God of Cooking

It was delicious. It didn’t seem different from regular tandoori mackerel, but it was different. This was no ordinary tandoori mackerel. It was a very good tandoori mackerel. Kaya turned away without a word. Her thoughts were confused. Soon Joseph tasted it, followed by Min-joon.

Min-joon began to express what was on his mind unlike her, who could not easily express her feelings.

“It sounds like you made masala yourself, but you’ve increased the proportion of cinnamon and cloves. So its sweet and refreshing taste is quite vivid. That has removed the fishy smell of mackerel, and at the same time, it meshes well with its chewy savor.”

When he said that, Peter shook his head as if he couldn’t believe it.

“Man, you’re still very good at guessing what the ingredients are.”

Actually, that was what Peter saw too often during the Grand Chef Season 3 where they participated. At that time, Min-joon guessed exactly what the ingredients were and told the recipes as if he had seen all the cooking processes of the participants right next to them.

In fact, Peter didn’t notice it at that time, but maybe he might have started ruining himself as soon as he noticed Min-joon’s talent. Back then, Peter pretended to be calm and put on a bold face, but that was strong evidence that he was feeling inferior to Min-joon deeply.

Peter admitted he envied Min-joon.

How couldn’t he do so? Min-joon had everything. He had cooking talent, and he worked in the best restaurant in America, Rose Island. Everyone who saw him loved him as if they promised to do so. Peter could not be part of them because of his inferiority complex, but he had no choice but to admire this man who shined as if he was the main character even if he came from a distant foreign country.

Even at the moment when Min-joon became angry with him, he felt sorry for the fact that he was hated by Min-joon rather than feeling it was unfair. He realized he was more miserable when Min-joon cast a cold glance at him than when people around him pointed their fingers at him.

‘So I just hope you can give me good feedback, Min-joon,’ he earnestly wished.

As long as Min-joon told him that he had a great potential and he could make it, Peter thought he could shake off some of the frustration and pent-up anger in his mind.

At that moment, Min-joon said, “Good job, Peter.”

For a moment there was silence. Peter could not easily decide whether to interpret his comment positively or negatively.

So he asked with a stupid expression, “You mean my dish is good, right?”

Instead of replying right away, Min-joon just smiled.

Then he slowly opened his mouth.

“I think you were bold enough to use the tandoori sauce for mackerel again this time. And it’s great that you made that tricky masala by yourself. I was surprised in many ways. You grilled mackerel properly enough, and you trimmed it very well. Yes, you have changed a lot. As you know, changing yourself is the most difficult thing.”

Then Joseph said, “I agree. It makes me realize how scary time is. Peter, you have become a great chef. So much so that you can’t be compared to your past. It’s never been easy to cook tandoori in such a short time. But you’ve improved enough to make a difficult dish easily.”

This time, Kaya added, “Good job. You’ve grown a lot! I agree with them.”

All of them recognized his cooking skills.

One of them was his colleague, the other two were like his idols.

At that moment, Peter remembered Gwen’s face he had seen earlier. She was desperately holding back her tears when she was praised. Perhaps she didn’t want to let them know she was overwhelmed by their praise.

But Peter was different. He didn’t care about how they looked at him. Even if he shed tears, he would not think he would look ugly to them. But they didn’t feel bad about his tears. Of course, he would look shabby and small when they saw him shedding tears.

But what they could see most vividly through his tears was Peter’s hard times. They could feel how strongly he confronted and overcame the harsh criticism and ridicule of those around him. Since they knew he once succumbed to their relentless criticism, they could not treat him the same way as they had done before. He was not foolish anymore. He changed and came all the way up here.

Hugo muttered, ‘Everyone has changed for the better.’

He suddenly felt thirsty. He felt like he was getting so nervous. He wanted to step forward on that podium for evaluation as quickly as possible. He wanted to prove how he spent trying to improve his cooking skills. But at the same time, he wanted to put off their evaluation.

The thought of ‘ what if’ haunted him. What if the judges decided that his progress wasn’t as good as he thought? What if his growth only took place in his mind? What if the judges concluded he was still marking time without moving forward?

Expectations and fear overcame him at the same time. Without saying anything, he slowly watched other chefs stepping out to Min-joon for evaluation of their dishes. They felt the same way as him. They stepped out with a vague conviction, and their conviction became stronger or fell apart whenever Min-joon and other judges gave their feedback.

Then did he believe in his conviction?

Hugo could not answer it easily. Oddly enough, the judges didn’t call him yet. He was called out after the judges were almost done with evaluating the other participants’ dishes. Watching half of them failing, Hugo tried to calm down when Min-joon called slowly, “Hugo.”

Obviously, he was waiting to be called earnestly, but he felt so scared.

After all, he took the dish he made with a cold smile and stepped out to him.

As usual, Min-joon was polite only when he felt he was satisfied with the participant’s dish.

He spat out critical remarks when they thought he stopped doing it. Kaya sometimes threw out the fish into the trash as if she couldn’t eat it. Watching their strict evaluation, Hugo had no choice but to admit that he was now extremely nervous. How would Min-joon and Kaya react to his dish? Just like they gave positive feedback to Peter, would they do the same to him? Or would they criticize him, pointing out the problems of his dish?

‘Man, I’ve no idea…’

Actually, he did his best. All he could do now was to wait for their evaluation.

“I hear you went through lots of troubles. Is that true?” Min-joon asked in a low voice.

Min-joon and Kaya, now the judges of the Grand Chef, already heard about what Hugo told the press about the ups and downs that he went through at various restaurants he worked for. But they didn’t know he experienced lots of frustration and trouble because of his personal clashes with the restaurant owners.

There were two reasons why he didn’t tell them. He was close to Min-joon and Kaya but not close enough to keep in touch with them all the time. And he didn’t want to inform them about his personal story.

To put it simply, it was a matter of self-esteem. Until they participated in the Grand Chef in the past, Hugo, Min-joon, and Kaya were not far apart from each other in terms of their rankings when the final results came out.

But it was totally different now. The gap between them was so big that Hugo couldn’t even think of catching up with them. All of those who participated in the Grand Chef with him back then have established themselves firmly in the restaurant world now.

Kaya, formerly Grand Chef winner, had become the head chef of Irregular Lab.

Anderson, who used to be the demi-chef of Rose Island, was now Gluto’s sous-chef.

Chloe had become a cooking celebrity that anybody interested in cooking knew well, and she was co-head chef of Irregular Lab. And Min-joon had come to be recognized as the mascot of Rose Island.

Compared with him, who was often fired by family restaurants, all of them rose to positions that he could not even imagine. But he didn’t want to complain about his personal frustrations and setbacks before them. He didn’t want to look shabby and miserable to them.

‘I can’t help but feel miserable.’

Hugo straightened up with a long sigh. Since he could not feel proud, he wanted to be a little more confident.

“Well, they seem to make money when I want to focus on cooking.”

Hugo had one problem. Shortly after the Grand Chef competition was over, he was scouted as the head chef of a small restaurant in Utah. Of course, the restaurant was very small because its owner hired him as a head chef even though he didn’t have a long cooking career. He had only two junior chefs, who could not be called chefs, strictly speaking.

But Hugo was not dissatisfied with the situation because there was a fat chance that a big restaurant could hire him as head chef. He was among the top contenders at the Grand Chef competition, so he had some recognition, but he was still an amateur. In other words, he was really nothing, compared with the first-rate chefs of famous restaurants.