The Knife's Got Reflections by Mia Salehudin

Chapter 2

I was spending most of my time in Switzerland trying to navigate my way out of the mess I had put myself in. There had been an audition for a place of participation in an international culinary competition and I had barely made up a worthy dish. But I got lucky. The Head Chef, Chef Will Burton, had chosen me and two other students to represent the school.

The news almost made me flip. Flip out of horror that was. Even though I'd gone for the audition, I wasn't really expecting to get chosen. They never let newbies go for international level competitions back when I was in college in Malaysia. The college used to have a special team for that, of which every member had been well chosen and trained all semester long. Plus, I had no idea of how to cope with the upcoming competition on top of the scheduled classes for my intensive degree course, the assignments that were due, the dissertation, the French lessons, and also the job I had taken up –which took the whole of my alternate weekends - at the school dining hall in exchange for a couple thousand Francs worth of scholarship. It was all starting to be too much.

I decided to give Zef a ring and ask for his advice. He was working in a five-star hotel in Kuala Lumpur then. He'd sort of been my go-to guy for cooking matters since we became acquainted more than a year ago. Besides, I kind of had a thing for him. And I think he knew.

Hearing his voice on the line, I almost wept out of anxiety.

"I'm up for a culinary competition next month. It's a couple of days after Raya." I told him, trying hard not to sound panicked.

"That's good. It would be awesome if I could get over there to take part too," he replied. Silence followed. "You... don't really know what to cook. Do you?"

"How could you have guessed? Have I shown signs that I'm that hopeless?"

I could hear him laugh. Not a big laugh, just an accommodating kind of laugh. The laugh that I had begun to somewhat miss.

"Okay then, tell me. What is the theme of the competition?"

"Sustainable seafood. We have a list of seafood that's sustainable according to the WWF that we can use".

"Is salmon one of them?" he asked.

Quickly, I ran a check on the list and got back to him.

"Farmed salmon, yes".

"Perfect. What else is there on the list?"

I continued to name the items on the list. He took a moment to think.

"I'd go with salmon if I were you. I've got this recipe I was keeping for myself for the next competition. But it's a good one. I think you should try it out." Zef went on to describe the methods of preparing the salmon in detail. It was just for the salmon. But he did suggest a few ideas for the accompaniments.

As I was scribbling my notes according to his instructions, I asked him if he was sure he wouldn't mind me using his recipe.

"Of course not. Go ahead. I'm curious to know what they'll think of it over there. I've got plenty other recipes in my book anyway."

Chef Burton was going to hold a session in the kitchen the day after tomorrow. He was to put in a few hours to facilitate us in our menu development and polish them up to perfection for the competition. It was during the month of Ramadhan, and fasting meant that I wouldn't be able to taste anything during the process of cooking and adjust the recipe spontaneously (like what I did for the audition), so I needed to at least have a rough idea of what I was going to do.