Between Stability and Transformation (part 6)

After being properly put into his place by Jo Minjoon and Kaya, Lewis calmed down instead. Starting at some point, he even began to forget about the battle he was having with Gwen. All he was thinking about was how he could make a dish that Jo Minjoon and Kaya would approve of.

‘Am I really not all that?’

Sometimes he would have those thoughts, but Lewis tried hard to push them away. Some would think that thinking lowly of yourself is the beginning of humility. However, for Lewis, it was the beginning of defeat.

‘I put so much effort into getting to this point, too.’

Lewis was not someone who had been cooking from a young age. When he first entered cooking school, there were many who had received education from a young age, many amateurs who had dabbled in cooking as a hobby their entire lives, and a fair number with decent skills.

However, Lewis never once felt inferior to them. He thought there was no need for him to feel so. Even if they were to come across as being better than he was at that moment, in the end, he would surpass them all, is what he thought.

His reason for that was simple. Lewis simply believed in his own self. He had never once failed at achieving something once he had set his mind to it.

This is why his current trials weigh more heavily on him.

Lewis could feel it. How those around him looked at him. In fact, he also knew that he had been the excessively arrogant prick when he was the new face who just joined. But he did not like the gazes of those who wanted to dismiss skills as not that great based purely on the type of mission he had received for the interview alone.

He wanted to draw out Jo Minjoon’s expectations of him again. Jo Minjoon had clearly seen something with him before. Something that Lewis himself was unable to see. If he could only draw that something out properly…

‘I can win.’

Lewis turned his head. Gwen was seated in a corner of the resting area, staring blankly at the ceiling. He could not understand this. Gwen was the one who wanted a cook-off with him, but lately she had been looking like that a great deal lately.

That look of hers actually made him more nervous. Gwen had yet to bring a single dish to Jo Minjoon. At first, he thought she was just being cautious. Later, he wondered if it was because she could not think of any recipes that she had any confidence in.

He thought maybe she somehow was not placing that much importance on the cook-off. But that did not seem right. She was the one who requested the cook-off in the first place. How could she possibly forget about it after requesting it? That made no sense.

‘And she hates me as well.’

Instead of hating him, it would be more accurate to say she does not like him, but that made no difference. Either way, she probably would not want to go on a date with him. She had sufficient reason to not want to lose.

Then why in the world is she spending so much time just staring off like that? Even if she were to be criticized by the head chefs, would it not be a matter of listening to their advice and going back to correct her mistakes?

‘…Is she perhaps afraid of being criticized?’

If that were somehow the case, he would be a bit disappointed if she had that little determination and had still come to him to ask for a cook-off. However, Lewis was, of course, barking up the completely wrong tree. The reason Gwen had not taken her dishes to Jo Minjoon and Kaya was a simple one.

‘I can clearly see what type of criticism I’d get.’

It was an interesting feeling. Of course, Gwen was unable to understand the full breadth of Jo Minjoon and Kaya’s cooking. However, at the very least, she could clearly see how they would see her cooking from their perspective.

Of course that did not mean she was able to see all the cooking from their point of view. If Gwen had been at that level, this battle with Lewis would not have drawn out for so long.

All she could see were her shortcomings. The shortcomings her dishes hold.

If her own eyes could see the shortcomings, then there was no way she could bring that dish before Jo Minjoon and Kaya. She could receive advice on what aspects of her dish were falling short, but she already had an idea on what areas they would provide advice on. However, while knowing she was lacking, she was lacking the ability and inspiration to make up for it.

‘How can I make up for it?’

This is what Gwen had been pondering over. At first, she was trying to find her answer by staying in front of the island and trying to make dishes and tasting them herself. However, it was more a problem of thoughts than of senses.

The more she thought about it, the stranger it seemed to her. Gwen knew how to make Jo Reggiano. She knew how to make the 6 meats dish. At the very least, she was confident she could make each and every one of Jo Minjoon and Kaya’s countless recipes. Since she spent all day for the past year doing just that.

However, creating a dish of a similar level was much too difficult. What was lacking? Was it skills? Inspiration? Experience? It was probably all of the above. However, Jo Minjoon was able to make something like Jo Reggiano during his time as a demi chef for Rachel.

That means it was not an impossible task. Someone would of course mention that this was a difference in talent, but Gwen did not want to listen to any of that. What Jo Minjoon and Kaya had always told them was that very thing in the first place. To not think that they were all that different from each other.

If Jo Minjoon had been able to do it, then Gwen could do it too. Gwen may not possess Jo Minjoon’s talent, but Gwen did possess Jo Minjoon’s thoughts inside of her. It was the difference of a single blank sheet of paper. Occasionally, a miniscule difference could mean all the difference in the world, but she did not want to lose to such a negligible difference.

From the moment she settled on those thoughts, Gwen began to study cooking again. She was not going to go simply off of what Jo Minjoon and Kaya had told her. She began studying everything about cooking from the very beginning again, from cooking programs to written papers.

From this, she came to realize she had been quite ignorant about cooking. She was a chef who had learned cooking through experience. She had some amount of pride that she had been able to rise to her current position purely on that alone. She could not see past the experience she had accumulated.

What she was doing right this moment was rubbing salt on meat. She knew that the muscle fibers would tear and it would have a tenderizing effect, but she did not know the principles behind how it occurred. As she probed each and every thing she knew but did not understand, at some point Gwen realized she had begun to see cooking from a completely different perspective than before.

With that said, she was still unable to compare herself to Jo Minjoon and Kaya, but that transformation had given Gwen the inspiration she had not been able to glimpse at before.

‘What goes on the menu are the best recipes that Minjoon and Kaya have wracked their brains over…’

Common sense told Gwen that no matter how much she strained herself, there was no way she would come up with a dish that was better than Jo Minjoon’s and Kaya’s best efforts.

If that were the case, what should she do? Should she give up just like that? No, there was no way she could. Also, in actuality, Jill had several of her recipes put on the menu, and one of the other demi chefs had a recipe put on the menu as well.

Then there was no way Gwen could fail to grasp such an opportunity. At that moment, Gwen thought of the recipe the other demi chef had made. It was a squid dish.

Stuffed inside the squid was a filling made from tofu, sargassum, Chinese yam, pork, and various spices. It was placed inside a bisque soup for the completed dish. She could find no fault with either the visuals or the taste of the dish.

Also, one of the other features of the dish was that it was not a difficult dish to make.

Of course, from a normal person’s perspective, it was a dish that they would dare to ever attempt to make. However, for chefs, it was a dish they would likely think of themselves at least once. The idea behind it itself was not that impressive. The reason it made it on the menu was because the harmony of the filling inside the squid with the bisque soup was so simplistic it felt like a luxurious ecstasy.

She had to draw out that ecstasy.

From the moment she reached that conclusion, Gwen spent almost every day developing a recipe. Lewis, who was next to her, was so surprised he ended up hanging out by the island even more. Gwen was not performing various experiments there. She was focused on one dish only. A sea bass dish with curry sauce.

What was more interesting was how Gwen prepared the sea bass. She did not bake it or fry it. She simmered the sea bass. Normally people in L.A. do not like the smell of boiled fish, so she had chosen a challenging direction to take her dish.

And exactly 3 days from that point…

Gwen picked up a dish off the island and stood up. Jill, upon seeing this, blinked and asked, “Gwen, don’t tell me you’re ready?”

“Yes. I’m going to go get evaluated now.”

“My goodness… you sure took your time.”

Gwen had taken over a month to get this plate ready, enough to make Jill sick and tired of it.

Jill gave a half-hearted smile and said, “But if you’ve come to this decision after taking so long, then that must mean you are that confident in it.”

“Yes. I. Am. Confident.”

They were words full of confidence, quite unlike Gwen. However, Jill was not about to point that out. She did not want to see this cute girl possibly turn introverted again from that one comment and hide her confidence.

“Okay. Go and knock that new kid off his high horse. Show him just how Lotus Bridge isn’t a place he should look down on.”

“…Okay.”

Gwen turned her head slightly. Lewis was looking at her with a calm expression. It was a calmness tinged with tension. Gwen did not find it necessary to say anything to Lewis and slowly walked to stand in front of Jo Minjoon and Kaya’s office.

She coughed deliberately once.

And knocked twice.

“It’s Gwen. May I enter?”

“Oh. Just a moment. What’s up?”

“I’ve prepared a dish.”

There was a brief silence on the other side of the door. Rather, it was not brief but a rather long silence. Soon the door was yanked open. Jo Minjoon looked at Gwen.

“You prepared a dish?”

“Yes. Would you be able to evaluate whether this can be included in our menu?”

“…Sure, why not?”

Jo Minjoon nodded his head and ushered Gwen inside. Kaya was seated in a chair in the office, spinning her body around. Gwen placed a plate in front of Kaya. Kaya spun around two more times and then stopped. Her nostrils flared slightly.

“It’s curry. Curried sea bass. And it’s steamed sea bass? How unusual.”

“People can’t stand the fishy smell of sea bass, you see.”

Gwen said in a low voice, “I wanted them to come to like that fishy smell.”

At her words, Jo Minjoon came walking up from behind with his brows furrowed. He looked as if he wanted to say something, but instead he sat down next to Kaya, looking a bit stifled. Gwen stole a glance at Jo Minjoon’s face, but that seemed to make her unnecessarily nervous, so she chose to just look down at the plate.

“Would you like to try some?”

She did not want to draw out conversation. Kaya nodded her head and picked up a fork. She cut a piece of sea bass, covered it with curry, and placed it in her mouth. Soon, she quietly turned to look at Jo Minjoon and placed a mouthful in his mouth as well.

Jo Minjoon’s expression froze. Only then did Gwen begin to feel fear. She wondered if it was just her own delusion that she thought she was able to read the two of their thoughts to some extent.

“Is there something—”

“Just a moment.”

Jo Minjoon held up a finger with a serious look on his face. It looked as if he was contemplating something, so Kaya stayed silent as well and watched him.

At that moment, Jo Minjoon was looking at the window that had popped up in front of him.

A cuisine score of 9. If he thought about Gwen’s level, it would not be an exaggeration to say this dish had pushed her limits.

Jo Minjoon now looked at another system window.

It said 100%. Not 99%, 100%.

The meaning behind that was simple.

CREDITS:
Original author: 양치기자리
Translator: Comic Seoul
Proofreader: Potato