Absinthe novel Chapter 26

I swear to God Jiwoo was hopeless. There's nothing I hate more in this world than unnecessary drama, and he was drama personified. Ergo, I hated him.

Wasn't he the one who wanted to be friends? And weren't we both in our 30s? What's the big deal about giving each other advice? The more I thought about the whole thing, the more annoyed I got.

I shrugged and decided to let it go. The rest of the day was a blur, like every other day we had spent so far in Chef Maxwell's course. The only difference was that I could feel some unexplainable tension in the air.

It couldn't possibly have been the heat because the air conditioner was set at 20 degrees, which was cool enough. And yet, I could see beads of sweat trickling down Nico's forehead. I could also hear the steady tapping of Vivi's foot against the wooden paneled floor. And Jiwoo was pretty much staring into nothingness.

The next thing I knew, I was already in the kitchen for our daily OJT.

"Throw this garbage away!" shouted Chef Karl.

I was already on the verge of crying because I had no idea what was wrong with the crab meat I had prepared. And to think that it was the 7th time that my crab meat was getting chucked into the bin.

"Sorry, Chef," I muttered. "If you can just let me know what's wrong—"

"Get the fuck out of here if you don't know what you're doing!"

I felt Jiwoo's hand on my wrist as he dragged me back into our corner.

"Smell this," he said, gently lifting the plate against my nose. "You need to blanch this for about 2 to 3 minutes to completely remove the briny smell. Customers with sensitive taste buds and nostrils can detect this from a mile off."

I looked back at Jiwoo, my eyes tearing up. I had washed the crab meat thoroughly, but he was right: there were traces of its briny odor left. It was faint, but it was still present.

"Thank you," I murmured.

Jiwoo ruffled my hair. "I'm sorry about earlier. It must be the lack of sleep." He then grinned at me, but I wasn't ready to forgive him yet. I mean, yes, he helped me with the crab meat issue, but it didn't erase the fact that he had been a total jerk earlier.

"Service!" I heard the head chef shout. We all looked and saw Vivi gleaming in delight as her Cantonese fried noodles were approved for serving.

"Let's not fall behind those two," Jiwoo said, smiling in encouragement.

After following his advice on blanching the crab meat, my output considerably improved. All the crab meat I prepared was approved for use, and afterward, I was transferred to the pâtissier whom I helped with dessert preparations. Thankfully, I finished that day's OJT in much better standing.

We ate a quick dinner. Vivi made us crispy pork buns that were definitely crispy yet melted in your mouth. I don't really know how she did it, but it was the best siopao I had ever tasted. Her Cantonese fried noodles were nothing short of amazing, too. They were spicy and sweet and savory, and upon eating them, there was an explosion of flavor in my mouth.

That meal was the happiest event of the day because Jiwoo wasn't acting like the asshole I knew he really was deep inside, and both Vivi and Nico didn't seem as nervous and agitated as they were that morning.

Unfortunately, we were brought back to reality when Chef Maxwell sent someone to fetch us for our test.

We were given two and a half hours to prepare our dish that will include all of the flavors we had identified from the flavor paste he had given us.

We wasted no time in rushing to the pantry to get all the ingredients we needed.

I started off by cold smoking my sole fillets, charring some tarragon, and incorporating that charred tarragon scent into the fish. Next, I grilled the soles on high heat to caramelize their outer layer before adding some lemon juice and leeks.

I removed the fillets to let them rest and continued to reduce the lemon juice for my sauce. I deglazed the pan with some white wine vinegar and added some diced shallots, spring onions, horseradish, cucumbers, and a few oysters. When I was happy with the taste, I added breadcrumbs for texture.

The time was almost up when I finished plating my dish. I glanced around and saw Nico had finished with his as well. Vivi looked like she was almost done, but Jiwoo was still struggling with piping the filling into his éclairs.

God, I wished he had followed my advice and pricked those damned éclairs. Otherwise, he would fail, and I won't be seeing his handsome face and hot bod anymore. Please excuse my ever-horny mind.

"And time's up!" declared Chef Maxwell. "Hands off the counters, please."

Chef Maxwell went straight to Nico's station and asked him about his dish.

"I prepared pork belly braised in soy sauce with apple puree and sprouting broccoli. I incorporated the flavors of pork fat, apple, thyme, star anise, sea salt, and fennel."

Sure enough, there was a lingering taste of wheat. You wouldn't really notice it at first because of the other flavors, but it stayed on your tongue after every other taste had subsided.

"Jiwoo picked the hardest flavor profile," Chef Maxwell announced. "Let's see if he got it right." He tasted Jiwoo's éclairs, taking tiny bites of all four of them.

"I made these Four Seasons Éclairs with vanilla and absinthe pastry cream as filling. For the toppings, I have pistachio and strawberry, apple and caramel, mango and yogurt, and finally, dark chocolate and orange."

Chef Maxwell nodded. "Perfect identification of flavors, indeed!"

Jiwoo was beaming.

"I never expected any of you to be able to identify the individual components of that paste. All the ingredients are on the sweet side, which makes them blend rather than contrast well. Very, very, very impressive, Jiwoo!

"However," Chef Maxwell added. "I'm afraid you do not get full points for this dish."

All of us looked at each other.

"The winner of this test is BJ, followed by Nico in second place, and Vivi in third."

What?

"Please remember that while a chef's ultimate weapon is indeed his palate, his technique in preparing food is his weapon-wielding skill.

"Jiwoo's ultimate weapon is undoubtedly the strongest in this room. However, all three of you beat him with how you wielded your weapons against his. Jiwoo's choux pastry will not pass any gourmet restaurant—it is soggy and collapsed. I expect all of you to already know the basic techniques in cooking. Starting next week, we'll be progressing to specific cooking genres."

"Uh, Chef Maxwell?" Vivi asked. "Does this mean we all pass?"

Chef Maxwell smiled. "Yes. Now you all better get some rest this weekend because we're turning on our Spartan Teaching Mode starting next week!"