Start of the Cooking Competition

The day of the cooking competition

Everything was ready. The whole company was excited to see the contestants. Eira had given most of her workers the day off to give them a chance to let themselves participate in the competition or volunteer at a stall. The ground floor of the company building was filled with people bustling around. Many different foods and drinks were being served at the many stalls and everyone could get them for free. That was something Eira had insisted on doing because she wanted to advertise Morgan Noodles a little bit more and get more people to watch the competition. Another advantage was that she could give all her workers a free and foremost fun day. That could uplift the atmosphere, especially after her father´s death.

Satisfied she walked out of her office to go down to the 1st floor to inspect the preparations for the competition. She had specially ordered the best cooking utensils to provide for the contestants.

She walked into the elevator and Helen followed her quickly. Her secretary held her speech and also a name list of all the contestants who had signed up. They both went down and walked to the stage in the middle.

Eira had hired a famous MC to commentate and lead the whole competition. He had already started to do his job and talked to the audience to lighten the mood and build up the tension for her arrival.

"Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce to you the organizer and patron of the Morgan Noodles Cooking Competition. Eira Morgan, CEO of Morgan Noodles. Please a round of applause for her."

The MC introduced her and walked to her to accompany her on stage. He gave her a mic and stepped back a few steps.

Eira cleared her voice and started to welcome the audience.

"Welcome. I am Eira Morgan and in this competition, I want to find a suitable successor for our former head developer and master chef, Andrew Morgan. He had to go through years of training to become so well known. He never wavered in his desire to be the best cook and that clearly showed in his dishes. And this is something we are looking for in his new successor. A dish will just stay a normal dish if you don´t put all your heart and soul into it. So I advise all our contestants to give their all and play fair."

She nodded at Helen and let her give her the name list of the contestants.

"Now then, the first fifty contestants shall now go to the 1st floor to start the first round. The instructor will give tell you the instructions there. There are two rooms so number 1 to 25 will head to room A and number 26 to 50 will head to room B. For the audience, we have put up cameras for you to watch the happenings from the big screen here. Let the competition begin and may the best win."

Eira bowed lightly and waited for all the first fifty contestants to go to the 1st floor. She then walked with Helen around to look at the stalls and try their foods.

She made small talk with a few contestants who had to wait to their turn and she could also see a few high ranking members of other influential companies.

Smiling to herself she thought that her style of advertising her company had made the other companies curious which was a good thing for her. She wanted to make Morgan Noodles more known and have some more powerful ties with the influential members. More than that the one who will win this company could hold in the future a huge part of the shares. So everyone wants to see who it´s gonna be at the end.

The big screen in the middle of the hall was split in two to show in real-time the two testing rooms where the cooks are preparing for their dishes. The theme was nothing else than making your favorite childhood noodles.

That assignment gave the judge and the contestants a good understanding of the foundation of Morgan Noodles. That shows the true potentials of a cook to work under her company so she wanted to roughly sort out all the hidden jewels among the crowds with this special assignment.

Up till now, there was no one in particular that stood out. Among the contestants, a whole range of different cooks had travelled from far away to participate.

Her attention was caught by a new visitor who came through the door at the same moment.

Mr Henning and his wife came together arm in arm and they looked around the hall. When Mr Henning saw Eira he went straight to her. His entrance had also caught the attention of a few people who had recognized him. Some of them thought it was a normal thing for Mr Henning to appear because Henning Corp. and Morgan Noodles had a good relationship at the moment and it would be natural for the CEO to invite the other CEO to appear in a big event like this cooking competition.

What they didn´t know was that Eira didn´t invite anyone at Henning Corp. because she didn´t think it would be wise to continue the farce of them having good relations with each other. Even more, she was surprised to see Mr and Mrs Henning coming. Nevertheless, she wanted to stay polite so she greeted them with the given respect.

"Mr Henning, Mrs Henning. It´s nice to see you. Thank you for stopping by today. I didn´t expect you to come." She smiled at them with her business smile.

Mr Henning also replied friendly with his business smile but in a much louder voice so that everyone nearby could hear it.

"Of course we come. I´ve never seen a company searching for a new employee by organizing a cooking competition. I was curious about how it turns out." He looked at the big flat screen.

"Are they the contestants?" He asked.

"Yes. These are the first fifty. The other fifty are competing in an hour." Eira answered him.

Mr Henning nodded and started to talk about random business. Eira kindly followed his intention and chimed in his small talk.