Early Bird (Erkenci Kus)(Part 4)

26. Cooking class from hell

Sanem kept glancing to her left as she chopped up her mushrooms with about as much finesse as a drunk elephant.

Next to her, Can held the pepper in one hand and cut out the seeds, putting it down on the board to dice it into finer pieces.

Yigit was to Sanem's right busy with the cucumbers for his mostly finished salad. He turns to her and holds a piece to her mouth, making Can grip the knife tightly, ready to stab his hand until she rears back and takes it from him with her hand but doesn't eat it. He relaxes and continues.

The chef comes to check on them, and Sanem sprinkles the mushroom pieces like confetti to show him how small they were. She grins when he nods and moves on.

Can glares at Yigit helping Sanem chop and when he leaves her again, he kicks the side of her shoe and she looks at him. He shrugs and makes a 'What was that?' face. She returns it and he rolls his eyes, going back to his chopping.

It was Sanem's turn to be jealous next as Polen took Can's hand chopping and instructed him to slice finely not chop. Narrowing her eyes, Sanem roughly starts bang chopping the peppers.

"Can, what are you doing? That's too fast, slow down," Polen says when he slices hard and fast in answer to Sanem's banging.

"I want my knife to make sounds." He slams the blade down and slices.

Polen keeps a wary eye on him, moving on to the potatoes. "By the way, I've prepared this for you at home before. You loved it."

Sanem looks up, her tongue in her cheek. She turns to a grinning Polen with the knife in her hand and glares as Can says -

"I've rebooted most of my memory from before."

"Yes, he chooses to forget, Polen. He forgets everything." She smiles, pacified by him saying that. He glances at her turning away and then the chef calls their attention.

"Alright, now you've all warmed up. As every good cook knows, taste is very important. Working in a kitchen, you have to also be clean and keep order around you."

Sanem sneakily pushes the mess around her board to the floor and smiles. Can looks at it behind her and purses his lips before he goes on with cleaning his knife.

"You can work as a team for this next part or by yourself. But if you choose to work with your partner, remember that harmony is key."

Polen chuckles. "I think I'm the luckiest one here then, chef."

"Hm hm," Sanem hums with a snort. "Precisely. We were a great team too once but," she shrugs and looks at the chef, "it wasn't enough."

Can narrows his eyes at her chopping then clears his throat. "Chef, you mentioned harmony with a cooking partner?"

"Yes?"

"Would you say that honesty is just as important?" Sanem turns to him and the Chef tilts his head in question. "When it comes to your partner in the kitchen," Can adds.

"I don't quite understand what you mean?" the chef frowns.

Can's eyebrows shoot up. "Okay, well, let me explain it this way. Let's say there's a very special recipe. A unique one that belongs only to you as a chef. And then you share it with your partner, and it becomes a part of that partner's cookbook, so to speak...it drives that partner so crazy - " he pauses when Sanem quickly raps her knife on the board, "that it makes him dizzy just thinking about it," he continues after giving her a look.

To their sides, Polen and Yigit kept working - Polen uninterested and Yigit curiously listening. The rest of the kitchen was mostly minding their own business.