[Full Support #CreativeAwardReview] Embrace Food and Life!

For my second post today, I will be writing a review of Leon Saruogi's "The Chatty Set Meal, The Enlightened Egg."

This is one of the works that Publicity Director Kosshi is passionately promoting. The way Publicity Director Kosshi promotes things is truly intense. I thought about writing a review for Eri's "Osaka Castle is Five Centimeters" last year, but I was overwhelmed by his passion and missed the timing. I still regret that I didn't let myself be pushed by Publicity Director Kosshi's passion to write it, rather than hesitating because of the pressure. (Publicity Director Kosshi is amazing!)

I don't want to have regrets like I did last year.

Having reflected on that, this year, after my own challenge is over, I will actively post reviews every day.

When I was in elementary school, I read a children's novel about someone who could talk to plants, and I believed it completely. The story was about how plants were life forms from space and that you could have conversations with them. I remember the method of communication was to tear off a leaf and attach it to your body (I think it was your leg?).

After finishing the story, I jumped outside, full of expectations. I tore off a leaf from a weed growing between my house and the road and attached it to my leg, but...

No conversation took place.

I still can't forget the feeling of disappointment I felt at that time. It remains as a nostalgic memory now, but man, it was really a letdown.

I often think that humans are creatures who constantly harbor the wish to be able to talk to other living things.

Leon Saruogi's work was a story that depicted exactly this wish. The thing I worry about most when cooking is the heat level.

Is it cooked through properly?
Is the heat level bringing out the best in the ingredients?
Is the heat level such that it tastes delicious?

I don't know the right heat level for fried chicken, so lately I've been making "fried chicken" in the oven range. If I set the number to "fried chicken," place the seasoned chicken on the iron plate, and start it, the machine grills it at the appropriate heat level.

I make fried chicken this way because it's healthy and there's no need to deal with oil, but the real reason isbecause I'm scared of deep-frying in oil. I mean, it's common for the surface to look delicious while the inside is still raw, right? It really takes courage to deep-fry something.

I cook while feeling overwhelmed by the fact that just cooking anything at all is amazing. There are many times when I think that if I could talk to the ingredients, daily cooking would be more fun. If I could talk like the protagonist of this work, my hesitation about heat levels would easily disappear.

The protagonist can communicate with ingredients, but their struggles with "life, love, and thoughts of the past" are the same as any ordinary person. If they were an invincible town problem-solver, I don't think they would have captured the hearts of so many noters.

Encouraged by the protagonist, who is surrounded by kind people, spirits, and ingredients, maybe I'll try to make something a bit more ambitious for dinner tonight. It's a novel that gives you the courage to think that way.