With the approval of the council, the food war was made official. Himchan and Taekwoon would begin their culinary battle within minutes. In the audience, both groups of lethal chefs looked on nervously.  This would be an expensive loss for either chef.

 

            “How did it come to this exactly?” Yongguk asked. “I know Himchan can be pretty rash but this is a bit extreme.”

 

            “He blames Taekwoon for his destroyed kitchen,” answered Hakyeon.

 

            “It wasn’t actually him,” Jongup added. “It was Hyuk, trying to cook.”

 

            “I kind of destroyed the stove…” Hyuk looked embarrassed.

 

            “So now,” Youngjae broke in, “Himchan hyung wants Taekwoon hyung to pay for the new one. He’s put his best cast-iron skillet up as collateral.”

 

            “It’s that serious?” Yongguk asked. His eyes were wide behind his slightly too long bangs.

 

            Everyone else nodded.

 

Meanwhile on the floor…

 

            Both chefs collected their ingredients. The theme of today’s food war was pasta.  The goal: to take a simple, homey dish and elevate it to the academy’s standards. The pasta itself had been made the night before.

 

            Taekwoon had a spread of ingredients in front of him: capers, thick cut bacon, eggs, cream, salt, and white pepper. His pasta was long and thin.  It would cook up quickly.  He started by frying his bacon.

 

            Himchan also had his ingredients spread out and was in the process of measuring them out. There were several types of cheese, some fresh herbs, cream, butter, and no hard pasta, but sheets of pasta dough.

 

            “Are you going to do carbonara?” Himchan shouted across the room as he grated romano cheese into a bowl.

 

            Taekwoon didn’t answer.

 

            “Isn’t that kind of tricky?” Himchan said. He was smirking. 

 

            “What does Himchan hyung mean, Carbonara is tricky?” asked Hongbin.

 

            “In order to make the sauce for carbonara, you need to cook egg yolks without scrambling them. The sauce is entirely made of egg yolks and cheese.  The type of cheese varies by the recipe.” Daehyun explained.

 

            Meanwhile, Taekwoon kept frying his bacon. He didn’t flinch when it spat, burning his exposed forearm. On another burner, he started a pot of boiling water.  As he turned his back to get the eggs, cream, and metal bowl for the double boiler, Himchan let out a yelp. Taekwoon turned around to see his stove on fire.  The bacon grease had gotten too close to the other burner, and lit.

 

            Himchan questioned why Taekwoon didn’t go for the fire extinguisher, and instead ran for the pantry. The question was answered when Taekwoon came running back out with a box of baking soda.  He turned both burners off, and doused the stove in the baking soda, smothering the flames of the grease fire. He put the bacon aside and cleaned the stove off before restarting the pot for the double boiler.

 

            With the crisis averted, Taekwoon began double boiling his egg yolks to make his carbonara sauce. Himchan returned to his heckling.

 

            “Be careful with those,” he said. “Make sure your yolks don’t scramble. That would be terrible.” The sarcasm was so thick even the ever oblivious Junhong got it.

 

            “That was kind of mean, wasn’t it?” Junhong whispered to Jongup. Jongup nodded.

 

            Finally, Taekwoon responded. “With all of this talking, are you even going to get your dish plated?” It was quiet, but when he spoke, the stadium went silent.

 

            Himchan stood stunned for a moment before he said “Mine’s almost ready for plating, actually. Did most of it while your stove was on fire.”

 

            “Really?” Taekwoon asked, eyes narrowing over his carbonara sauce. He put the pasta on to boil.  “It must not be that high quality then. I guess I’ll be getting a new cast-iron.”

 

            “The key is not to make something complicated, but to make something simple and drag it up to the level of the gods. You know that.”  Himchan had a full on smile now.   He finished off his sauce, retrieved his raviolis and began plating.

 

            Taekwoon added the capers and bacon to his carbonara. Then, he strained the pasta and stirred it in.  His yolks had not scrambled.

 

            As time ran out, each chef topped off their plating with a sprinkling of something green.

 

            “Can I eat them both?” Daehyun asked. His stomach growled loudly.

 

Later…

 

            Taekwoon grumbled as he wrote the check for the new stove. “I can’t believe I got baking soda in my bacon.  I should have taken it off the stove before putting out the fire.”

 

            “Hey,” Himchan said as he patted him on the back. “What’s more important is that you got the stove out before the entire stadium burned down. Once I saw you do that without making your dish inedible, I was almost willing to forfeit.”

 

            “Why didn’t you?” Taekwoon asked.

 

            “You still wanted my cast-iron, didn’t you? Also, I was curious about what you were going to do, and it would have been a waste to make those delicious raviolis without a reason to eat them.”

 

            “Daehyun would have eaten them.” Taekwoon muttered.

 

            “Daehyun doesn’t deserve my raviolis.” Himchan said.

 

            Taekwoon handed over the check. He grumbled as he his heel and stormed off to his own dorm.

            “May all your bacon burn.”