Chapter 199: The Courtship of 36 People (3)

Nobody in the room thought that Rachel was bluffing. Although Rachel was not always a serious person, she was not the type to joke about the seriousness of her cooking. If someone at Rachel’s level did not have this much confidence, that would make it a bigger issue. Debra asked with an expression that seemed to be half faith and half concern.

“Will it be possible? You’ve become rusty after ten years.”

“An aged tiger does not turn into a cat. It’s claws also don’t become brittle.”

“Oh mys. Should I gift you a nail clipper?”

“……That sense of humor of yours. That is the reason you still haven’t managed to get past one star.”

“Man, are you going to keep rubbing that in?”

Debra started to glare. Rachel smiled before looking around at everyone else. She then continued in a calm voice.

“Anyways, since it is like this, I will ask for your harsh critique while you are here. For me, as well as for my children. You can even swear at them if you want. Just don’t hit them. There’s no way one of you has become the type of idiotic head chef who hits his family, right?”

“If we became a head chef like that, we would be in prison instead of here.”

“Good. Then please help me out. Annoy everyone here until they want nothing to do with you anymore.”

Dave started to lightly smile.

“That is our specialty.”

*

“The confit is done well. But that’s only natural since the machine automatically does everything for you. Unfortunately, you did not simmer the yuzu sauce correctly. Javier, you already know that it feels like grains of sand, right?”

“… … Mm, I haven’t tasted it yet so I’m not really sure.”

“You sent out a dish you made without tasting it first? If teacher Rachel saw it, she would have already started to swear. Ah, has she become too docile compared to our days? Is that why you aren’t nervous at all?”

“No, that’s not ……”

Javier started to stumble over his words and had an anxious expression on his face. He tried his best to smile, but it was clearly visible that it was an awkward smile.

As soon as Rachel had finished speaking, the head chefs started to look for issues like they had been waiting for her to say it. Nothing was off limits, naturally including the food, the attitude while cooking, and even the attires. And of course, the arrows weren’t pointed only toward Javier. Debra was standing with her arms crossed and a frown on her face right next to Janet.

“Did you know that I was really excited when I first saw you? I guess it was something like camaraderie as a fellow female chef.”

“That sounds like you’re no longer excited.”

“It’s more that it is disappointing. Look at this tuna ceviche carpaccio. The thickness of the two pieces are not completely uniform. Of course it still isn’t a big difference, but it is not enough. Where do you think you are working right now?”

“Rose Island.”

“Do you do know what that name symbolizes?”

Debra was speaking in a picky yet somewhat respectful tone, making anyone listening become confused about her true feelings. However, Janet was not confused. It was because she thankfully had a similar personality to Debra. There was no misunderstanding. Debra’s words were sincerely full of concern and care.

“Yes. It means that I am a part of this country’s greatest restaurant.”

“Not just in this country, but throughout the world. And the main branch is the pride of all of us chefs. Our pride of having roots in the world’s greatest restaurant. All of that now rests in your hands. Please don’t do anything that will make us look bad. That is the way for you to hold your head up high even more confidently than now as well.”

Janet bit down on her lips before nodding her head. Debra continued to speak bluntly, without consoling Janet at all.

“What do you think is the most important thing for a female chef to survive in a kitchen?”

Janet just quietly looked toward Debra. Her expression then quickly changed to a glare. She then spit out her answer.

“……Malice.”

“I’m some ways, you might be right. But if that malice ends up tiring you out, it won’t be bad to get rid of that too. Our stamina is lacking compared to the men, and we can try to fight with our orderliness or cleanliness, but among chefs, many of the men are the same way, even to the point they look like they have OCD. The only thing we can do is to not settle. ‘This should be enough This is perfect.’ We cannot be satisfied that easily. This carpaccio, are you satisfied with it?”

Janet quietly looked at her carpaccio before throwing all of it into the trash can. She then answered in a slightly moret determined voice.

“I will do it again.”

“Please do.”

Anderson scoffed in disbelief while watching Janet. It was at that moment that someone started to talk to him as if they were making fun of him.

“Anderson, you seem to be pretty relaxed. You even have time to watch other people cook.”

“No reason I shouldn’t be relaxed.”

Anderson responded shortly before filling the pasta with the lamb and vegetable mix. The chef who was quietly watching Anderson work slowly started to speak.

“I heard you are the Russo’s kid and that you learning cooking by helping out in the kitchen from when you were young.”

“I’m sorry, but please don’t bring that up. Before I am my parents’ child, I am my own person. I do not enjoy being treated like my parents’ belonging.”

“Hmm……makes sense. Children always want to become independent of their parents. Anderson. The way you are forming that ravioli is great. No matter what you think, you did learn that from you parents, did you not?”

Anderson did not respond. It was his way of saying that he would not chat if the chef mentioned his parents. However, the chef did not give up. The reason he mentioned that was not just to annoy Anderson.

“However, you may have cooked under your parents, but you probably didn’t learn how to supervise people. Anderson, are you certain about the taste of the filling that your assistant made?”

“……Huh?”

“I asked you if you think the filling your assistant made is perfect.”

“I can’t taste it right now. I’ll find out after cooking it and tasting it.”

“And if it doesn’t seem right, you’re going to throw all of these raviolis away?”

Anderson’s face stiffened and he could not respond. The fact that his hands stopped moving showed his nervousness. Anderson slowly turned his gaze toward his assistant, Gerrick. However, Gerrick quickly shook his head.

“I followed the recipe perfect. There were no mistakes.”

“Yes. I am not saying Gerrick made a mistake either. This situation is completely Anderson’s fault. Anderson, you should learn to trust your peers. However, before Gerrick is your peer, he is your assistant. He is someone you need to care for and help raise. That type of trust is something you should only have after paying attention to everything he does and verifying that he can be trusted. But based on what I’ve seen, you never seem to check if Gerrick is doing things correctly.”

“…… The efficiency would fall if I work while checking everything he is doing.”

“Yes. I know what you mean. However, something like the filling that you won’t know whether it is right or wrong until after you cook it, you should have made sure to check throughout the prepping. Doing that while not letting your efficiency fall is a skill of a demi chef.”

It is possible that there is no issues with the filling that Gerrick made. In fact, there probably were no issues. However, the chef was saying that instead of just relying it on trusting Gerrick to do it right, he should have made sure it was being done correctly. Anderson understood what the chef was trying to say. And……

‘I guess the things I got from my parents are the only things I have in the end.’

He couldn’t help but have such thoughts again. His delicate and skillful cooking skills were all learned at Glouto.

It wasn’t that Jo Minjun was free from the head chefs’ gazes while all of the other demi chefs were being picked on. In fact, Jo Minjun probably had the most eyes on him. There was no way it would be any different. It was extremely clear that Rachel had an unprecedented level of interest in Minjun.

Some were looking at him as the competition, others were looking at him with expectation, and there were probably some looking at him with bitterness as well. All of those gazes were burdensome at first, but Jo Minjun was able to quickly get rid of the anxiety it caused. This wasn’t the first time he was cooking in front of a lot of people.

Jo Minjun was making all sorts of molecular gastronomy dishes. He made an espuma out of a fruit cream he made, along with hand-making ice cream, sherberts, and jelly from scratch. Of course, Jo Minjun did not do all of that on his own. His assistant Maya also helped prepared the ingredients and mix them together. That was where the fun was happening.

“Minjun, hasn’t it only been a few months since that guy became a demi chef? Didn’t they say he has no experiences before this?”

“That is what I heard.”

“Then how is he so good at using his assistant?”

The head chefs were mumbling in disbelief. Demi chefs were chefs, but it really was a time for them to learn. Advanced cooking skills, utilizing assistants properly, being a demi chef was the time to learn these things. It was not their fault that they were having difficulties finding faults with Jo Minjun’s cooking skills. It was because the majority of what Jo Minjun was making right now was molecular gastronomy.

Of course, they would be able to find faults if they focused on the foundations, such as boiling the ingredients to make a sauce. However, that was when they were looking at the head chef level, not the demi chef level. But even then, they might have difficulties, because when it came to boiling sauces, Jo Minjun was already far past the demi chef level. He could even be called a sauce specialist at this point.

“It wasn’t for nothing that he became in charge of the molecular gastronomy section.”

“Yes. He seems to specialize in it.”

“I can understand that he has a knack for it or is naturally talented. But how can he utilize his assistant so well? I thought that was completely down to experience.”

It made sense for them to feel that way. Jo Minjun seemed to be completely aware of how Maya was cooking. The evidence was clear. Every time they felt like Maya was making a mistake or the results were going to be different than expected … … Jo Minjun immediately raised his voice to guide Maya.

Sometimes, the assistance of the prep cook could make the demi chef more frazzled. No, getting assistance was the number one reason new demi chefs got frazzled. Since they were not doing everything with their own hands, it was difficult to draw the flow of things in your head. Thinking about whether or not the assistant did something wrong and needing to check to make sure made many demi chefs feel like they had more things to do than less because of the extra hands.

“…… I wish I had a demi chef like that in my kitchen too. No, at his level, he would probably do well even if I made him a sous chef. He doesn’t make any mistakes at all.

There was no way there could be a mistake. Jo Minjun was able to see the expected score of a dish. If Maya brings over a sauce with any mistake in the composition, Jo Minjun could anticipate what the end results would be.

Furthermore, since he was able to instantly verify whenever a mistake happened, he was able to develop an intuition separate from the system to know when to check Maya’s work and how to best guide her. The best way to describe it might be that since he was trying to solve the question while knowing the answer, he was able to quickly determine the method.

Dishes that went through such treatment were naturally going to be tasty. It was almost perfect with no faults at all.

It was not that Jo Minjun had better cooking skills than the other demi chefs. In fact, when it came to skills and efficiency, Anderson or Janet were probably better. No, they were definitely better. However, Jo Minjun’s greatest talent was not in cooking, but in supervising. Dave let out a moan and started to mumble.

“Based on what I have seen so far, he is probably the best in the world when it comes to having the talent to become a sous chef. Of course, that is only if he can show the same focus and supervision with a lot more people ……”

“In that case, isn’t his style more like Teacher Rachel than Teacher Daniel? Teacher Daniel was better at creating dishes than supervision. Teacher Rachel was extremely talented in supervision.”

“There is a flaw in your words. We have yet … … to see what kind of creativity and intuition he has for cooking.”

Dave’s words made the other chef let out an ‘ah’ and close his mouth. Seeing how talented Minjun was at handling his assistant, the chef naturally thought that there was no way Minjun was also talented in the other aspect as well. That is because it would be too unfair if there was someone in the world who had everything. Dave mumbled in a quiet voice.

“If he also has that intuition.”

Dave did not continue after that. Everybody else subconsciously thought about the end of Dave’s sentence in their minds. All of them were thinking different ways of finishing the sentence, but the content was pretty similar. If Jo Minjun had that intuition as well, no, if he can develop that intuition, then ……

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