Chapter 618: How To Be Somebody’s Friend (2)

Min-joon took Peter’s words as quite fresh. His shadow? Min-joon knew he came a long way as a chef, but he had never thought about how great he would look to those struggling under his shadow.

When he saw Peter, however, Min-joon had no choice but to realize all those around him envied him. It was not just Anderson or Havier that regarded him as a great chef. Even Hugo and Peter came to reflect on their cooking skills and find their shortcomings rather than what they achieved until now. ‘It looks like they think of me as somebody they want to surpass.’

He didn’t feel bitter about it because he knew they were not necessarily competitive when they looked at him. It was because they admitted he was superior to them that they felt competitive, after all. So he had no reason to feel any regrets about them.

What was interesting was that Peter’s attitude changed a bit. Peter was always conscious of the people around him. He was concerned about how he could get a more favorable view from them, but at the same time, he was so tired of caring about it that he just gave it up in deep skepticism.

But Peter didn’t talk about the way people looked at him these days. He rather talked about Min-joon’s cooking while watching it. Obviously, Peter was struggling to survive in the cuisine world until recently. But he survived and made a surprise comeback.

“Well, it’s hard to make. Maybe its difficulty level is the highest of the other dishes. Do you still want to make my dish?” Min-joon asked.

“Yeah,” Peter replied.

Maybe he made a foolish judgment. Actually, he did. If he wanted to win, he had to choose a dish that was much easier to make. Of course, none of the dishes the judges offered was easy to make, but Min-joon’s was the most difficult.

It took even Min-joon a really long time to make the toppings of pomegranate into the shape of a pomegranate. Min-joon wondered if Peter would be able to make it within the given time. But he could not stop Peter.

“Okay. Good luck

Min-joon should let him challenge it if he wanted to. Even if he failed in the challenge, he could say he challenged it anyway.

Then Michael selected his judge. He chose Joseph, but nobody was curious about why he chose Joseph, for Michael was an eccentric who was swayed by emotions rather than logical judgment.

Lastly, Gwen had to team up with Kaya since the latter was the only available judge. Actually, it wasn’t bad. Kaya was her role model, and she was a great fan of Kaya. Michael and Joseph were both old while Min-joon and Peter were friends. So the three of them were connected to each other in one way or another.

Soon the judges showed the three finalists their own dishes. Joseph started off with his dish. He showed Michael an appetizer with mullet carpaccio marinated in coconut juice, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar on top of a tomato, and a salad made from young leaves on top.

At first glance, it seemed nothing special or unique. But the highlight of this appetizer was the tomato. Originally, it should have had tomato juice in its place, but Joseph added his own sauce to it instead. The ingredients were not complicated. It was a sauce flavored with lime juice, pineapple, and crushed basil. But when Michael put the sauce into his mouth with the marinated mullet carpaccio, he could understand why Joseph offered it his signature dish.

“Awesome, Joseph.”

Come to think of it, not only Michael but also others thought Joseph’s appetizer made them feel they didn’t know much about his dishes. Joseph just smiled at Michael’s praise.

Next came Kaya’s Six Meats. From time to time, those intellectuals who pretended to know something about her signature dish criticize that it was a poor remake of Min-joon’s Cho Reggiano. At first glance, this might sound quite logical because it was similar to Cho Reggiano in that it emphasized the different flavors of cheese and the different flavors of meat as well as the difference between the ingredients.

To examine it a little further, the two were completely different from each other. Cho Reggiano brought out its distinct taste by cooking cheese with a different aging period while Six Meats used different parts of meat from the beginning.

It didn’t matter even if the two dishes had the same theme. Even if Picasso became famous for his abstract paintings, nobody would treat those painters drawing abstract paintings as the simple imitators of Picasso.

In any case, Kaya’s Six Meat was a perfect dish. Three finalists and three judges, namely, a total of six chefs ate Six Meats. None of them complained about it, which even Kaya herself admired. No ordinary chefs could make it with an ordinary sense of taste. Of course, it was not the best dish in the world, but this was a dish that only a genius chef could make.

‘Can I make it?’

As soon as she tried it, Gwen got scared for a moment. She was not asked to come up with a recipe like this. She was just asked to make the same dish, based on Kaya’s recipe. Nonetheless, Gwen felt she would bite off more than she could chew.

Only then did she realize the big gap in cooking skills between the judges and the participants. To be honest, she had been feeling a little more confident lately. She proudly survived the numerous challenges and advanced to the finals as one of the three participants. She felt that her survival proved her worth. She thought she had more brilliant cooking skills than she thought.

Looking at the judges’ dishes, however, Gwen realized that she was arrogant. She realized how far she was behind the judges. No wonder she thought so. The three finalists here were the best amateur chefs while the judges were the best professional chefs. She bit her lip.

Then Min-joon came up with his pomegranate dessert.

“Wow, that’s amazing. It’s just as pretty as if it was molded in a factory,” Michael said without hiding his feelings. What he meant by “molded in a factory’ was that Min-joon’s dessert was not a mass-produced model, but it looked so delicate and perfect. The pomegranate toppings that he made in the past had the shape of a ball rather than a pomegranate, but what he offered now was so delicate that it was even difficult to compare it with a real pomegranate.

Watching it, Peter had no choice but to clench his fists again. When Min-joon lifted a fork and broke the pomegranate skin, it had some powdered ice cream inside, and the hot pomegranate jam emitted a cold steam after touching the ice cream. Peter felt as if he could not even try making it.

“So beautiful,” Gwen muttered in a low voice.

Peter agreed with her. Not only Min-joon’s dish but also Joseph’s and Kaya’s dishes were just beautiful, not to mention their delicious taste. And they were now required to make the same dishes as theirs.

“Alright, here is the recipe.”

The judges handed out their own recipe to the three finalists.

While reading the recipe for a moment, Peter asked quietly, “What is the time limit?”

Depending on how many hours they were given, the difficulty level of this mission would vary greatly. Looking at Peter, Joseph grinned and said, “You can make it by this time tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yes, because you are likely to fail at your first try. Try repeating and make the same dish we showed to you. We’re going to eliminate the one who fails to reproduce the same dish as ours. That’s the key to today’s mission. And…”

Joseph then glanced at the clock and said, “Well, 24 hours is probably shorter than you think.”

When he said that 24 hours would be short, he was not telling a lie. As a matter of fact, the three finalists were busy trying to make the exact copy of the judges’ dishes until early the next morning while even forgetting to sleep.

Michael was no exception. He felt Joseph’s recipe was not hard to follow, but whenever he tried it, he felt something was lacking, which made him frown.

‘Yeah, I know it’s hard.’

Gwen understood Michael, and at the same time, she felt relieved because he always surprised the participants with extraordinary skill. Deep down, she was worried that he might perfectly remake Joseph’s dish assigned to him. If he completely reproduced Joseph’s dish in two hours and disappeared, Gwen and Peter, who would have to keep cooking for the next 22 hours in the kitchen, would feel really miserable.

But Peter didn’t get cold feet because of Michael because he saw a giant chef named Min-joon. Peter felt Michael’s cooking skills were nothing compared to Min-joon. As far as cooking was concerned, Michael was a smart man, and Min-joon was a genius. And Peter realized it more keenly than ever.

“How is it going? So far, so good?” Peter asked.

“Well, I would not sit idle like this if everything is going well,” said Gwen with a sigh.

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