up the five-dollar bill.
Jo Minjoon gave an awkward laugh.
“You didn’t even spend it.”
“Receiving kindness from someone became a sort of trigger for me. It made me look back on things, feel guilty, and realise that I had to start again.”
Jo Minjoon did not argue. He had no idea what thoughts had gone through Lucas’s mind because of that five-dollar bill, so it would be foolish to make assumptions. There were many things he wanted to ask, but it did not seem right to press Lucas for answers now.
Instead, Jo Minjoon tried to lighten the mood.
“So this is a five-dollar hotel.”
“You can check out whenever you want,” Lucas said with a laugh.
It was soon past five o’clock. After unpacking his luggage, Jo Minjoon went down to the kitchen. It had not been long, yet dinner was already nearly finished. There was macaroni and cheese, hamburger steak, and salad.
Wanting to help somehow, Jo Minjoon spoke with an awkward expression.
“It smells really good. You must be quite a good cook.”
“My husband is something of a gourmet. If I don’t want to hear him complain, I have no choice but to practise.”
Jane laughed lightly.
Lucas, standing nearby, wore a bitter expression.
“I believe good food makes both the person who cooks it and the person who eats it happy. I still believe that. But…”
Lucas looked as though he was about to say more, but stopped himself.
Jo Minjoon glanced towards Jane instead. The distinctive rich aroma of the macaroni and cheese reached his nose, making him curious about what Cooking Score it would receive.
“You’ll be happy, then. Good food gives you happiness at least three times a day.”
“Twice. I only eat twice a day.”
“Then you’ll have to make an effort to eat three times.”
Of course, considering how calorie-dense American food could be, eating twice a day might actually be healthier.
The macaroni and cheese was soon finished and brought to the table. Jane placed the hamburger steak on a plate and asked while setting everything out, “Do you want an egg on your hamburger steak?”
“No. I prefer it without egg.”
“Good. We eat it without egg in this house too.”
Jane smiled and sat down. Jo Minjoon looked at the dishes with shining eyes.
[Hamburger Steak]
Freshness: 97%
Origin: Hidden (Contains too many ingredients)
Quality: High (Average ingredient quality)
Cooking Score: 6/10
[Macaroni and Cheese]
Freshness: 89%
Origin: Hidden (Contains too many ingredients)
Quality: Medium-High (Average ingredient quality)
Cooking Score: 6/10
As expected, both dishes scored six points. From Jo Minjoon’s experience, a six-point dish was comparable to restaurant food. At the very least, it would be the sort of special weekly dish served by a genuinely good neighbourhood restaurant. It was difficult for an ordinary home cook to achieve that level.
Jo Minjoon clasped his hands and offered a brief prayer.
Lucas looked at him.
“Are you Catholic?”
“No. I’m Protestant.”
“That’s unfortunate. We’re Catholic.”
“Dear, eat first.”
“Okay.”
Lucas picked up his fork, and Jo Minjoon did the same. The first thing Jo Minjoon reached for was the hamburger steak.
To be honest, he did not particularly like hamburger steak. More precisely, he was not fond of dishes made with minced meat. Still, the aroma coming from this hamburger steak was unusually rich.
Jo Minjoon took a bite. It seemed to be made entirely with beef rather than a mixture of beef and pork, and its meatiness was stronger than that of an ordinary hamburger steak. He could also taste black pepper, while the sauce had a distinct acidic note.
What is this sauce?
Even when he concentrated fully on his tongue, nothing came to mind. It was not a flavour he recognised. Curious, Jo Minjoon turned his attention to the recipe window.
[Hamburger Steak Ingredients]
Beef, onion, egg, breadcrumbs, salt, herbs, black pepper, brown sauce (A1 sauce)
(Translator’s Note: Brown sauce/ A1 Sauce — A tangy brown steak sauce developed in Britain during the nineteenth century, traditionally credited to chef Henderson William Brand in the 1820s–1830s. It later became particularly associated with steak in the United States.)
Oh, so this is brown sauce.
Brown sauce had originated in Britain. It was generally made from a tomato base combined with ingredients such as dates or other fruit, vinegar, sugar, and spices. Sweeter varieties were associated with sauces such as HP Sauce, while A1 had a stronger tangy flavour.
(Translator’s Note: HP Sauce — A well-known British brown sauce associated with sweeter and fruitier flavours. Frederick Gibson Garton registered the name HP Sauce in 1895, reportedly naming it after the Houses of Parliament.)
It was not a sauce commonly used in Korea.
More precisely, the flavour of the entire hamburger steak was unfamiliar to him. The meat flavour was strong, and the seasoning itself was also quite assertive. If it had been served in Korea, some people might have considered it a failed dish.
Yet the system had rated it six points. If that was the case, then it had been prepared properly. Perhaps what felt strange to him was simply the unfamiliarity of American tastes.
Jo Minjoon tried to approach the food from an American perspective. After all, Grand Chef was a competition filled with Americans. If he could not understand American cuisine, there was no way he could win.
He focused on the flavour of the hamburger steak, suppressing his initial discomfort with its strong aroma and trying to understand the complexity underneath. At first, it was difficult, but after one bite, then another, he gradually began to grasp it.
At that moment, a notification window appeared before him.
[You ate a hamburger steak in an American home.]
[Location Bonus! Your approach to tasting has increased your proficiency in the skill ‘Understanding of American Cuisine’!]
[As your perspective on cooking broadens, your Cooking Level increases!]