God of Cooking

‘The thing is how you are doing here, man.’

It was easy for a person to find someone who was better than him or her everywhere, but the real problem was how to react next. Naturally, one might feel inferior in such a situation, but it was up to that person whether to use their sense of inferiority as fuel to move on for better progress or simply use it as firewood to burn themselves.

That night, Kaya proved that she was the one who used as a firewood her sense of crisis that she was behind Min-joon.

“Hey, Kaya, can’t you go to sleep? It’s dangerous to cook when you are drunk. You’ve got a knife, heat, and even boiling oil. The scariest thing is the slippery floor,” Min-joon said.

“Shut up! You made such a nice dish today, then you want me to stop cooking nothing?”

Kaya got drunk and slurred her words. She didn’t yet lose her balance, but given the way she slurred, he got so uneasy and nervous. So, he could not let her cook. He headed to her and took the knife from her and said with a sigh, “Let me take the knife first. It’s not you, but your team members who are going to prepare the basic ingredients, right?”

“Do you want to be a member of my team?”

“Yeah. Let me be your team member, so order me anything.”

“Huh, I didn’t even think of any recipe.”

Kaya looked disappointed, but Min-joon was right. Even a great chef couldn’t do anything about time. Sometimes, exercising patience leisurely was also part of cooking.

So she first prepared potato Rosti. The process was simple. She grated potatoes on the cutting board, sprayed salt on them, then put them on the sieve. At barely grabbing the countertop, she looked at the potatoes with slightly wet eyes. Was it a bit because she got sober a bit while cooking? She was no more slurring.

“I really wanted to cook.”

“You’ve been doing it until now.”

“Yeah. But I really wanted to cook only, so my mind could be filled with cooking. And at the same time…”

She made an expression as if she was about to cry. She then said with an effort after trembling her lips, “In fact, I felt a bit guilty a little while ago because I wondered if I was interested more in the fruits of cooking than cooking itself.”

“Why do you think that way.”

“Well, I like cooking, but I love all of the things I could get from cooking.”

When she murmured like that, he slightly smiled at her. Adjusting the temperature of the Sous vide machine to 80 degrees, he said in a quiet voice, “Naturally, people like that. And nobody in the world demands that a chef become a transcendent sage because you don’t need to be at all.”

“It’s true that cooking is my favorite. But these days, I think if I lose everything I have now, I won’t go to the trouble of cooking again. What I mean is the tilt of the scale has changed in some respects.”

“It’s natural that you are greedy. And I don’t think your greed is bad because I’ve seen people making a success thanks to their greed.”

At that moment, Min-joon thought of June in New York. Obviously, June had a desire for cooking, but her ambition was more intense than that. She was burning with the desire to devour the world’s best restaurant called Rose Island. At first, he felt such a life seemed rather tiring, but on the other hand, he came to yearn for her in some respects because her cooking was so perfect that he could not even surpass it.

“Don’t you think what matters to you most is whether you can be satisfied with your career? I think it’s good as long as you can be satisfied because the way people live their lives is different from person to person.”

“By the way, you are not ambitious at all, Min-joon,” she said out of the blue while listening to him. He opened his eyes wide at her remark because he didn’t expect she would find fault with his words. But she didn’t mean to blame him, of course.

Looking a bit depressed, she stared at the water dripping on the sieve then said, “That’s why I think you are so cool. If you are not greedy, that means you’re a sage, not an ordinary man. So, I think that’s why you can make such a good dish.”

“I don’t think making good food has much to do with what kind of dream you have. And I …”

He hesitated for a moment. But he didn’t have to hide what was on his mind.

He said in a low voice, “Of course, I have ambitions, Kaya.”

***

The sunlight was hot. Kaya pulled the blanket all the way to her head to block the sunlight from outside the window and immediately frowned, letting out a hot breath. She kept thinking of drawing the curtain, but she couldn’t dare to get up and do it because she felt so heavy.

At that moment, Min-joon pulled down Kaya’s blanket. She groaned and looked at him, with her face swollen like dumplings.

He said with a bright smile, “Wake up right away. Don’t stare at me like that.”

“I am still sleepy.”

“You must be sleepy. You have slept only six hours after you hit the sack.”

“Then, why did you wake me up? Our mission is to start around noon.”

“Did you forget?”

When he asked, she quietly traced her memory. Then she looked at him, as if she could not get it.

“Do I have any schedule this morning?”

“Nothing particular. But you have to finish what you started early this morning. Don’t you remember you were so thrilled to come up with a new recipe?”

“Did I?”

“Man, since you don’t remember it, you can’t remember your recipe, right? Potato Rostie, venison, Sous vide, and…”

Even though he mentioned things like that, she still couldn’t remember what she said last night. Obviously, she must have blacked out before going to sleep. As if he could not help it, he showed her the recipe he recorded on his phone. At first, it seemed she found it hard to look at it between sleep and wake. She then raised herself in no time and rubbed her eyes.

“Did I come up with this recipe?”

“Yeah. You came up with that when you were drunk.”

“You didn’t modify it at all?”

“Nope.”

“Wow, it looks like a terrific recipe.”

“Then wake up right away. Yesterday, you put the potato Rotie in the Sous vide machine. You have to take it out and prepare other stuff. I should have woken you up a bit earlier, but your swollen face was so funny…”

When he said that, she frowned and covered her face with her hands.

She said in a hoarse voice as if she didn’t wake up completely.

“Can you wash first? Let me sleep a little more.”

“I washed already. So, wake up right now!”

“Man, I wish you had woken me up before you wash. I would have slept at least for a few more minutes.”

After all, she got up, moaning a bit. She didn’t take a shower. Watching her quickly wash her face and come out with her hair roughly tied, he let out a sigh, a bit disappointed at her appearance. He liked the way she looked without makeup like now, but sometimes, he wished she could not break his fantasy about her gorgeous look because he was once her fan.

“Let’s go.” Kaya walked with the hood pressed down.

He said, complaining, “Don’t you know hygiene is a chef’s basic duty?”

“I know, of course. That’s why I just washed my hands and wore a cook hat. And when I work, I always take a shower. You know that, right?”

“Got it.”

He knew it was just useless to have words with her about it anymore.