God of Cooking

Jasper felt his heart skip a beat right then. It wasn’t made by her? Was she joking? No, she looked far too serious to be joking about something like this. A part of him wanted to ask if she was lying, but he was in front of a camera. Doing so would just be digging his own grave. Instead, he decided to repeat what she said back at her.

“It’s not?”

“It isn’t. That dish was created by Javier and Minjoon.”

“Amazing. You have wonderful students. This doesn’t even feel like a dish that could be made by someone so young.”

Insulting the two right now would just harm him more than anything. It would be smarter to just praise the chefs instead. Jasper continued slowly.

“With something as good as this, it’s inevitable that I’d get the wrong impression. I’ll have to try your dish now to see.”

It seemed far too obvious that he was trying to change the topic. But with how nervous he looked, no one in the room even bothered to tell him that.

Jasper quickly took a bite of Rachel’s scallop. The jelly on it seemed to be some sort of a Japanese soy sauce. As it melted, he could feel the sauce seep into the nooks and crannies of the scallop to make the meat even more savory and flavorsome. His brain even stopped working for a second from just how tasty the dish was.

‘God damn it, did I make a mistake?’

It was too late. The dice was already thrown, and he was already deep in enemy territory. Right now, depending on what he did, he could either go straight to heaven or fall straight down to hell. It was completely up to him for him to become a third-rate, or a critic of the century.

Jasper decided to smile.

“Ah, I can tell now what was different. This has a perfect balance between molecular gastronomy and traditional cooking. As expected of you, Rachel. I should’ve tried both before saying anything. How silly of me.”

“So, do you think you can get the next one right, then?”

“I said just now, didn’t I? What I wanted to criticize wasn’t being able to distinguish between your food and their food. It was all about who made the dish.”

“In that case, what was that thing just now about ‘this is your dish’ that you said only seconds ago?”

“…I was just excited. From the… Ah, the flavor explosion in my mouth. The excitement just rendered me completely unable to think properly.”

Rachel sighed inwardly. And here she thought that the man would at least have something up his sleeve…

‘What an idiot.’

Even she felt like an idiot for playing along with his game. She wouldn’t even have done all of this if she didn’t see Minjoon’s hurt face.

It only felt like a day ago when she started cooking herself. But to think she already had disciples… None of it really felt real sometimes. Rachel turned to look at her demi chefs.

“I’m sorry. You ended up making a dish for ten days only to serve… this guy.”

“There are no bad guests, as the saying goes. It’s fine.”

“Some people don’t come as guests. In those cases, you’ll have to make something different from food you serve guests. You’ll see when you start handling real critics.”

Minjoon couldn’t really relate. After all, he’s never met a critic who hasn’t tried to get on his good side so far.

By this time, the main dish was served. The first was a sea bream served with a sauce made of green curry and goat cheese, and the second looked like a pair of human lungs.

“This… Is this a baby bird?”

“Yes, a baby pigeon. We cooked it on the pan. The savoy cabbage is seasoned with black garlic and truffle salt. And the ingredient next to it… Would you like to guess? You seemed to be a fan of guessing games.”

Rachel asked casually. Jasper looked at the dish carefully. There was a reddish-brown sauce below the entire dish. He grabbed his spoon nervously.

‘There’s mushroom… and the meat… A stew. Right. What was this called again…?’

He was feeling so nervous that it was almost surprising that he could taste anything at all. Right now, guessing wasn’t important to him. He could always just make up an excuse for guessing wrong.

‘Damn it, I shouldn’t have tried to act smart a moment ago.

He thought he could just take the woman by her blind side since the dish was so Rachel-esque. But as it turned out, he was walking straight into a trap. He definitely should’ve tasted both before giving his answer. Ah well. It was too late to regret his decisions now.

“Jasper?”

“Ah, ah! I was just thinking for a moment. There’s a dish that resembles this in France. Salon?”