"For Group B, have you guys decided?" Master Chef Li asked. "Yes Master, our Group Leader is Wong Mei Li!"
Master Chef smiled. Both of the group leader that they have identified were both capable to lead a group.
"Okay, each group must prepare a full course meal. You must have an appetizer first, second, a variety of dishes, it may include a fish course or any light dish. Then third would be the main course which is the most important dish, you should also prepare a salad course and a dessert. This activity will run for one week so you must select the best sets of meal that you wanted to prepare" Master Chef Li discussed.
Each students were listening attentively and excitement were written all over their faces.
"Today, you can discuss the things that you wanted to prepare and a.s.sign who is going to prepare such meal. You can start discussing how you will prepare the full course meal, list all the ingredients that you going to buy, you will be given a budget for the full course meal. So you must estimate all your dishes based on the given budget. Tomorrow, will be your Market Day, meaning you guys are going to the market. I will be accompanying you to the market to show you how to pick a fresh ingredients. How to know if prawns are still fresh or if the meats are in good quality. You can check the price of each ingredients on your list so you can adjust your budget as it deems fit. You can already start buying those ingredients excluding fish, meats, prawns and vegetables. So by Wednesday, when you go back to the market you will only buy meats, fish and the like to ensure that they are all fresh when you cook all your dishes on Wednesday"
"So Master Chef how are we going to be graded, will it be solely on the taste of the dishes that we are going to prepare?" Chun Ji asked.
" Your grades should not merited on the taste alone. You will also be graded on how you choose the ingredients and how you spend your the budget for the full course meal without compromising the taste and quality of your dishes."
"Is it going to be a compet.i.tion or something? Like Group A vs Group B?" Wong Mei Li asked
Master Chef Li smiled. " For this week activity, NO. I am not expecting you to be that expert already that"s why I wanted you to choose the dishes that you wanted to cook. I am giving you that liberty so that you won"t be pressured to cook the course that you are not familar with. But on our next activity, I will be choosing the food that you need to prepare and from there we can apply the friendly compet.i.tion between Group A and Group B. Will that sounds good to you guys?"
"Yeah!" The student said in unison.
"In terms of budget, are we going to spend money from our own pocket? " Song Dei Si asked.
"NO. The school will be giving you the budget so you will not sh.e.l.l out additional money. The budget for each activity is already included in your tuition fee"
Song Dei Si nodded.
"How much will be the budget?"
"3000 Yuan and it be given tomorrow" Master Chef Li said " The food that you are going to make should be good for 5 people."
"Okay" The cla.s.s acknowledged.
"If you don"t have any questions, you may start collaborating with your groupmates now" said Master Chef Li.
.....
"Okay, so what are your thoughts on this activity?" Song Dei Si asked her groupmates.
"I"m excited." Choi Mira said.
"Same here" Chun Ji said.
"So what approach are we going to take to complete the task. Should we a.s.sign each one of us a dish to cook and prepare. Say for the appetizer, it will be a.s.signed to any one of us, for the salad course it will also be a.s.signed to one person." said Song Dei Si.
"Hmm, it is great that each of us will be in-charge for each course however thou for the main dish I would suggest that two people will be working on that since this is the most important dish." said Mo Baicheng.
"Agree!" Lin Goren who was usually quiet said.
Song Dei Si nodded. She also agree that the main dish will require much effort so must be worked on by at least two people.
"For the a.s.signment, I am not sure on how are we going to a.s.sign the task. Each of us might have specialties on a particular dish like example, for the dessert, I am thinking that this task should be a.s.signed to the person who is familiar on doing this. This will save time and effort from the one will be doing this task."
" I can take on the dessert" Lin Goren said.
"I can do the appetizer" said Mo Baicheng.
"Okay so whose going to take on the variety of dishes?"
"I can do one simple dish too, since Appetizer course will not take too much effort" said Mo Baicheng.
Song Dei Si nodded. " Me too, I can do one dish too" said Lin Goren.
"Whose going to take the main course? "Song Dei asked. She was planning to take on the task that left will be left on the rack.
"Chun Ji, let"s do the main dish." Choi Mira suggested.
Chun Ji was hesitant to say Yes because he would like to do this task with Song Dei Si, but in the end, he agreed. "Okay then."
"Okay so I"ll take on the salad course and will do one simple dish too."
"So we"re going to make 3 variety of small dishes?" Mo Baicheng asked.
"For now we can list down at least three, but the number may be decreased based on the budget that we have." Song Dei Si said.
"Okay, how many dessert are we going to make?" Lin Goren asked.
"Two or three dessert will do?" Choi Mira suggested.
Song Dei Si nodded.
"For the appetizer, I"ll list down at least three as well." Mo Baicheng said.
"Okay, for the main dish? What are we going to prepare?" Song Dei Si asked. She looked at Chun Ji and Choi Mira.
" What is your specialty?" Choi Mira asked Chun Ji.
"Grilled Salmon steak"
"Hmm, okay we can do that." Choi Mira said.
" Are we all in agreement on the main dish that we are going to make?" said Song Dei Si.
"Yes!"
"Okay so since we are going to make a salmon dish as our main course. We should do a dish made of chicken, or pork for our variety of dishes" Mo Baicheng suggested.
"Agree" Lin Goren said.
Song Dei Si could not help but amazed on how their planning was going on. Everyone in the group has their own suggestions and all of them were good enough and made sense.
They have listed down the appetizers, salad, soup and dessert suggestions too. They also listed down the ingredients needed for each course and provide rough estimates.
" I think we"re now overbudget!" Song Dei Si said while she was looking at the list of the ingredients and its corresponding price.
"I believe so too" Chun Ji said. Even without calculating the amount, they can guess it by just looking at the long list of the ingredients.
Everyone laughed.
"Okay, for now let"s trim down our list based on the our priority. So we need to do two small dishes. One salad and one soup. Then for appetizer, let"s retain the number."
"Agree." Choi Mira said.
"Anyways, we can only confirm the amount of each ingredients when we go to the market tomorrow. So if there will be more money left, we can still try to add one more simple dish." said Song Dei Si in a hopeful tone.
"Uhm" Chun Ji said.
"Okay, I think we"re all set good now." Song Dei Si said.
Everyone agreed.
.....
Master Chef Li was observing each group and was amazed on how Group A has planned their full course meal smoothly. He liked Song Dei Si"s way of handling it. It was very systematic so the group has finished the planning before the cla.s.s has ended. Her thoughts were well organized. What she likes about her the most was even though she was the leader of the group, she was never bossy and would rather ask for each member opinion. When she heard them, she acknowledged them.
This woman will go places in the world of Cookery. The talent was already there, she just need to hone it. She also possess a positive aura which made the environment and the discussion among the group members to be light and friendly that even the spoiled brat Choi Mira did not give them a hard time and was so easy to deal with
He gave her another look and realized that this woman"s overall aura was striking.