Perhaps they would feel bad if he corrected what he said earlier.
Kaya was looking at his expression carefully while knitting her eyes. “I have no cows for you, but…”
After hesitating, he continued, “But I’ve got calves.”
‘I have no cows, but I have calves.’
At first glance, Jimmy’s words might sound like a pun, but in reality, it was not. What Kaya and Min-joon were looking for were cows, and there was a big difference between cows and calves in terms of food ingredients.
Kaya looked at Min-joon. She could not make an easy judgment. A calf was selected as the most representative luxury ingredient, but when asked if a calf was really popular, it was not true. The calf had a tender meat quality since it was young, but people liked or disliked that tenderness very clearly. When they first tried it, they could admire how tender the beef could be, but they could be sick and tired of it easily. Its flavor, which was so different from beef, was another problem of a calf. In fact, there was too much difference between veal and beef. Just as U.S. prime-grade regular beef tasted different from Wagyu beef, veal was different from beef. .
“I’m thinking of using calves,” Min-joon said in a low voice. “But I don’t want to use them as the main. I think that cows are more attractive than calves, and cows are a much more interesting ingredient.”
“That’s what you mean by sexy?”
“Yeah, you might think so.” Min-joon nodded with a smile.
It was exactly what he said. Of course, it would be nice if he secured a ranch that could supply cows to him, but he thought he could not replace cows with calves alone.
Jimmy understood him. He stayed still for a while, not moving even his facial muscles. He then said with a blank expression, “I’ve seen people like you a lot. They were sincere and passionate chefs. They asked me to supply cows for them, so I sometimes supplied them, but sometimes didn’t. Even if they were not competent enough, I gladly signed the contract with them as long as they were passionate. Since they treated my cows as the best, I also had to treat them as my best clients.”
“But I don’t think you have supplied cows to all of them.”
“That’s right. I couldn’t supply them with cows that I didn’t have. The most important thing was luck in the end. Those who came to me when I still had cows were lucky, but those who didn’t were…”
“They were unlucky…” said Min-joon.
But Jimmy didn’t respond. He didn’t respond because he felt sorry for them. He was not sure if Min-joon and Kaya who came to him at this point were not lucky or not.
‘Do I still have a chance…’
At that moment, Min-joon’s eyes became sharp. Kaya also instinctively felt that Jimmy’s attitude changed.
Jimmy said, “Show me your Six Meats.”
This was his second request.
Kaya looked at Jimmy silently for a moment. She then said in a subdued voice, “As I said before, beef isn’t all I need. I also need pork cheeks and cotechino. Do you have it?”
“There is one thing that people misunderstand about me. Since our ranch mainly raises cattle, they think I’ve got only cows,” he said with a smile. “I’m also raising pigs.”
<hr />
‘My students are coming to see you there.’
Jimmy suddenly recalled what his old friend Rachel told him.
Back then, Rachel said in a calm voice that Min-joon and Kaya would change the food culture of America itself. Jimmy didn’t tell them on purpose that he and Rachel were close enough to keep in touch with each other personally, for his close bond with her might make them rely on his unconditional hospitality. Jimmy wished he could give them favors secretly.
‘But are you sure, Rachel?’
To be honest, Jimmy didn’t believe in the hopes of the eldery like Rachel. When one was young, one felt guilty for every little lie one said, but at some point, one was accustomed to lying with a light heart. So it was no wonder that he thought Rachel might have lied to him about them without any pang of conscience.
Actually, there was a reason why he thought so. What she told him about the two chefs was so ridiculous. She said they were competent enough to be on an equal par with world-famous chefs. He felt she deliberately said that to promote her students because there were so many parents who thought their children were geniuses when they were not talented at all.
However, what Jimmy actually found out about Min-joon and Kaya dissipated his prejudices against them.
‘Much better than I thought…’
Jimmy didn’t know much about cooking. But so far, he had seen so many chefs cooking before his eyes, so he could figure out which chef was good or bad. And his observation of the two chefs confirmed that they were incomparably great chefs.
Actually, anybody watching the two chefs could easily find out how good they were at cooking. When they were trimming the ingredients, they never made a mistake. The meat was always cut into fine sections. When a chef slices raw meat, its cross sections were usually uneven unless the meat was thick or thin, but the two chefs cut the meat perfectly even.
Jimmy was even more impressed when he saw them making chutney and jam in perfect teamwork. The two didn’t make a fuss about what they should do. They just read each other’s minds and cooked accordingly as if they were one. Was it because of that? While the two were busy cooking for 20 minutes, he could not leave the place for a minute because their cooking was like a cooking show.
They were done after Min-joon cooked something with the molecular cooking kit he brought from his car and put it in a bowl.
With his confidence gone, Jimmy looked at the place blankly like a spectator possessed by the magician.
“I can’t believe you made this dish in an instant!”
“Well, it’s a piece of cake for an experienced chef.”
If so, were all the chefs he had observed until now inexperienced?
Thinking like that, Jimmy lifted the fork while letting out a bitter smile. The sausage they made was cotecino from beef tongue, pork cheek, brisket, oxtail, and pork. In fact, it was almost the first time that he saw so many different kinds of meat on one plate. He slowly took each piece of meat and put it in his mouth. Every time he chewed it, he made an absurd expression as if he was hit by a hammer.
“Oh my… Rachel didn’t lie to me!”
“What did she say?” Kaya asked in a slightly surprised voice.
Instead of answering the question, Jimmy quietly relished the lingering aftertaste in his mouth. Just because he was a farmer who raised cows on a ranch, he wasn’t stupid enough not to appreciate the fine taste of a dish. Rather, his tongue was more sensitive than that of a city dweller because it was not addicted to anything like seasoning or MSG.
“Let me tell you again. I didn’t lie to you at all. I don’t have cows available for you. All the cows here have been sold to other chefs, but I would like to give you my cows even by raising them that are not here.”
“Are you sure?” Min-joon asked seriously.
Hearing his voice, Jimmy could realize how much he cared about cows.
Jimmy said, smiling softly, “Well, if I can’t sell cows because I don’t have any more available, I have to raise more. I have to build more barns and hire more people. Of course, I’m afraid I have to taste more cow dung per day. Damn it, how am I thinking of that when I enjoy this delicious dish?”
Jimmy shook his head, grumbling like that, when he found himself naturally thinking of cow dung before he knew it. He thought he might be suffering from the strangest occupational disease in the world.
“It sounds like you want to expand your business.”
“Actually, I’ve thought about it for a long time, but I didn’t do it. There is no way that I can sell more cows even if I raise more, and I can’t guarantee that I will manage more cows like now. But it was funny, Kaya. Your dish has made me give it a try.”
Kaya tossed her hair behind her ear as if she was embarrassed by his words.
Jimmy asked in a quiet voice, “I didn’t listen to you seriously a little while ago. But I want to listen now. Can you tell me what kind of restaurant you want to run?”
“Well, I think I explained to you about Irregular Lab, right?”
“Yeah, you said you wanted to popularize high-end dishes, so everybody could enjoy them. That’s a terrific idea.”
“As for Lotus Bridge, it’s…”
It was the moment when Min-joon and Kaya had another supporter.
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