The beginning is only when you become a chef

Chapter 112: The audience has ants crawling in their hearts (two chapters in one)

The program starts live half an hour in advance, which is undoubtedly good news for the audience.

Director Gao Shengqi and the program team have taken the warm-up tactic to the extreme. At this moment, looking at the exaggerated online audience data in the backstage in the control room that is still soaring, the people behind the scenes are grinning from ear to ear.

In kitchen number 7.

"Agent" Yang Jinli holds a tablet computer in her hand, opens the live broadcast room of the program, reads the barrage, and selects some topics that the audience is most concerned about.

Seize this opportunity to let the celebrity chefs interact with the audience in the exclusive live broadcast room. This is the task that these agents should complete during this half-hour warm-up time.

"Boss Xia, everyone is curious about whether you are also good at food carving?"

Yang Jinli's show outfit today is both decent and luxurious.

Her big, watery eyes were also full of inquiry.

"Good at it?"

Xia An looked up and casually placed the white radish slice carved into a feather wing on the plate:

“I’m not really good at it.”

"I semi-uh, just learned a food carving technique not too long ago."

Hearing this, even Yang Jinli, his agent, couldn't help but roll her eyes slightly and wanted to roll her eyes.

Yang Jinli managed her facial expression very well and resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

The smile was very forced:
"Boss Xia, are you trying to make us laugh?"

At the same time, the barrage in the No. 7 live broadcast room was also exploding.

[Who would believe that just by learning the art of food carving, one can carve out these lifelike food models of various shapes? ]

[That’s right, in front of the camera, Boss Xia still treated everyone like fools! ]

[Look at this carp carved from carrots, this ancient lamp carved from winter melon, and this vase carved from some food ingredient...]

Yang Jinli raised her hand and pointed at the wall-mounted screen in front of the chef's counter. A thick layer of comments scrolled by, all of which were telling Xia An not to lie to fools or children.

Xia An took a look and was suddenly in a state of not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

He originally wanted to say that he had only learned it for half an hour, but this was obviously even more outrageous, and no one would dare to believe him if he said it.

But that's the fact.

Glance at the panel again.

[Unique Skill: Zhou's Food Carving Technique, Volume 100 (%)]

[Grade: Rare (Purple)]

【Progress: Beginner】

"Isn't this just a beginner? I'm just learning."

"What's the problem?"

Xia An could only shrug his shoulders and simply ignore the outside voices. He lowered his head, picked up another large piece of radish, and continued to carve another "wing".

There are two types of food carving: whole carving and, as the name suggests, making three-dimensional carving on a super-large piece of food.

But now Xia An's carving method is called zero carving.

It's piecemeal assembly.

Parts carved from one or more ingredients are assembled like models and pieced together to form a complete shape.

The reason why the whole carving method is not used is that piecemeal carving and assembly is used instead.

The main reason is that the volume and size of the ingredients are limited. It is impossible to carve a complete and detailed large statue using a single ingredient.

When Xia An carved the second "wing".

The half-hour warm-up session before the show ended in a flash.

"Large-scale carving is indeed time-consuming." Xia An shook his head, with a look of regret on his face, and placed this food feather next to the first wing.

So, there was only a pair of flying wings on the plate.

But there is no bird's body or head.

Yang Jinli followed the broadcast in the venue and followed Xia An out of Kitchen No. 7 and on the way to the main studio, she couldn't help but ask:
"Boss Xia, if you make a food sculpture, what will it look like?"

Xia An kept walking, his tone was very calm:

"It's just a pieced-together phoenix that I plan to piece together on a dinner plate."

Phoenix?

Yang Jinli's pupils trembled.

At eight o'clock sharp.

Seven famous chefs gathered in the main studio.

Standing behind them were their respective agents, and when the camera swept across many viewers, it was discovered that Yang Jinli, who was behind Xia An, had a dazed look on her face, as if she were lost in thought.

However, this is not the agent's stage, and Yang Jinli's abnormality will not affect the progress of the program at all.

Beautiful host appears:
"Good evening, audience friends."

The lights converged on the seven people, especially on Shiomi Jun who joined the show as a replacement.

"Welcome to watch the second episode of the first season of "The Chrysanthemum Downstairs Contest"!"

"The theme of this second issue of the competition is "The Future"!"

"I'm sure everyone is familiar with the other six chefs. So, this time, let's interview the replacement chef, Professor Shiomi Jun from Neon Totsuki Culinary Academy!"

Facing the camera, the petite Shiomi Jun was visibly nervous.

"Professor Shiomi Jun, netizens say you are a top-notch chef. What do you think?"

Shiomi Jun's sweaty face:

"me……"

Then he just stuttered.

Famous chefs: ? ?
Audiences:? ? ?

"Thanks to the netizens for the praise. I am not a real top chef yet, but I respect all top chefs very much."

Shiomi Jun took a deep breath, calmed down immediately, and finished the sentence fluently.

After all, she has the reputation of being the "spice authority". In Totsuki School, she faces and educates many students, and has also participated in many large-scale international conferences on spices and food academic exchanges.

Obviously, from being a student of Totsuki to becoming a professor of Totsuki, Shiomi Jun's 34 years of life were not lived in vain.

The beautiful host then smiled and asked:

"In the last episode, the top three were Chef Xia An and Chef Shigong Kojiro, and Chef Chalmers and Chef Liu Shimeng tied for third place."

"Netizens have commented on you, saying that Professor Shiomi Jun has a good chance of making it into the top three of this episode."

"So, do you have this confidence?"

Hear the words.

Shiomi Jun's loli body and appearance, at this moment, burst out with an extremely strong aura:
"My adopted son Ye Shanliang said that since we are participating, we must do our best to fight for the first place in each issue. I think so too!"

This statement came out.

The other six celebrity chefs include Xia An.

Looking at the young Professor of Spice, his face was full of surprise.

Big energy in a small body?
And in Polaris Dormitory.

Saiba Joichiro burst into laughter:

"Everyone who leaves Polaris Dormitory should be like this!"

Dormitory manager Wenxu nodded and sighed: "Although Xiaorun doesn't know anything except spices and is clumsy in daily life, she is very serious about spices and spiced food. She will never feel that she has lost to anyone before the duel."

Soma Yukihira clenched his fist and waved it:
"Professor Shiomi looks so handsome on the show! That's how he should look!"

Suddenly, the program screen gave a close-up shot of Xia An.

"Is that him, Daddy——"

"This man I was just carving!"

Soma Yukihira pointed at the TV screen.

Saiba Joichiro nodded: "That's him."

So everyone in the Polar Star Dormitory in the room stared at the screen like curious babies.

The beautiful host asked Xia An:
"Chef Xia An, you ranked first in the last round, so you are naturally the champion."

"Do you have any statement to defend the title?"

Xia An looked into the camera and smiled slightly:
"My manifesto?"

"Well, maybe it's about trying to get another perfect score? Conquer all the judges and win the second championship."

Even with his stunning performance in the first episode as a prelude, these words obviously had a strong effect. Not to mention the people from Pole Star Dormitory who stood up in front of the TV, the audience on site were the first to go wild with a buzzing uproar.

The beautiful host was surprised. She didn't expect Xia An's declaration to be so bold as to "get another full score". The meeting with the celebrity chef ended here.

Next, five judges came on stage.

It’s the same lineup as last time.

The Liu family includes Liu Heng and Liu Bo, and the well-known special grade ones include Chi Xiaobai and Wei Xuelin.

There is also Nakiri Managi, who has been visiting the Shenzhou food world for a long time and seems to be planning to stay there permanently.

With a "clang" sound, the host struck the golden gong.

A scroll with the theme of this episode inscribed on it hangs straight down from the dome inside the Juxia Building.

The black cursive script with flying dragons and phoenixes was displayed on the program screen:

future!

……

Xia An returned to his kitchen No. 7.

When they left, a staff member cleaned up the kitchen and put all the ingredients and carvings into a storage box.

Now, all areas of this open kitchen are spotless.

"Jinli, go and urge the ingredients." Xia An sent his agent Yang Jinli to urge the logistics team. He himself was very interested and seemed to be very free. He took the initiative to watch the wall-mounted screen and interact with the audience in the live broadcast room.

"What else do you want to ask?"

"While I'm waiting for the ingredients and haven't started cooking yet, I still have some free time to chat with you all."

"Anyway, just ask whatever you can. You won't have the chance later."

The comments were enthusiastic and positive.

[Boss Xia, I saw your interview when you entered the venue. You didn’t lie to the CCTV reporter, did you? Are you going to present fantasy dishes this time? ]

[I feel like ants are crawling in my heart. Boss Xia, can you tell me which ancient recipe this fantasy dish was modified from? ]

[I am more curious about what level of fantasy ingredients will be used, to teach me a mountain man something new! ]

[+1 for learning new things. The few things I know about fantasy ingredients were all learned from Boss Xia...]

[Boss Xia, I'm afraid you're deliberately showing off your carving skills to make your opponents and everyone else misjudge you, right?]

Xia An picked some comments to interact and answer.

Of course, since the show had been announced to start, the logistics team of the program group was very efficient. Within a few minutes, Yang Jinli came back accompanied by a young employee, pushing a food transport cart.

The camera in Kitchen No. 7 captured a good shot of Xia An welcoming the ingredients.

Xia An expressed his gratitude to the employee and parked the cart near the entrance and exit of the open kitchen.

The camera zooms in to one of the aquaculture tanks.

There were suddenly many "tentacle monsters" swimming around in the water, looking very lively and plump.

"Cuttlefish? Squid?"

The audience was stunned:

"It looks like it's just ordinary seafood. No need to fantasize about fishery products?"

Coincidentally, the famous chefs from the other two kitchens in the area were also welcoming the food trucks at their respective kitchen doors.

Liu Shimeng is Xia An’s neighbor.

"It's a cuttlefish!" Liu Shimeng was certain after just one glance.

In the eyes of professional chefs.

Cuttlefish, squid and octopus can be distinguished at a glance, rather than being confused.

To put it simply, an octopus has a big round head and eight long tentacles.

Squid is also known as "calamari".

As the name suggests.

It has an elongated body and a long tapered shape.

As for the cuttlefish, it looks thicker and rounder than the squid, and its tentacles are the shortest among the three.

The overall shape can be described as "round and short".

Xia An reached out and grabbed the net bag of the aquatic box.

"Crash-"

When the net was pulled in, all the fresh cuttlefish in the tank were inside.

Carrying the bulging fish net bag, he strode to the processing table dedicated to slaughtering fresh seafood.

The performance began. One by one, ink sacs were peeled out from the cuttlefish's body by Xia An with great skill.

In the eyes of the students in Polaris Dormitory.

Xia An cut open the cuttlefish's body with one knife, and with another knife he removed the internal organs and debris that were entangled with the ink sac.

Reach out and dig.

It was so easy to take out a fresh ink sac!
“Is this the knife skills of a nine-star chef?”

Yukihira Soma's eyes widened as he murmured, "I've killed cuttlefish, squid, octopus, etc., and I've killed a lot of them, but why don't I have this indescribable feeling like his hands?"

Isshiki Hui said slowly:

“This is the perfect level of knife skills!”

Perfect level!
This Chinese word for realm left the students in the room silent.

Of course, if we apply the Western system of Europe and America, the perfect level corresponds to the fifth stage of basic skills, and the sixth stage is the MAX limit.

"Why does he need so many ink sacs and make so much ink ink?!"

Kiku went down to the second floor stand, and Kyonina held her chin up.

Xiang Shilin's eyes flickered: "Maybe, for making soup?"

Wu Zhu exclaimed:
“This is a direction and idea!”

People were paying attention to Xia An's excellent knife skills, but Xia An himself was not very satisfied.

Two more knives?

If you learn [Seven Stars Breaking Army Quick Cut].

With just one knife, you can open the cuttlefish's belly and take out the ink sac without harming its life. Put the cuttlefish back into the aquaculture tank and it will continue to swim around alive for a while.

If I learn [Bull Blue Dragon Slash]...

and many more.

This knife technique is used to slaughter livestock.

If used in processing aquatic products, can it dismember the cuttlefish in an instant without shedding a drop of blood or juice?

It took Xia An about a quarter of an hour to remove the ink sac and make cuttlefish ink.

"Then here comes the next step."

Xia An washed his hands, turned around and went back to move another box from the food truck.

Click.

After opening it, Xia An brought out an oversized shellfish ingredient, placed it on the processing table in front of the camera, and cracked it open with a knife.

As a result, the dazzling brilliance of the sago pearls blinded the eyes of many viewers.

【High energy warning! 】

[Fantasy ingredients can only be late, but they can never be absent, right? ]

[Here we go, Boss Xia, can you explain what this super-large shellfish ingredient is called? ]

Agent Yang Jinli read out the comments.

She was very smart. While Xia An had just opened the shellfish ingredients and had some free time to interact, she served as a mouthpiece for the audience and asked the questions that concerned countless people:

"Boss Xia, what is this fantasy ingredient called? Everyone is curious, so I want you to introduce it to us."

Xia An glanced at the wall-mounted screen and saw the exploding barrage of comments.

The corners of his mouth curled up into a faint smile:

"It, it's called 'Simibe'!"

"Everyone should know about Ximi, right?"

“Why is it called this official scientific name?”

Xia An reached into the shell and grabbed a few shining pearls from a piece of thick clam meat.

A close-up display for the show camera:
"Look, these big pearls look like large white tapioca pearls, don't they?"

"In fact, this kind of pearl is one of the main fantasy ingredients produced by "Sago". It is very fragrant and sweet. If you boil it for a while, you can get a pot of extremely delicious and rich seafood soup!"

(End of this chapter)