Chapter 37 Chapter 37 Enjoying the Spring and Eating a Spring Plate

When the flowers of Bianjing bloom, the scenery is as beautiful as a splendid brocade. Business during the Flower Festival is even better than during the Spring Festival. Not only do women go out to enjoy the blossoms, but scholars also want to take advantage of the spring sunshine to go out and have fun. With only a few days left until the Flower Festival, people on the streets are already starting to wear bright and colorful clothes.

After enduring winter, as soon as the weather warmed up, everyone was eager to change into spring clothes. Even if they shivered from the cold morning and night, their love of beauty couldn't resist. On the street, men, women, young and old, all wore flowers in their hair. The rich and powerful, to distinguish themselves from the common people, would wear precious flowers in their hair.

Since business was good during the festival, Baozhu naturally did not want to miss this opportunity. She asked Baorong to tell her aunt that she would not go to the Flower Festival and had to concentrate on the work at hand. Not to mention going to Zhouqiao every day, she also planned to make cold spring dishes during the festival.

This cold food platter must not only taste good, but also be exquisite, and most importantly, it must have the breath of spring.

The cold spring dish is served in a bamboo food box, which is quite expensive to make, and each layer of food is made with fresh flowers as the base.

The food box is divided into five layers. The first layer holds cold cuts like lamb and Yunnan ham, along with meat dishes. The second layer holds spring rolls, stuffed with the freshest wild vegetables and wrapped in perilla leaves. The third layer holds sweet and savory rice dishes made with five-colored rice. Five-colored rice is dyed by soaking glutinous rice in different plants. Sweet dishes are dipped in sugar, while savory dishes are seasoned with shredded egg, pork floss, and sesame seeds. The fourth layer holds pastries like locust flower cakes, mugwort cakes, and green rice dumplings. The final layer features appetizing preserved fruits like candied bayberries, rose-marinated green plums, and osmanthus-flavored dried apricots.

The ingredients in this food box are mostly seasonal foods in spring.

Because this food box is large and contains a wide variety of food, if three or four people are traveling together, this food box is enough to fill their stomachs.

If this cold spring dish is put on the stall for sale, it will naturally not be easy to sell. After all, most of the people who come to the food stall are ordinary people. It is difficult for them to make a living, so why would they spend a lot of money to buy a food box for an outing?

Therefore, Baozhu first asked the students of the Imperial College if they wanted to order a cold spring dish for their outing. The students had plenty of money, so if the food was good, they would spend any amount of money.

For them, spring outings are a very elegant affair, and since they have to go out, the food they eat naturally has to be more exquisite. However, it is not easy to find both elegant and delicious food when going out of town to enjoy the spring.

Outside the city, there were often some grandmothers and aunties from nearby villages who cooked their own food and sold it. There were also cold dishes like this, just casually served in bowls and plates, which looked a bit crude. Ordinary people would buy it just to fill their stomachs, but these young people with some money rarely bought such coarse rural food.

They all thought the food at Baozhu's stall was delicious and clean. Just hearing Baozhu's brief description of the cold spring dish made their mouths water. Enjoying the beauty of spring while enjoying delicious food might inspire them to compose a few immortal poems. That's why they had set meal boxes every day until the Flower Festival.

Baozhu first worked with the students of the Imperial College to make a batch of bamboo lunch boxes.

There are many people going out for an outing to enjoy the spring. The students of the Imperial College only knew that the food at Baozhu's stall was good, so they ordered this cold spring plate for something new. Unexpectedly, this cold spring plate tasted quite delicious.

Not many people ordered the food at first, but once someone opened the lunch box and went out, it immediately attracted a lot of attention. First, students at the Imperial College told their classmates about it, and then the word spread. Not only those students, but even the daughters of wealthy families who went out to enjoy the spring, heard that Baozhu's cold spring dishes were delicious, and as time went by, more and more people ordered lunch boxes.

Baozhu never sold this cold spring dish at her stall; she only took custom orders. She didn't sell it ready-made; if you wanted to buy it, you had to place an order with her in advance and pay a deposit. The boxes were quite expensive to make; the carpenter's shop charged her two hundred and sixty coins for just one.

The ingredients inside are all expensive, except for the spring rolls and pastries which are homemade and don't cost much money or effort. The ham is bought by Xu's parents, not to mention the mutton. Even the wild vegetables are more expensive than ordinary vegetables.

If you make it and can’t sell it, the money you lose will be equal to half a day’s earnings.

Baozhu didn't expect that making reservations in advance would make people think that her cold spring dishes were expensive. People who made reservations spread the word, and the Zhen family food stall became more famous.

There were fewer street vendors these days; those who did had gone outside the city to set up shop, selling food and drink or things like pens, inkstones, and paper. This was because the streets outside the city were so crowded with people these days, the outings had smoothed the path.

Since she started selling the cold spring dish Baozhu, she has been getting up earlier during the day. Fortunately, her food stall is fixed, so even if she is a little late, she doesn't have to worry about someone else taking her spot.

Together with my eldest brother, I prepared the custom-made cold spring dishes, plated them and put them into lunch boxes, and then started pushing our carts to set up our stalls.

Baozhu's eyes were dark blue and black, which made Xu feel distressed. Since the last time, she had been asking the broker if there were any honest and reliable workers.

On the night before the Flower Festival, the broker brought a maid and Ms. Xu home.

Xu had examined it herself and, satisfied with it, brought it home for Baozhu to see. Although the woman was older, she was neatly dressed, her hair neatly bound in an indigo cloth. Baozhu examined her palms, finding their knuckles rough, suggesting she was used to hard labor.

The old woman was a talkative woman. Now the whole family lived in a rented house in a teahouse. Baozhu asked her name and where she had worked before. If so, she asked her to describe it briefly.

"If you don't mind, you can call me Aunt Cui. I used to work as a hired servant in a magistrate's household. My original contract was for three years, but it expired this year and they didn't renew it. They told the housekeeper's wife and she let me go."

"Now that we're out here, with over a dozen people in our family, we need to find another job if we want to survive. I used to work in the kitchen at the official's house, and when I heard that the young lady was looking for workers for her food stall, I thought I'd give it a try. I can do the usual tasks of cooking, cutting vegetables, and washing dishes. If the young ladies want to see, I can also cook a dish for you two to try."

This old woman looks like an honest and steady person, and she has some wisdom in her mind. She has mentioned her own strengths.

She didn't need to cook anything, but Baozhu was a little curious about why she left the official's house. She thought about it and asked out loud, "Aunt Cui, I wonder how long you've been working there? Why don't you continue working there?"

Aunt Cui sighed, "I used to work as a hired servant in that Guan Yu family. I had to stay at their house for food and shelter, and I couldn't take care of my family. So when my contract expired, I didn't renew it. I heard from Chen that the girl was looking for hired servants to do the work, but didn't want them to live in the house, so I came here to try."

Baozhu asked a few more questions, and when she saw that there was nothing wrong, she talked about the salary.

"Working at a food stall isn't easy. You have to get up early and work late, but I'll provide you with two meals a day. You don't have to live at home as a hired worker for my family. You can go home and rest at night after working during the day. As for wages, I'll pay you three strings of cash a month at the current market price, and you'll be allowed three days off each month. However, if you want to take time off, you need to discuss it with me in advance."

The old woman's eyes lit up and she nodded in satisfaction. Baozhu asked her to cook a bowl of vermicelli soup with the prepared ingredients. After tasting it, she felt that the taste was almost the same, and she knew that Aunt Cui was an experienced cook. Of course, she couldn't tell her how to make the soup base, but she had to learn how much duck offal and duck blood to put in this bowl of soup.

Both sides nodded in satisfaction. Baozhu finally found an experienced helper and was relieved. After going through it in her mind and finding nothing missing, she asked Aunt Cui,

"If possible, we can sign a one-year contract first. If both parties are able to get along, we can extend it to a longer term."

Seeing that both sides had reached an agreement, Chen Ya Ren took out three contracts. This contract stipulated a monthly salary of three strings of cash for one year, and he filled in the rest of the contents agreed upon by the two parties with pen.

Xu wanted to pay the middleman a fee, but Chen refused to accept it. "We are not related at all. It's just a small matter. Aunt Cui and I are also acquaintances. How can I ask you for money?"

The two sides argued for a long time, and Xu couldn't argue anymore, so she picked up some locust flower cakes from home, packed them in a box and asked her to take it away.

Baozhu found a suitable helper, but her eldest brother's situation was still uncertain, so she could only ask Liu Sige to continue helping at the stall.

Liu Sige worked tirelessly, feeling that he had grown a year older after the Lunar New Year and had become more mature in his dealings with others. If he couldn't find a suitable worker, he could hire him to help out at the stall. He would sign an employment agreement and pay him the same monthly salary as before.

Anyway, there are not many people ordering meals nowadays, so Brother Wang can run the business alone. If the two of them split the bill, the money they earn in a month will double what they did before. Besides, Wang Da is not good at talking, while Liu Si'er is smart, and each of them does what he is good at.

The carpenter's shop assistant had just delivered the food boxes for the Flower Festival that morning. Baozhu told Aunt Cui that she could start work tomorrow and would pay him half of his wages for the next half month, and asked him to come early the next morning. Aunt Cui agreed, and Baozhu told her to go home early to rest, as there would be a lot of work to do early tomorrow morning and she would have to work hard.

Prepare what can be made first, such as cakes and pastries. Anyway, the weather is not warm at this time, and the cakes will not go bad if left overnight. They will have a different flavor after cooling down.

Baorong is going to visit the garden outside the city with Aunt Zhen and Lady Yu tomorrow. Now he is helping Baozhu light the fire under the stove and accompanying her to finish making the pancakes. Then he goes back to rest, yawning.

Since this cold spring dish was not sold at a stall and the capital was paid by Baozhu's family, the eldest brother did not contribute to the cost. He originally wanted to give some silver to Baozhu, but when Baozhu saw that he was unwilling to share the profits, she did not accept the silver from him.

Although no money is charged, most of the food in the lunch box depends on the eldest brother. Take the ham, for example, the slices are as thin as cicada wings and arranged in various shapes, which Baozhu cannot do.