Chapter 415 - Victory Strategy

When Anderson said that, Chloe examined him with a serene look. The back of his hands that looked rough, his beard covering his chin, which he didn’t seem to have trimmed for some time, and his slightly bloodshot eyes made her feel so sorry for him.

Only then did she come to realize that when she hid behind the camera of the broadcast, Anderson had to be there without hiding or even thinking of hiding from it, right next to Min-joon who allegedly had the best potential as a chef these days. Without even showing off his great cooking skills, Anderson was dwarfed by Min-joon in this round like that. He must have felt miserable while following her.

‘I just wonder how he felt…’

Just thinking about his feelings made her heart ache. It was human nature to feel an unknown sense of loss if someone began to walk ahead of another one while walking side by side with them. What if a chef like Anderson had to helplessly watch himself lagging behind his rival everyday? What if the gap between himself and his rival kept widening despite his desperate efforts?

To be honest, Chloe could not stand it in such a situation, where she could not regard herself as precious and valuable. People were always like that. If one wanted to regard oneself as valuable, one had to have people’s recognition first. Of course, there were people who didn’t have low self-esteem even if they weren’t recognized by anyone, but Chloe couldn’t do so.

In her eyes, this kind of action was like their turning away from reality.

But she couldn’t think that Anderson was turning away from reality right now. It wasn’t a matter of his moods. He actually didn’t. He was looking at reality clearly. He fully admitted that Kaya and Min-joon clearly got way ahead of him.

If there was one thing that made Anderson different from other ordinary people, it was that he looked outside the swamp rather than the swamp itself while he was sliding into the swamp of frustration. He didn’t think about how he could get out of the swamp. He didn’t worry about when he would get out of the swamp, for he was confident that he would never die in the swamp. What he did now was just walking slowly out of the swamp.

“I think it would have been very difficult for me if I had had to wait for something without any promise. It’s the most terrible thing in the world.”

“I am not waiting for anything. I’m just moving on.”

“I see. You might feel alright if you keep moving on like that.”

She came to respect him all of a sudden because it was more difficult for him to cope with and overcome the reality that he was not the best chef rather than being the best chef.

Chloe looked at the dish she and he made. She was a chef like anybody else. Maybe she had not enough years of experience to call herself a chef, but she could not pretend not to know the difference between herself and other professional chefs with the excuses that she was not a professional chef.

She knew it was very difficult, but she could feel that Anderson’s mindset right now was the best option they could take in this situation. In short, he decided that he should not be discouraged, and he should not give up. While looking at the sun in the shadow, he was ready to glare at the sun without closing his eyes.

At that moment, there was some unusual noise near the Dobby and Eva pair. The judges were announcing the pair’s scores. They praised the pair’s combination of mustard crumb and beef ribs and the unbelievably great flavor that they brought out from such a short period of maturation. And a little later, the judges announced that the pair’s dish’s score was 9.4. It wasn’t the best dish they made in this contest, but it seemed that they would survive with that score.

‘Three pairs would survive in this round…’

Half of the six pairs would be eliminated. And it was certain that the pairs of Dobby and Min-joon would survive. The Min-joon pair got the highest score, and the Dobby pair’s 9.4 was high enough to ensure their survival in this round. Of course, they might not be able to advance with that score in the final round, but that score was good enough for now.

To be honest, Min-joon didn’t think that the other pairs would be a threat to him. They were excellent chefs without question, but what he regarded as his biggest rivals were the Dobby pair and the Enzo pair.

Now, the judges stood before the Enzo and Theo pair. Anderson looked carefully at their dish. It was a secondary matter to him whether the Enzo pair would get a better score than them. He didn’t want to spend any of this time now in vain. He wanted to get a glimpse of the cooking methods and culinary philosophy of all the other chefs here and make them his own.

In fact, somebody’s paying close attention to somebody else’s dishes in this situation might be easier said than done. Why? First of all, it was a very tense situation where each participant didn’t know how high of a score they might receive. So, it was tough and burdensome for any participant to analyze the composition of other participants’ dishes and their strengths and weaknesses.

Normally, Anderson would have put off analyzing other participants’ dishes after roughly checking them out, but he was different today because his rival Min-joon would be busy checking out and mastering other participants’ dishes and recipes right now.

How could Anderson stand idle while Min-joon, who was ahead of him, kept running without stopping? Even if he felt like he was dying, gasping for breath, Anderson couldn’t stop. He had neither the right nor the qualifications to do so.

The dish Enzo and Theo made was a cake made with zucchini pumpkin and eggs as the main ingredients. The judges praised the flavor of the vanilla bean and basil in it, saying that the sweetness of the strawberry puree with it gracefully enhanced its taste overall.

To be honest, Anderson could not get a grasp of the Enzo pair’s dish perfectly by just seeing their dish and listening to the judges. According to the judges, what looked like a simple egg cake on the surface had a taste that could be even compared to that of the signature dish of quite a high-end restaurant. Of course, he could understand their admiration, but it was too difficult for him to figure out, based on the given information, how the Enzo pair could bring out such a taste.

‘How come Min-joon could figure it out?’

Was it simply a matter of the senses of taste? Or was it a matter of understanding? How could Min-joon mix the taste in his head and imagine a taste infinitely close to one in reality just by listening to some other chef’s explanation of the ingredients in that short moment? The more Anderson thought about it, the more he agonized because he didn’t have such senses. Then, how could he make up for his lack of such senses?

With Anderson’s face stiffening because of such agonies, Chloe glanced back at him.

She wanted to comfort him because it was clear that he was very tense at the moment, but she was worried that her comforting words would only hurt his pride rather than ease his anxiety.

‘Well, it would be weird for an excellent chef like Anderson to feel a sense of inferiority…’

In fact, Anderson was so excellent as a chef that it was hard to find his rivals in the chef world at his age. Without so many chefs with extraordinary talent, he would have won the Grand Chef competition under normal circumstances.

In Chloe’s eyes, Min-joon and Anderson were chefs who had almost perfect cooking skills.

Despite that, how could there be such a visible difference between them? What Min-joon achieved was just a popular success. So, it was not proven yet whether he would be successful as a chef, too.

‘I wish we could win in this contest…’ Chloe thought.

In the meantime, Enzo and Theo got their score. Chloe felt her heart start to beat hard. Of course, it wasn’t because she was curious about their score. Actually, she was so anxious about their own score, wondering if their score was high enough to compare with the Enzo pair’s.

And when the judges, who gave the Enzo pair 9.5, stood before the Anderson and Chloe pair, she couldn’t say anything because she just froze on the spot.

Bastien said with a smile, “Are you nervous?”

“Yes, it’s a little scary.”

“Don’t be scared. You’ve always made good dishes in this contest. That’s why you’ve come up here. I believe you two. So, please trust yourself.”

When Bastien said that, she tried to figure out the score they could give her pair. Since the Enzo pair and the Dobby pair got 9.5 points and 9.4 points, respectively, her pair needed to get at least 9.5 to be able to advance to the semi-finals. If her pair scored 9.4 points and tied with the Dobby pair, they would share third place. In that case, they might be given another mission to compete with each other.

“Oh, this is a scallops dish.”

“Yeah,” Chloe replied in a quiet voice.

Scallops cooking was a dish that always reminded her of her first dish. It was also the first dish that she made with Min-joon. But when she first trimmed the scallops and cooked them, she came to realize that she knew how to cook a bit. She felt completely different as a chef when she cooked beef, pork, and scallops, often said to be the trickiest to cook among all the seafood.

She hoped that this scallops dish would be a symbol of victory for her.

She opened her mouth with a slight stuttering voice.

“We’ve served it with chickpea and yogurt sauce. We based the scallops on a tandoori method. The tandoori sauce was coriander, smoked paprika, cinnamon, and saffron. I think you had better try it first.”

“Well, I was waiting for your permission.”

Asher lifted one of the scallops with a smile. He picked two chickpeas with a fork, which pierced the baked scallop mixed with tandoori powder. Soon, tender juice flowed through the skin of the scallop. When the juice soaked in the tandoori powder got stuck to the scallop, Asher, who swallowed at that moment, slowly put it into his mouth.

Considering their age and experiences, Anderson and Chloe were really competent chefs.

The judges looked back at each other, chewing and enjoying the scallop dishes slowly.

When they looked at each other’s expressions, they immediately felt this might be a painful moment for the Anderson pair. They felt heartbroken at the fact that only three pairs could survive today.

“It’s a really good dish, Anderson, Chloe. I don’t understand why Chloe was nervous before.”

“Because there are many other talented people here. I wonder if this is not enough… I thought that.”

“The skills of others can’t diminish your skills. So much so that I couldn’t understand why Chloe was so nervous.”

“Well, it’s because there are other excellent chefs here, so I thought our dish might not be as good as theirs…”

“We can’t look down on your dish because of them. You can’t say the moon gets dark because the sun shines.”

“Thank you for saying that.”

“Chick beans played a surprising role in this dish. I thought it was simply served as a side ingredient, but it did its bit as a garnish very well. Chick beans made up for the subtle gap in the taste of the scallops, tandoori sauce, and yogurt. Among the dishes I tasted today, this was a dish whose perfection stood out.”

After that, other judges gave their own feedback. While hearing their comments, Anderson and Chloe felt like they became snobs. While listening to their evaluation, what they really cared about, pricking their ears, was the final score of their dish, not their comments.

The judges soon read their minds. As if they couldn’t help it, they looked at each other and announced their grading one by one. And Anderson and Chloe quietly started calculating the scores in their minds.

‘9 points, 9.7 points, 9.3 points, 9.5 points, so the average is…’

“The average score is 9.375,” Bastien said in a sad voice.

Their score was less than those of the Min-joon pair, the Dobby pair, and the Enzo pair.

And it meant that today’s round was the last one for them in this contest.

“Thank you for your hard work. I hope you will continue to make the same dishes in the future.”

Having said that as if to comfort or encourage them, the judges moved to other pairs for grading.

Tight-lipped, Anderson silently looked at the plate. It was a good score—9.375 points. There were many participants here who were eliminated without even receiving that score. But he always felt defeated even if he got a good score. He felt like he was a loser.

He really decided that he would not be conscious of being defeated until he won finally. He decided he would not feel distressed because he lagged behind others, but he really felt terrible at this moment when he confirmed once again that he was defeated.