The Heartbeat at the Tip of the Tongue

Word count: 1731

The Hopeless Combination Of Berries And Eggs

Everyone waited, wanting to know what was the opportunity to make things difficult for the opponent.

“That is, according to the rankings from the previous round, every participant can pick one ingredient from their ingredients, then give the rest to the person they think will need it most or to someone who you especially want to mess with! Of course, this ingredient cannot be the main ingredient.”

After Annalise announced the rule, the participants’ eyes widened subconsciously.

Lin Ke Song furrowed her brows, it is a difficult task to use another participant’s ingredient to cook to please the judges, now an ingredient was going to be removed? If it were a key seasoning, it will affect the taste of the whole dish. Like the tomato fried egg that she made for Song Yi Ran, no matter how good the cooking skill, no matter how fresh the ingredient, it will be impossible to make up for the loss of balance from the saltiness.

Lin Ke Song lowered her head to look at her basket, inexplicably getting uneasy. Which ingredient should she remove? And what ingredient will she be getting?

“According to the rankings, let’s have a look at Viktor who is in the first place!” Annalise came to Viktor’s work counter, “Viktor, what were you originally planning on making?”

“En…… I actually wanted to make a dessert.”

“Let me guess. There’s raspberries, berries, flour, eggs and all sorts of spices……ah! you want to make berry pie? So the main ingredient is flour?”

Viktor laughed: “haha, my idea is more creative. It’s berry egg soup. So the main ingredients are eggs and berries.”

The majority of the people on set had a suspicious expression. Viktor could have very well purposely said that he was going to make berry egg soup instead of berry pie when he heard the competition rules so that he would be able to justify taking flour away.

“If you were to take away an ingredient, what will you choose?” Annalise asked scrunching her eyes.

All the participants looked over, tiptoeing able to guess that the thing Viktor will remove is definitely flour.

After removing the flour, there was only some fruits, eggs and spices that were used in desserts, you couldn’t possibly imagine what kind of food could be produced from these ingredients. No matter if it were sweet fruit soup or egg custard, it is simply impossible to meet the standard of the food critics.

“the thing I want to remove is ——” Viktor reached his hand out, and as expected, removed the bag of flour, “is flour!”

“Then, Viktor, who will you give the remaining ingredients?”

The whole scene quietened down, the tense atmosphere spreading among the participants.

ShanSha shut her eyes as if in prayer. Bruce looked fine, but he was crossing his fingers at his thighs, he was praying to the heavens for luck.

And Goto Nozomi was as always. The other participants were swallowing, fearing that Viktor would pick them.

Viktor turned back, his eyes glancing at the expressions of every participant, and finally landing on Lin Ke Song.

A bad feeling crept through.

Ever since the dill incident in the food warehouse, Lin Ke Song had always felt that Viktor harboured bad intentions towards her.

“Ke Song, I’ll hand my favourite berries and raspberries to you la!”

Lin Ke Song eyebrow spasmed, ten thousand your mother curses flying over.

The other participants heaved a sigh of relief and looked at Lin Ke Song with hope in their eyes.

Annalise arranged the ingredients in the basket and brought them to Lin Ke Song.

“Ke Song, although I have no expert chef, but with my knowledge, I can tell that these things…… aren’t easy to control

But you don’t have to be angry. You are in second place, and you too can take away a key ingredient, like salt, then hand them to another participant, you can choose Viktor too oh!” Annalise fluttered her eyes.

Everyone had the expression that they were there to watch a good show, they all thought that Lin Ke Song would take revenge on Viktor.

Lin Ke Song wanted to make charcoal grilled pork chop, and the ingredients were very complicated. What she’d thought of was to remove salt, to increase the difficulty of controlling the ingredients. But one of the ingredients she’d chosen was black pepper sauce, and it contained salt. She couldn’t take both the ingredients out and naturally wasn’t able to properly stump Viktor. And as for the other ingredients, no matter what was taken out, whether it was the spices, eggs or fruits, as long as they were seasoned properly, they wouldn’t have an impact on the cooking of the pork chop. So instead of targeting Viktor, Lin KE Song would rather take this chance to repay Goto Nozomi.

“I choose to remove the raspberries. Then give my ingredients to Goto Nozomi.”

Annalise lifted her brows, and put Lin Ke Song’s ingredients in the basket, “indeed, your ingredient selection is sumptuous, you may not be able to be a threat to your opponent, no matter what you take out. But why did you choose to give your ingredients to Goto Nozomi and not the other participants?”

“Only curious, as to what Goto Nozomi will create from these complicated ingredients.”

“I hope that when Goto’s pork chops get the judges favour, you will not regret your decision. After all, he is ranked right behind you.”

After Annalise handed Lin Ke Song’s ingredients to Goto Nozomi, he received envious looks from the other participants.

“It’s such a coincidence, Goto, you are ranked third. What choice and decision will you make?”

Goto Nozomi’s work counter had rice, rice vinegar, soy sauce, mustard, seaweed and other seafood. Obviously, he was going to make sushi.

His ingredients were very simple, Japanese sushi tested one’s subtle skills that brought out the freshness of the ingredients.

Goto Nozomi lifted his hand, bending it to remove the soy sauce.

Annalise smiled: “your ingredients aren’t many in the first place, and now even soy sauce is taken away, it will be greatly difficult to make delicious food from the remaining ingredients ah! don’t know who you are planning to pass your ingredients to?”

“Viktor.” Goto Nozomi said calmly.

Viktor turned around, looking at Goto Nozomi with widened eyes, sucking in the ends of his mouth.

Annalise placed the ingredients in front of Viktor, the audiences obviously liked this youth who looked very cute when he smiled and yet was a little sly, one after another showing pity for the ingredients that he received.

Lin Ke Song looked towards Goto Nozomi, and instead felt very grateful. At least someone was able to teach Viktor a lesson. But this youth was very talented, who knows, he might be able to think of a solution to make seafood, rice, mustard, seaweed and the other simple ingredients into delicious food.

And now, it was hard for Lin Ke Song to save herself ah!

Annalise was still exchanging the remaining contestants’ ingredients, and Lin Ke Song was already thinking about what she should do.

Berries and eggs…… berries and eggs……

No matter how you think about it, they don’t complement each other ah!

Lin Ke Song really wanted to just do as Viktor said, and make some berry egg soup!

These are the steps to failure ah!

“Dearest people! Everyone, please take note of all your ingredients, you don’t have to use every ingredient, but you can only use these ingredients! The competition is for an hour —— now, let the competition begin!”

The surrounding participants were already beginning to get busy, but Lin Ke Song was stoning at the work counter.

What should she do?

Give up?

No can do, there has to be a way…… calm down, don’t panic.

Lin Ke Song gaze fell on a bottle of alcohol that was on the dried herbs. This was a liqueur, Viktor must have wanted to use it to make the sweetness more flavourful. A thick layer of dried herbs was tied outside the liqueur bottle. This was probably the supplier’s design of protecting the bottle from breakage and at the same time adding to the aesthetics of the packaging.

Lin Ke Song took them off the bottle, and had a sniff, the fragrance was pretty pure, it looked like the quality of the dried herbs the suppliers used was not bad ah!

She suddenly felt like there was hope.

As time passed little by little, some participants let out a sigh, probably because the ingredients weren’t working right ba!

Lin Ke Song only started plating in the last 10 minutes. You need to know, that plating has always been her weakness, but her product looked very ordinary, if there wasn’t any highlight in the plating, the judges will probably lose interest in her dish.

In the end, Annalise knocked the wine glass, signalling that the competition had ended.

Lin Ke Song heaved a sigh and looked towards the audience. Uncle’s expression was very nervous, and Song Yi Ran was looking at her with a straight back.

He smiled slightly at her, even if they were so far away, she was still able to feel it.

Lin Ke song looked around the audience, intentionally looking for Jiang Qian Fan. Even though Mayer said that he had something on today, she still wished to see him on set.

This dish that she made, would he think it interesting, will he like it?

But it’s a pity, Lin Ke Song didn’t see Jiang Qian Fan, but unexpectedly found Iris in the audience!

Lin Ke Song suddenly had some regrets, she should have been treated her ingredients with more caution, and done it to perfection. Because she didn’t want to be looked down upon by Iris at all!

The participants’ dishes were brought to the judges from the lowest to the highest ranked. Pretty much every dish had flaws pointed out by the judges, and even criticised to death, having nothing good to say.

The whole scene was like they had returned to the auditions.

The cruel words of the judges lasted till Goto Nozomi’s juicy grilled pork chops, before finally toning down.

Goto Nozomi’s way of preparation was of a totally different style compared to Lin Ke Song’s original thought of charcoal grilled pork chops.