Absinthe

Chapter 25: A Different Kind of Feng Shui

The following day's morning classes were equally fun and interesting. We continued our classes on

marketing with a few more case studies on food products. Our food science classes in the afternoon

were even more fascinating as we moved on to studying about the taste receptors in our mouth.

Instead of joining the kitchen for dinner service, we stayed at Chef Maxwell's R&D kitchen. We were

joined by Tita Gay Abundance, a team of makeup artists, and a team of photographers. I thought it was

only an interview, but it ended up being a photo shoot as well. The whole session took up our class

time with Chef Maxwell. It was almost 9 PM when we finished and Chef Maxwell bid us goodbye.

Jiwoo took a couple of shots for his IG account during the photo shoot. He tagged me on all of them,

and my phone was once again filled with thousands and thousands of notifications.

The rest of the week flew by just as fast. That Thursday evening, though, Chef Maxwell surprised us

with something that almost made us go crazy.

"As I mentioned last Monday, I will be testing how your palates have improved. That test will be

tomorrow."

The four of us exchanged nervous looks.

"I have prepared here four different flavor pastes. You are to taste them, guess their ingredients, and

replicate the flavors you detect by preparing your own dish to be presented to me tomorrow.

"Now, please come over here and choose which flavor paste you will be replicating."

We went to Chef Maxwell's table and chose our own flavor pastes at random. We headed back to our

stations after that and listened to Chef Maxwell explain that we were to spend today's class trying to

figure out the flavor paste and designing our menu for tomorrow.

I looked around and saw Nico, Vivi, and Jiwoo already tasting their pastes and jotting down some

notes. I hastily unscrewed the cap and had a taste.

Shit. I was in big trouble. I couldn't really discern what the taste was. It tasted like smoked salmon, but

it was very, very subtle, almost as if there was no salmon in it. But if it wasn't salmon, then why did I

taste something fishy?

I looked around again and saw that my classmates were just as flustered as I was.

"The flavors incorporated into your flavor pastes are the standard ones in haute cuisine. They are not

the typical flavors used in cooking. However, all of them can be found in the pantry. You should spend

the rest of your day trying out different ingredients from there to see if you can replicate the tastes."

I took out different fish fillets from the pantry as well as the smoking machine. Looking at the time, I

figured that smoking all the fishes would be useless. I decided to choose those with the least flavor and

removed the strong ones like tuna, mackerel, and red snapper.

I laid out small cuts of the fillets and proceeded to smoke them. After about 30 minutes, I tasted them

and found their smoke taste to be of a totally different flavor profile.

How could I be so thick? Of course Chef Maxwell would incorporate a special flavor into the smoke! I

was not used to smoked foods both in the Philippines and in Korea, so I had totally forgotten about

smoke flavors.

I dashed back into the kitchen to find Jiwoo choosing fruits from the produce stand.

"Fruits?" I asked.

"Uh-huh," he answered without looking at me.

I proceeded to get the smoking flavors and picked applewood, pecan, cherry, maple, and alder. All the

other types of wood there—hickory, oak, mesquite, walnut, and blackberry—are known to provide

intense flavors to barbecued meats.

"You got smoky flavors?" Jiwoo asked.

"Yeah. I just can't get the taste right."

"Difficult test, isn't it?" I could tell that Jiwoo's demeanor had changed.

"Yup, pretty challenging even for someone like me who's been eating gourmet dishes for a long time."

"Lucky you," he said. "I guess it's really advantageous to be that rich, huh?"

"What?"

"Never mind," Jiwoo said dismissively as he headed back to his station, leaving me alone in the pantry.

The rest of the class progressed in an unusual noisy silence. It was silent because nobody was talking,

but at the same time, it was noisy with all the sounds of footsteps going around the place, the clang of

metals as ladles hit against pots, the motors of blenders, and the hiss of steam.

At the end of the class, I was only able to identify the smoke—it was tarragon. And it was not your

typical smoking technique, which was cold smoking a fillet of sole fish and incorporating the smoke of

charring tarragon.

Now there was an indefinite number of other flavors that I needed to correctly identify and recreate. It

looked like the others were nowhere near finishing, either.

"Time's up. You may leave." Chef Maxwell announced. "I'm going ahead if you guys have no plans of

going," he added when he noticed that none of us made any moves to clean up.

As soon as Chef Maxwell had gone, Nico spoke.

"I'm pretty sure mine is based on pork belly and apples. I'm just not sure about the other herbs used in

this."

"Mine's a strong flavor of coconut and roasted apricots," Vivi commented. "I can taste the uneven

caramelization from roasting. But like Nico, I'm not done identifying the rest."

"I guess we can continue trying out the rest of the flavors at home," Nico added.

"Yeah!" said Vivi. "Wanna go shopping for ingredients? The gourmet ingredient store is open twenty-

four seven, right?"

"Count me in," I said. "I was barely able to identify that stupid smoked fish taste. Who would have

thought of using tarragon to cold smoke sole fish?"

Vivi and Nico laughed.

"Yeah," said Vivi. "I could tell that yours was pretty hardcore."

"What about you, bro?" Nico asked Jiwoo. "Will you join us?"

Jiwoo shook his head. "I got some errands to run."

"Alright, bro. Good luck to all of us!" Nico said. "Come on. I'll drive."

I reluctantly followed Nico and Vivi out, leaving Jiwoo alone. It gave me a bad feeling, to be honest. I

was not sure why, but I was afraid that Jiwoo would see this situation again as rich people finding the

easy way out of challenges.

Nico drove us to the gourmet grocery store, and we bought tons of ingredients to test out at home. He

dropped us back at the parking lot of Chef Maxwell's restaurant, and Vivi and I loaded our own cars

with our stuff.

Back at the condominium, I continued experimenting with various flavors and figuring out which ones

were part of the flavor paste I had gotten from Chef Maxwell. After seemingly hundreds of attempts, I

was able to fully replicate the flavors I had identified. The recipe I came up with was for grilled lemon

sole with oysters. That was the primary flavor, and then I added leeks, cucumbers, shallots, spring

onions, horse radish, white wine vinegar, and wheat breadcrumbs to complete the flavor profiles.

When I glanced up at the clock, it was already 4 AM. Then I saw the kitchen, and I almost cried—it was

so messy that it looked like I had cooked for an entire village.

I gave up and decided to leave it, apologize to the house cleaners tomorrow, and give them a generous

tip. I quickly washed up and went straight to bed.

I woke up earlier than usual, even before my alarm could off. It was probably because I was anxious

about the cooking test later that day. I made myself some coffee and took a shower. It was only 5:30

when I left the house and started driving to Chef Maxwell's place.

I headed straight to the locker rooms and found Jiwoo lying there, on the floor. He was still wearing an

apron covered in flour and all sorts of batter.

I leaned down and prodded his shoulder. "Hey, Jiwoo. Wake up."

He stirred and opened his eyes. It took a while for him to adjust, but once he had, he stood up and

frowned.

"Sorry," he said, wiping some dried saliva off the sides of his mouth. He proceeded to take off his apron

and his shirt in front of me. I knew I should be subtle and look away, but the pervert in me won.

His body was positively god-like.

One thing you should know about me is that I have this unhealthy fixation over nipples. Faye and

Derrick used to call it my Nipple Feng Shui. I'm particular about the placement of the nipple in relation

to a person's chest—I easily get turned off if someone's nipples are too centered, too much to the left,

too high, too wide, too pointy, too dark, or too pink. Don't ask me why because I don't know, either.

Now you know I truly mean it when I say that Jiwoo's are the most perfect nipples I've ever seen!1

They're at the perfect location, just to the sides of his well-sculpted chest. His abs are not rock-hard,

but they're well defined. Like an artwork.

Jiwoo caught me staring, so he turned. His back is even more glorious. And it was then that I saw the

tattoo on his left shoulder.

"What does it say?" I asked, pointing at it. "It looks like letters, but I'm not sure I can read them."

"They're reversed, so I can read them in the mirror," Jiwoo answered. "Got the idea from this popular

Thai actor."

"Bright!" I said.

"I don't know his name, but he was pretty popular."

"What do they spell out?"

"'When there's nothing left to burn, set yourself on fire.'"

"Pretty gloomy quote, don't you think?"

"It's from the song Your Ex-Lover Is Dead by a band called Stars. What does yours say?"

"What? How did you—"Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDrâ/ma.O(r)g!

"I noticed it the other day when you were wearing a low-cut shirt."

So he had been looking at me. I thought I had imagined it. But whatever. I had to remember that he

was straight and that he saw me as a friend.

"'As if you were on fire from within, the moon lives on the lining of your skin.'"

"Hmm. I don't get it."

Of course he wouldn't. He's not as exposed to literature as JM was.

"It's from a poem by Pablo Neruda. It describes the beauty of the female body."

Jiwoo nodded. "Pretty fancy. Suits rich guys like yourself."

"And yours?"

"It means when you have no other resources to rely on, be ready to use every part of yourself." He then

went into the shower room, leaving me behind to ponder on what had triggered the sadness in his

voice.

Jiwoo entered the kitchen at about 6:30. His station was a mess. There were lots of ingredients all over

the place, mostly for baking. I didn't dare touch anything for fear of messing whatever he had planned

for tonight. I figured that the least I could do was to cook breakfast for him.

While he was in the shower, I made some tomato soup and garlic bread. I also brewed plain black

coffee for him. We quickly ate in silence, and I offered to help him clean his station so the task would

take less time.

Jiwoo hesitated, but I pressured him into allowing me. "We're friends now, remember?"

While cleaning, I found out that he had prepared éclairs. I took one and bit into it. Although the flavors

were amazing, the éclairs themselves were really bad. They were collapsed and soggy at the same

time.

"Your batter's too runny," I commented. "You should have used more flour or less water. And you've got

to prick them once they're out of the oven. That's how you prevent them from collapsing like this."

"I know how to cook!" Jiwoo spat angrily.

"Hey, chill," I said. "I was just giving you tips."

"Yeah, because you're the best when it comes to making pastries, right?"

"Sorry, I didn't mean to offend you. I just wanted to give you some advice."

"I don't fucking need them, okay?" Jiwoo threw the kitchen rag he had been holding into the sink and

stormed out of the room before I could stop him.