I would have recognized the sauce as a mole.

At least, I think I would have.

And for most of the challenge, I really believed I was only using ingredients I could taste. The thing is, I can’t say that I wasn’t looking for certain flavors because I knew they were in there. Maybe I tried to taste cloves because I’d seen them on the list. There was no way to know for sure.

It doesn’t matter though because halfway through, I just gave up. Gave in?

Chef JJ came by my station. She was standing right behind me as I measured a teaspoon of salt over the saucepan. Then before I knew what happened, a blanket of salt covered the sauce.

“And that is why you don’t measure ingredients over your pan,” she said.

“Tick-tock.” Dieter tapped his kazoo on my clock.

I only had ten minutes left, and I was going to have to start from scratch.

I dumped the sauce, rinsed the pan, and ran back to the pantry. And this time when I went to grab the ingredients, I grabbed everything, not just what I’d tasted, but what I’d seen on that email, things I’d never have tasted, like the canela, the pasilla chiles, and the plantains. I never made a decision to cheat. I just did it and was moving so fast I didn’t even have time to think about it.

And then it was over.

I’d managed to finish in time, and I’d identified more ingredients than anybody else.

I won. Izzy was out. And Phoenix hurled cooking utensils across the set like the Swedish Chef from The Muppets, or like the Swedish Chef’s evil twin. I guess he thought the Cloning Contest was going to be his moment to shine. Skinny Jeans’s on-camera tantrum was guaranteed to make a hit teaser for the show. Millions of people were going to get to watch Phoenix lose it over and over again. For sure, there’d be a GIF too.

Skinny Jeans was a know-it-all whiner. That wasn’t on me. But I still felt bad, someone-holding-a-lit-match-to-my-tonsils bad.

I was at the elevators now. I pressed the button.

Cheater. It was all over the smudged face looking back at me from the elevator doors. How could anyone see me and not know? I tried out a few I-won! smiles, but they looked like someone was pulling strings on the sides of my mouth like some horror movie puppet. The rest of my face told the real story.

The elevator came, and I got on.

Then, just as the doors were closing, Keya rushed in, breathing hard, one of her Princess Leia rolls unraveling.

My stomach shot up into my chest as the elevator dropped.

“Congrats on your win! That was brilliant! I couldn’t taste the chocolate in there under all those chilis.”

Ping…Ping… Floors clicked by on the screen above the buttons.

“I’ve had mole before,” I said to the cheater in the elevator doors.

There was a screech of metal grinding against metal, and the elevator bumped to a stop. The little black window flashed a neon-blue 22.