Chapter 336: If You Don’t Have It, You Can Make It (2)
When Brian was overwhelmed by a sense of defeat like that, Laura was watching Min-joon’s cooking from a completely different point of view.
“Oh my G.o.d! I didn’t know he used licorice like that…”
When she gave up thinking of him as her rival, the way Min-joon cooked was awesome enough to make her feel that his cooking process was artistic. For example, the dessert he was making right now was like that. He put a piece of tuiles on top of the cream made from licorice and Bergamot. He then created a banana-like shape by putting cream made from only Bergamot in orange jelly on one side.
It was a fresh and cute recipe that defied one’s imagination so were the appetizer and the main dish. So much so that she could not believe it was really Min-joon’s dish or Rachel’s because such a dish could hardly be made by a chef with less experience than hers.
Even Takes.h.i.+ felt the same way. As a renowned head chef, he was so strongly impressed with Min-joon’s dish the moment he saw his cooking for the first time.
“Can you believe this? Are you sure he was a partic.i.p.ant in the Grand Chef last year? He partic.i.p.ated, but didn’t win? I can’t believe that.”
“Let me tell you this since there are no partic.i.p.ants around us, but the cooking level of the partic.i.p.ants in the Grand Chef Season 3 was particularly high.”
“Well, even so, I just can’t understand how he could make such a dish at that age…”
“Well, I was very hesitant to use this word to describe him until last year, namely, genius. I felt like that expression might belittle his achievement, but now, another word comes to my mind,” Joseph said without taking his eyes away from Min-joon. To put it more accurately, he couldn’t take his eyes off Min-joon. He wanted to look at this young chef with loving eyes who achieved such phenomenal growth since he saw Min-joon last at the Grand Chef last year.
Making oneself a genius was not a denial of the very definition of the word ‘genius,’ but Laura and Joseph could not refute this new definition. Especially, that was the case with Kaya because she has seen right by his side how Min-joon challenged and tried. She knew better than anyone else that Min-joon had no such transcendental talent that people talked about.
“Can you obtain talent just by making such efforts by yourself?”
Laura asked hesitantly as if she felt she couldn’t believe what she asked. It was natural that she asked such a question because if Min-joon made himself a genius by using a talent that he didn’t have, ordinary cooks would resent the difference in their abilities and find it hard to rationalize their current position.
Laura was rather different for a different reason. She always believed she had talent, and she was grateful for it. However, if anyone could simply overcome a gap in talent, depending on their strenuous efforts, it would mean that the value of her talent would also fall.
But Joseph shook his head. He made a perplexed expression as if he found it hard to answer then slowly opened his mouth.
“To be honest, I’ve never met someone like Min-joon before. That was why I’m surprised. If you ask me if others can do what he has been doing, my answer is I just don’t know.”
“Is it a part of his talent that he can manage himself well?”
“If you want to look at his talent in terms of his will, I don’t have any answer,” Kaya said in a sullen voice.
Laura turned to Kaya and looked at the woman with overwhelming talent who won the Grand Chef compet.i.tion, overcoming the difficult environment where she could not learn proper cooking.
This genius cook, Kaya said, “If you say even your efforts are given naturally like your talent, it’s like saying that the people destined to succeed and those destined to fail have already been decided in our world. I know the difference because I’ve watched Min-joon up close. He has never achieved this much by his talent alone. He fell, stood up again, and made sweats and toil. He has never achieved anything easily thanks to his innate talent.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that,” Laura said.
“You don’t have to feel sorry.”
Kaya spoke to her in a rage at first but replied awkwardly when she saw her face turning sullen. While listening to their conversation quietly, Takes.h.i.+ turned his head to focus on checking what type of person Min-joon was.
‘He’s a very gentle type.’
The common perception of chefs, and head chefs, in particular, was that they had a violent temper. They thought that chefs typically used harsh language to their junior chefs and even punched them. And not without reason, since they were working in the kitchen where there was the heat, boiling oil and water, hot pans and sharp knives. Working in such an environment made them inevitably on edge.
Moreover, the secret to the taste of most dishes was its delicacy. Even a second difference could make the taste completely different, so they had to focus so intensely as to change their souls every moment. As a result, they were constantly on edge when they were working in the kitchen.
‘Isn’t he sensitive? No, I don’t think so…’
Min-joon was far from dull, given that he adroitly managed his helpers at every important moment. This was especially the case with the partic.i.p.ants in front of the heat on the stove. Obviously, he didn’t look at them, but whenever he felt he needed to step in, he gave various instructions such as turning over the ingredients on the stove or reduce the heat, which even good chefs would find it very hard to check unless they were near the pan.
And Min-joon’s management style impressed Joseph, Takes.h.i.+, and Laura the most.
As if he was not sure, Takes.h.i.+ looked at Joseph with a serious expression and asked, “What do you think of Min-joon’s management style?”
“Well, I don’t think I have to answer because you must have already felt it, Chef Takes.h.i.+,” Joseph said.
“Yes, I’m feeling it. That’s why I’m asking you. It’s very weird.”
Joseph did not ask or disagree with why he asked such a question because he understood. However, it seemed that Emily could not understand the conversation between them.
Not only Emily but also Kaya and Laura seemed not to have understood him, either. On the contrary, Brian, who was a head chef, already seemed to have sensed what they were talking about. He made a grave expression.
“What the h.e.l.l are you talking about? Do you think his management style is weird?”
“Yes, it’s weird.”
Takes.h.i.+ answered without hesitation for a moment. In fact, he didn’t have to reply because it was clear his expression showed he already felt so.
Emily looked at them curiously as if she still could not understand what was going on.
Takes.h.i.+ opened his mouth with a sigh.
“If you look at him with a little more attention, you will see that Min-joon keeps managing them without stopping even for a moment.”
“What’s wrong with that? Isn’t he managing them well? Don’t you think so?”
“Yeah, he’s doing well. But that’s why I don’t understand. Even if you work as a head chef for several years, it’s hard to manage your staff. But Min-joon is very skillful. As a demi-chef, he must have managed his cook, I think. But he is now managing such a large number of partic.i.p.ants so well as if they were his colleagues at the restaurant where they have been working together for years.”
Hearing that, Emily narrowed her eyes to watch him and those helping him. Like Takes.h.i.+ said, it didn’t take long for her to confirm it. When she looked at him, he said something to them, who, in turn, followed his instructions, which was so natural that she didn’t notice anything unusual. Come to think of it, it was very unusual for him to interact with them naturally in this situation because he was not a head chef, although he was no more than an amateur.
“Do you think he is managing them well?”
“I can’t say it’s perfect, but it’s also true that there’s nothing I can find fault with.”
Naturally, they showed such a reaction because the way he instructed the partic.i.p.ants was almost perfect. When he looked at the ingredients, for example, his system window told him exactly how he could get the expected cooking score by showing them exactly when to adjust the heat and what ingredients to add, so they couldn’t make a mistake even if they wanted to.
At first, Min-joon was worried that if he relied on the system window, he would not enhance his cooking skills. For example, if a person looked at the answer sheet and solved the problem, his or her trial and error might decrease, but one might lose what one learned from that trial and error.
But Min-joon thought that it was not good to ignore the system window entirely. If one had the ability, one should think about using it instead of turning away from it, for if one avoided something just because it was tough, it was like he or she was not wearing an expensive watch because they didn’t have any clothes that match with the watch.
As a result, Min-joon chose to wear that watch and slowly adjust the clothes to match the watch. He would continue to rely on the system window, but at the same time, he would try to control everything, based on his own cooking skills.
And his actions based on such judgment were more effective than he thought. No matter how great a teacher one might have in the world, the teacher couldn’t tell his or her student when and how to manage his or her staff wisely enough.
Besides, by the time one became a head chef, one might have already learned a lot on how to manage their staff even without the teacher’s coaching, so there were lots of chefs who found it harder to learn how to manage their staff than how to cook.
And now, all the partic.i.p.ants noticed that Min-joon already had the authority that only the teacher could wield over their kitchen staff.
Even Jaden wondered how he could have mastered how to manage the kitchen staff.
‘How is it possible that Min-joon has found it out?’