An autobiographical essay by Chef Choi Kang-rok, winner of MasterChef Korea 2 and who appeared in Black and White Chef and Please Take Care of My Refrigerator.
It contains daily life from the past and present with four keywords: food, cooking, restaurant, and chef.
As a professional chef and an ordinary person who loves to eat, the joys and sorrows, hopes and worries written in a calm and honest manner increase readers' immersion and empathy.
Heart-wrenching scenes shine through amidst Choi Kang-rok's signature humor that stands out throughout the book.
Reading this honest essay will make you think about what food and cooking are, and what work and career mean.

When I come out after eating, if I think the food was 'reasonable' rather than making detailed judgments like 'the seasoning was exquisite' or 'the sauce was delicious', then I recognize that place as a good restaurant.
‘Reasonable’ is a different standard from ‘cost-effectiveness’.
There are places where you feel uneasy after eating there, even if it's cheap and delicious, and there are places where you spend a lot of money and say, "It was okay."
I will give a comprehensive evaluation of my time there, including the taste of the food as well as the price.
In other words, what matters is overall satisfaction.
Eating seems to be more than just putting delicious food in our mouths; it's also about adding another satisfying moment to our lives.

--- From "Eating"

The key point of Egg Porridge Ramen is that the ramen soup acknowledges that it is the fruit of researchers.
I just dissolved it in water and it tastes like this.
So, you can think of it as adding egg to the broth, which is the essence of ramen flavor, to thicken it.
How delicious it would be if the egg contained all the broth.
The noodles are coated in some places with the egg that has become a thick sauce.
You should roll the rice when there is about 1/10 of the noodles left.
Egg porridge ramen is complete when eaten with the remaining noodles and rice.
With a bowl like this, even if it's ramen, it feels like you haven't eaten enough.
Because you get enough egg protein.
(On the other hand, there is a downside that you end up eating all the sodium in the soup and the carbohydrates double.)
--- From "A Life of Face-to-face Meeting - Ramen"

As Koreans, we can all experience the charm of charcoal, even if we are not chefs.
This is because I instinctively try to find the best conditions that charcoal can create by grilling meat at a restaurant near my house and flipping it over.
I wanted to compare charcoal to life because it has a peak point, a prime, the best moment of one's life, but it also has the futility of eventually turning to ash.

--- From "Grilled"

A restaurant is a place that serves a set menu of food in a fixed location.
If I have a role in that space, I just have to be faithful to that role.
When the role begins, the buttocks become tense and the greeting “Welcome!” is also loud.
Then, when the role is over, you repeat that life where you lose all your strength.
If you're an introvert, you'll know.
We go out to the square to live a social life, play 'role-playing' diligently and diligently, and then come back into the cave.

--- From "Welcoming Guests"

When naming a dish, the basics are 'listing the ingredients and the recipe'.
Asparagus fritters, sugar syrup, these names, if you look at them, are actually a combination of ingredients and cooking methods.
However, although it is a word commonly used to express the distinction between main and secondary ingredients, the word 'side dish' is not used as much as possible.
It doesn't come out of my mouth naturally anymore.
In a restaurant, I consciously use different words for fear of appearing like I'm fooling around.
Of course, there are guests who are waiting for this to be said.

--- From the "Menu"

My child always asks me this when he comes back from recording.
“Did you lose or did you win?” I didn’t know that children liked competition this much.
Even though I told him it was a fantasy, he always took it seriously.
But the reaction is not great.
When I win, I am quietly happy, and when I lose, I am quietly upset.
Even when we go to the market together, if we see a cutlassfish, we say, “Dad, you won with that,” and if we see a cauliflower, we say, “You lost with that.”
Ingredients have become the key to victory.
The child enjoys his father's competition, but has no interest in cooking.

--- From "What I Did After Becoming a Chef - Cooking Program"