Zhao stood in front of the counter, looking down at the cut pieces Zhi had made. Taking a breath, he pushes them aside and sets a carrot in front of himself. Picking up the knife, the cool wood of the handle feels pleasant against his palm. Looking at the cut pieces again and remembering how Zhi was cutting them. He takes a firm grip on the knife and carrot. Setting the blade at an angle to the carrot, he pushes down with the knife. It smoothly cuts through the carrot with ease and stops when it hits the wood of the table below. Lifting the knife up and moving the carrot underneath the blade again, he gives it a twist. Cutting down again at a new angle, the cut is just as effortless as the first one. He repeats the process for the whole carrot, then he stops and sets down the knife while looking at Zhi.

Zhi steps closer and examines all the pieces, before picking up the first one and another piece from the end. “Most of it was good, but look at these two pieces compared to the others. Can you tell me what the difference is?”

Looking at the two pieces of carrot, Zhao can easily see what the issue is. The first cut was a little too small, making the piece not close to the size of the rest. While the other one near the end is actually too big compared to the others. “I cut the first one too short, and the end piece I should have cut smaller. I could have gotten two pieces out of this one.”

Zhi nods his head a little, and then says. “You are right, but you could also do this, since it is so thin.” He picks up another carrot and places it down in front of himself, while grabbing the knife. He cuts off the first inch of the carrot, moving it aside. He then cuts up the rest of the carrot into almost equal size pieces. He then takes the tip of the carrot he cut off, and sets it in front of another bin.

Setting down the knife he says, “We can actually trim the front part off and use it for the ones we will dice up for the fried rice.” He proceeds to pick up all the cut tips and place them in front of the same bin of carrots. “Once we are done, we will pull a few more carrots out of this bin to use for the soup stock, to make the amount stay even.”

Stepping back, Zhi motions to the knife and carrots while saying. “ Continue, I will only stop you if I see any issue. Make sure you look at the size of the carrot, and make sure it will be close to the same size as the others. This isn’t about how fast you can cut, it is about how even you can make the cuts. Speed comes with practice.”

Zhao nods in reply while grabbing another carrot. He then follows Zhi’s instructions, cutting off the end and setting it aside. He takes a little longer than he did with the first carrot. But it is cut almost equal all the way through. Not stopping, he moves the end off to the side and the cut pieces into the pile with the others. Before grabbing another carrot and repeating the process. Zhi and Yongzheng watch in silence as Zhao goes through the pile of carrots. Once complete he sets the knife down and steps back to look at Zhi.

“I have to say you picked that up pretty well. Your speed even increased slightly once you were about halfway through. Now we just need to make it even. Move over and I will show you.” Stepping in front of the counter, Zhi opens the container that has the carrot ends in front of it. He looks at the pile of carrot tips and pulls out about the same amount of carrots from the bin. He then processed them all in a few minutes. His speed is so fast, his hands are almost a blur to Zhao and Yongzheng who stare at him working in fascination.

Setting the knife down, Zhi picks up the empty bin and begins to put all the chopped carrots into it while saying. “Zhao, take all those end pieces and toss them in the compost bin please.”

Zhao goes to do as asked while Zhi finishes filling up the bin. Once they are done, Zhi sets the bin to the right of the first bin with all the carrot tips in front of it. He then moves all those tips in front of the bin he placed down. After he picks up the bin to the left of the bin for the diced carrots. Unloading the bin, he hands the bin over to Zhao to wash out.

Once Zhao is finished, Zhi picks up a carrot and sets it in front of himself while saying. “Alright, so these ones will be sliced. We will start the same as the soup carrots. Cut off the tip here and set it in front of the diced carrot box. Then hold the carrot like this and slice straight down.” Slicing a single piece, he sets down the knife and picks it up to show Zhao and Yongzheng.

“Is this piece the size you would like? Or should it be thinner or thicker?”

Yongzheng looks over the piece and nods his head while replying, “That is the proper size. A little thicker is fine, but no thinner than that.”

Zhi nods in return, while placing the piece down and picking up the knife. He then begins to chop up the rest of the carrot in thin slices. Once finished he moves the cut pieces and the end off to the side and picks up another carrot. He repeats the process slowly for five carrots before setting them down the knife and stepping away.

Looking at Zhao he says, “Just copy what I did and take your time. Like I said, speed comes with practice. Just make sure they are close to the same size, that is all that matters today.”

Zhao replies, “Thanks, I will do my best.”

He steps forward and picks up the knife, before picking up a carrot with his left hand and setting it in front of himself. He then follows Zhi’s instructions and completes the first carrot. No words are spoken as he picks up the next one and continues to slice them. He is slow and steady, but as he progresses his speed picks up slowly. It’s not too long before he has sliced up all the carrots. He looks at the pile of cut tips, then pulls out a handful of carrots from the diced bin. He then slices them up just like the rest. Before setting the knife down and stepping back.

“Great job, slow and steady is the way to go when you are learning.” Zhi walks over and starts to put all the sliced pieces into the empty bin. Zhao without a word collects the useless end caps and tosses them into the compost bin. When he comes back over, Zhi has set the sliced bin back to the left of the diced bin. He picks up the next bin to the left, and starts to remove all the carrots from the bin. Afterwards he hands the bin to Zhao who washes it out and then places it on the table as Zhi finishes moving the pile of cut tips in front of the bin of sliced carrots.

“Alright so these are the ones that will be julienne cut. When someone asks you to cut up something julienne style, it just means they want the item to be really thin around and about 1-2 inches long.”

Picking up the first carrot, Zhi cuts off the end and the tip. Placing the tip in a new pile in front of the diced carrot bin. He then slices the carrot into 3 parts, the smallest piece he puts with the cut tip in front of the diced carrot bin. Taking the two other pieces he proceeds to cut them both slightly making them flat on one edge. He rotates them both to lay them on the newly cut edge. He makes another small slice on the right side of both of them.

“Now this is the hard part, if you mess this up you will cut yourself. You might even lose a finger if you are not careful. Take your off hand and hold whatever you are cutting stable. Then curl your fingers like this and rest the blade here against your knuckles.”

Zhi moves slightly to show Zhao what he is talking about. “Now the key to this is keeping your fingers out of the way, and using your knuckles as the guide while you chop. Watch my left hand closely while I cut these up.”

After going through and slicing up the carrot, Zhi sets down the knife and begins to make small piles of the cut up slices while speaking. “So you saw how I moved my hand while I cut. That is one of the skills you will learn and practice for as long as you cook. Doesn’t matter if you have cooked for 50 years, you will always use that skill. Now watch while I use it for the next cut.”

Setting up his hand and placing the blade along the edge of his knuckles, Zhi begins to chop up the carrot again. Going from each stack, till there is a small pile of carrots, all of which are about the size of a matchstick. Moving them out of the way and setting the extra bits off to the side, Zhi steps back and gestures for Zhao to start.

Zhao steps forward and begins to trim up the first carrot. After he has two pieces of equal size, he trims one edge and flips them over onto it. Then sliced another piece off, moving it to the side. Holding the carrot firmly, he curls his fingers and sets the knife against his knuckles. As Zhi says, “Remember it is not a race, make sure your pinky is curled back out of the way and move your thumb back a little more.”

Following Zhi’s instructions, he looks over his grip one more time, before he starts his first cut. It’s slow, a lot slower than any of the other carrots he has done. But he finishes it and then stacks up the pieces like Zhi did. Placing his left hand down first he curls his fingers in with his knuckles out. Placing the knife against them, he begins to dice up the carrots slowly. When he finishes, it lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. Looking over his work and then what Zhi did before him, he is relieved to see that they are about the same size.

He moves them out of the way and picks up the next carrot. Repeating the process he goes through all of them. Zhi doesn’t say a word though the whole thing. Just quietly observing along with Yongzheng. Once finished, Zhao looks at his pile of off cuts and tips. Pulling out about the same amount of carrots from the diced bin, he cuts them up julienne style also. Once done he starts to fill up the empty bin with them. Zhi collects the useless parts, and takes them to the compost bin, while Zhao finishes up his work.

Once finished, Zhi grabs the diced carrot bin and pulls out the handful of remaining carrots and hands the empty bin to Zhao to clean out. Once the bin is finished, Zhi picks up some of the cut tips from a pile and places them down in front of him while saying. “Now we will use all of the cutoffs for the diced carrots for the fried rice. You will use the same cutting technique I showed you. But you will be making small cubes this time.”

Taking the carrots in front of him, Zhi begins to dice them up into small cubes of almost equal size. Once finished he takes some different size cutoffs from the julienne cut carrots and shows Zhao a different way to cut them into cubes. Afterwards he picks up a full carrot, placing it in front of him he says. “Alright, after I show you how I cut up this full carrot, the rest will be for you. Your main goal is making them small cubes.”

After he finishes the carrot, he sets down the knife and lets Zhao take his place. Zhao moves a full carrot in front of himself and begins to dice it up. He is slower than Zhi, but his cuts are smooth and the pieces are of equal size to Zhi’s. It takes a little while, but he completes all of the carrots and cutoffs, turning them into small diced cubes. After he is done he begins to fill up the empty bin, while Zhi takes the useless bits and places them in the compost bin.

Once everything is cleaned up and the full bins are placed on the table, Zhi pats Zhao on the back and says. “Good job for your first time.” Turning he looks over at Yongzheng and says, “So what do you think? Will you mind me training the kid here?”

Looking over at the bins full of carrots, Yongzheng stays silent for a few moments before looking at Zhi and saying. “I have no complaints. You can train the boy here, but ask me before you start him on something new. I would also like to observe your teaching process.”

Zhi nods in reply, “I have no issue with that. I plan to have him start with this and cleaning dishes for a while before he learns anything else. What is his pay rate going to be?”

“One Iron Coin each day he works. When we begin to cook, we can see a pay increase. Till then we still have more vegetables that need to be prepared.” Yongzheng points to three crates that are stacked up on the table behind him. “Those all need to be prepared in the same way. I will leave you to it. Also one last thing, they will need to be done before noon. That is when we open for lunch.”

Yongzheng walks away to his office, while Zhi turns to look at Zhao and says, “Well you heard your boss, those all need to be done before noon. I will help you out only if you mess up or if it gets too close to the deadline and you aren’t close to finishing. But otherwise I want you to do it all.”

Zhi steps back and watches as Zhao gets to work with the first crate of vegetables, with a slight smile on his face.