Cooking

The first round ended without a hitch.

75 contestants were still left.

Eira was also a judge on the judging panel so she had a taste of all hundred different noodle dishes that were served. The cooks stood in 3 rows and a waiter brought the dishes of every single one of them to the judges. They tried a bite and then gave their points. Then the next dish was placed in front of them. Around the 20th bowl of her noddles, she was glad that they had split the hundred contestants. To taste a hundred dishes at once would be too much.

The other two judges who had observed the hundred cooks were a famous chinese cook whose speciality was noodle soups and the other was a famous italian chef who had a vast knowledge on pasta. Both of them were present while the contestants prepared their noodles. The presentation was one thing but it was also important how a cook handles a situation and of course how the noodles tasted. Everything was strictly monitored and recorded for later use. After they had judged all hundred of them they had decided on the 25 people who didn´t get it to the second round.

The second round was a more theoretical round. Because it was already getting close to noon Eira didn´t want to make the second round too long, so she had planned a simple test. Together with her development department responsible for creating new products, she had put together 100 questions. Those questions had to be solved in one hour. That would determine the remaining contestants for the third round.

The start signal was given and the second round began. Eira leaned back in her seat and looked through the rows at the sinking heads of the cooks. From the front, she could see every single movement. She let her gaze wander a few times to see if anyone tried to cheat but luckily there was none. Everyone was working hard on their test paper.

After a while, she looked at the clock and saw that there were less than ten minutes left. She looked at the contestants to see if there was already someone who had finished. Right at that moment someone stood up and handed his test paper in. He wore a face mask and a headband. He strode straight at her and held his paper at her. He then bowed at her and went out of the door.

Surprised she looked at his test and saw that he indeed filled out every single question and after briefly skimming over it he didn´t have a single mistake.

Seems like she found an A+ student, she thought.

The chinese cook beside her curiously also looked at the test and was also impressed.

"I have high hopes that he will get very far. His dish was rememberable and he seems to have a good knowledge of cooking. He could win this." He quietly whispered to her.

Eira nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, he has potentials. I have also noticed him earlier. His dish stood out. But I am not sure if it was so good as the other ones."

"We will see." The italian chef added.

They continued to wait for the remaining time to end. Slowly one after another the other contestants also handed in their test sheets. When the last one exited the room, Eira and the two judges started to look through the papers. Because a lot of the questions only required a simple answer or there was only one possible answer it was easy to look through. Still, when they had finished it was already midnight. The three of them had along the way shared of their own experiences and bits of knowledge about the different questions, like for example how to save a dish that was too oversalted or too hot. The chinese cook's opinion was that if it was too salty he would add more greens and water and too hot... there is nothing too hot. The italian cook would add more acid to a too salty dish and would add an acid dairy like yoghurt to the dish if it´s too hot. Eira could learn a lot from both of them along the way. Her father had taught her a lot back then but still, he was most of the time too busy. They wrote down the remaining fifty contestants and then deposit the test paper and the names in the safe in Eira´s office. After that Eira dismissed them to let them finally go home and rest. She also walked to her car and drove home. Satisfied and most of all full because of all the test eating.

The next morning was the second day of the cooking competition.

The third round will begin shortly. Only fifty contestants remained.

Everyone got excited to see what were the tasks for today. Eira smiled confidently at the crowd that had already gathered in the reception hall of her company. The contestants were lined in a few lines and looked at her expectantly. She took the mic and started her announcement.

"Thank you all for coming. Today is the second day of the competition. I hope you all could get a good rest then today I want to see your strength. The third round is going to be like this. You will put in a team of five people. Every team is going to manage a stall. Every stall serves different foods so it really depends on your skills to adapt quickly to a new situation. I have invited a few more people you could feed to, like our national football team. These guys are really hungry and impatient." Everyone laughed at Eira´s joke. She then continued.

"Every stall has to serve at least 100 servings in an hour. Be quick and innovative to finish this task quickly. Your opponents are strong. You have half an hour to organize yourself and look at the dish you are going to make. So now please come on stage and draw a number. That will determine your team."

She could see that some of the contestants began to panic what she could understand. Not all of them are professional cooks and never were put in such a situation. But that was the point. She wanted to see how could they could adapt to this stressful situation and carry out the mission.

They all lined up and draw a number out of a box. Then they would look for the stall they were assigned to and look for their other teammates. After a while, everyone was in their teams and Eira started the timer.

30 minutes went by quickly. She then looked at each team to see if they were ready and again started the timer again, this time for an hour.