Absinthe novel Chapter 24

I now know the reason why Chef Maxwell's classes were expensive as fuck. I thought we'd be in the kitchen all day long, learning secret techniques to cutting vegetables and roasting meats. I couldn't have been more wrong.

Classes started at exactly 7 in the fucking morning. That wasn't new to me since I used to work earlier than that for more than a decade back in Samsong Group. However, the few months I'd practically done nothing but party and shop had ruined my body clock. It was now near impossible for me to wake up that early and attend the class on time.

At 7, we had professors from the Atheneum University come over to give custom-tailored classes in marketing, accounting, management, finance, and other relevant business administration courses. Chef Maxwell explained that those were all needed because we were training to be not just cooks in the kitchen but also executive chefs who would one day lead the culinary industry in the country.

Executive chef? I liked the sound of that.

"For today's class, I've prepared a case study for one of the most successful marketing campaigns in the history of the country," Professor Stefano Martinez began.

To be honest, I hate marketing. It's the least exact of all the disciplines in business administration. And I've never seen a marketing specialist climb their way up the corporate ladder. Even the top marketing executives at Samsong Group were not marketing experts—like me, they started out as corporate finance analysts.

"Have you ever wondered why sausages in the Philippines are extremely soft and juicy compared with sausages abroad?"

I saw all three of my classmates looking genuinely surprised. It had been more than two decades since I had last eaten Filipino hotdogs and sausages. But when I thought about it, I did remember them to be very soft, almost to the point of not being able to maintain their shape. I even recalled the TV commercials wherein the hotdogs literally bent when raised with a fork.

"Cost savings?" I guessed.

"Can you expound on that, Mr. Alvarez?"

"Um, when you look at the composition of sausages, I'm guessing that a bulk of their manufacturing cost comes from the raw materials, in other words, the meat and the additives they use to make the sausages."

"Uh-huh, go on."

"So in order to make more profits, they would have to replace some of the meat with extenders—maybe potatoes, chayote, even flour."

Jiwoo, Nico, and Vivi murmured in agreement to my answer.

"That's a highly logical guess," Prof. Martinez said. "But unfortunately, it's not correct."

I looked at Jiwoo, and he smiled patronizingly. Excuse me, but my ego wouldn't easily be hurt by guessing wrong in an informal business class.

"Actually, the success of the country's top hotdog producer, Chastity Foods, all started from a mistake."

What? I could feel everyone else's shock at that statement.

"Yes!" Prof Martinez exclaimed, smiling as he noticed our looks of keen interest. "A production mistake. You see, one of their quality control supervisors made wrong calculations on their production specification. That mistake caused a week's worth of hotdogs to have double the normal amount of water.

"There they were, in that fateful meeting room, deliberating what to do with hundreds of containers of watery hotdogs. Should they throw them away and write the whole thing off as millions worth of losses?

"Lucky for them, one of their executives came up with the idea of marketing those products as a new product. And that, lady and gentlemen, was how Chastity Foods' most famous Tender Juizy Hotdogs were born!

"Just this year, they launched that very same product in other Southeast Asian countries, and the reception was off the charts! This is the power of marketing, and this is what I intend to teach you all!" Prof. Martinez explained cheerfully.

"Does that mean Chastity Foods' hotdogs are a scam? That their success was built on a lie?" Vivi asked, a genuine look of discomfort on her face.

"I feel lied to," Jiwoo said, half joking. "I always thought they had a special way of preparing their hotdogs to retain maximum moisture even after cooking."

"But do you like them? Do you like their hotdogs?" asked Prof. Martinez.

All four of us nodded our heads. Personally, I enjoyed eating their hotdogs when I was a kid.

"Marketing is not only about understanding what the customer needs. It's also about taking it a step further and finding out how the customer wants something," Prof. Martinez explained. "It's a happy mistake that Chastity Foods marketed their hotdogs that way because it aligned with how the Filipino masses wanted their hotdogs to be. You may think it's cheating, but Chastity Foods is just making and selling hotdogs the way Filipino people like it—tender and juizy!" Prof. Martinez explained, stressing the Z sound in juizy.

"For our class, though, I'm not expecting you to rely on luck. I'm expecting you to use the tools we'll learn and analyze what your customers need and how they want it."

Nico, Vivi, and Jiwoo all went out for lunch, but I excused myself and ate the sandwiches I had prepared that morning. I was eating inside my car, and I got bored at being alone. I dialed Cass' number, but it was still unreachable. I tried Faye's number next. After a few rings, Faye rejected the call, which got routed through to her voice mail.

I decided to send her a message instead: Hey Faye. I'm sorry. I miss you. Call me back okay?

Then I dialed Derick's line. It was probably out of habit as a doctor, but he picked up on the first ring.

"Dr. Evangelista on the line."

"You didn't bother reading the name on the screen?" I asked.

"Oh, it's you. What's up?"

"Nothing much. Just wanted to check up on you."

Derrick was quiet at that. I was about to say something again when he spoke.

"BJ, I've got to go now." It seemed that he was still uncomfortable with me, after all. "But let's hang out this weekend. Let's go to Janus' bar, okay? Bye now. I'm being paged."

And with that, I finished my sandwich in better spirits.

Afternoon classes were dedicated to the sciences—we had lectures on food chemistry, food technology, nutrition, and the like. We had them until 3 PM when we finally joined Chef Maxwell's kitchen staff in preparation for dinner service.

"What does it mean to cook?" asked Professor Pamela Bibing. "What exactly do we mean when we say the word 'cook'?"

Vivi raised her hand, and Prof. Pamela nodded in acknowledgement. "To cook means to transform raw materials, more particularly food, into something more edible."

"Edible, you say?" Prof. Pamela asked. "Then does it mean raw food like sashimi, most salads, and fruits, for that matter, are not edible?"