when the taste of ripe fruit is not so sweet

Today concludes my days in the Best Western Premier Songdo Park Hotel kitchens. It was a fun weekend. I have to say my favorite day was definitely the second. Although I was in the upstairs kitchen today, which is where interesting stuff for the sky buffet happens, rather than the main kitchen, I definitely prefer the downstairs. The people are nicer.

That isn't to say the people upstairs weren't nice. Although there was a bit of confusion when I first showed up, and I was feeling extremely uncomfortable, eventually another girl chef, who vaguely resembled my friend's sister, appeared and showed me around. I learned how to form rice and place wasabi on fish for nigiri sushi, how to stuff inari sushi, and how to roll cut rolls. It's hard. I don't know how sushi chefs make it look so easy because it really isn't. Or maybe I'm just sushi-making impaired, but I'd rather not think that. The girl chef then handed me off to a really nice chef, who proceeded to give me me all kinds of tasks to do, and I happily continued learning various kitchen things.

I learned how to cut acorn jelly with a squiggly knife, which actually takes some technique. If you try to just cut normally, the knife slides at a 45-degree angle, and you don't get straight cuts. The trick is to tilt the knife just a little to the left when cutting to compensate for the sliding angle, and by doing so, you get a good-ol' perpendicular cut. (If you cut normally, the cut looks like /, so you should tilt the knife like \, and you'll get a cut like |.) I then proceeded to slice enough chestnuts for Santa, his mother, his entire elf factory, and all nine of his reindeer to roast by an open fire. About half an hour into my chestnut slicing, the chef who charged me with the task came by to bring me water, and I was eternally grateful. Another ten minutes later, he brought me a plate of super juicy-looking pineapples and orange slices. Just when I began thinking, "hey, the upstairs people aren't so bad," the so-called nice chef made explicitly sure that I got his name, and to tell me that I should tell my uncle that we're best friends.

Sigh. And all that niceness was just sucking up to the manager's niece. Honestly, I don't mind suck-ups. I'm flattered if someone thinks they can get something from me, or in other words, that I have something to offer. I'm naive enough to think that people are being genuinely nice when they're just trying to make a favorable impression. My advice to anyone that wants something from me in the future: at least don't make it painfully obvious that you're sucking up. I'll believe in you until you do something that alerts my not-so-sharp censors that you're not being true.

Sucking up aside, the guy was really good to me, so I can't judge him too harshly. Thanks to him, I got to partake in jelly-cutting, chestnut-slicing, chestnut salad-mixing, beef tartar-making, bulgogi-marinating, soba noodle-portioning, and dessert-arranging. I'd say that's a pretty good day's worth of work. And he brought me fruit and water. How could I dislike a guy who brought me fruit and water, regardless of his motive for doing so? So I'll just be thankful that he was friendly and talked to me all day, which is more than I can say for the rest of the kitchen, aside from Miss Resembling-friend's-sibling chef. However, would I take the hot and cold pair downstairs, as well as their entire friendly kitchen staff, over him and the upstairs kitchen any day? You bet. Sure, maybe they were also just being nice to me because of my connections, but I'd rather have faith in them. They gave off such a golden aura that I can't believe they'd be people like that. Behold my supreme naivety.