Chapter 213 Pie in the sky
"No wonder. I feel that the food nowadays is not as delicious as when I was a kid. The vegetables and meat don't taste as good as before. I thought it was because my material conditions are better now and I've become picky about food."
Zhao Xiaojing pursed her lips helplessly. "What about farmers who don't grow vegetables in greenhouses or engage in industrial planting?"
“Those farmers do have some, but most of them grow it for their own consumption. It’s difficult to earn money to support the family by farming.
After all, the vegetables grown with farmyard manure are seasonal. When they mature and are put on the market, the same vegetables grown with chemical fertilizers from other places will also be put on the market in large quantities. How can the vegetables grown with farmyard manure compete with the low yield and unattractive appearance? There is no profit to be made, and the prices cannot be sold at a high enough level.
So, those who apply organic fertilizer generally grow it for their own consumption. If they can't finish it themselves, they give it to friends and family. They rarely sell it, because they can't get much money from it, and they have to go back and forth." Su Yuchen leaned back in the chair and gave Zhao Xiaojing a sympathetic look.
"If you want, I'll ask my mom to send me the dried radish they have. I'm not sure if the taste will be any worse if I send it to you, and whether it will achieve the effect you want."
"I'll look for it first. I left the phone number of the grandmother who sells radishes. It seems that she grows her own land. I'll call her tomorrow to ask. If it doesn't work, I'll trouble you again.
As for sesame oil, can I buy sesame seeds from here and ask an oil mill to press them?" Zhao Xiaojing thought for a moment and asked.
"That oil is definitely not as fragrant as the one squeezed in the village." Su Yuchen spoke in a low voice, with his eyes drooping and his hands tangled in his hair. He lay on the chair and looked listless.
"What's the matter? You're so listless after making a phone call?" Zhao Xiaojing sat closer and tilted her head to look at Su Yuchen's expression.
Everything was fine before they took a shower. They were happily discussing the bonus issue. How could the phone call cause such great mental damage?
Su Yuchen fiercely yanked off a split end of her hair and sighed. "My mom asked me why I kept asking about cooking. I told her you had a restaurant and it was doing really well, and I bragged about it. But then she said it wasn't stable and told me to get a proper job."
I originally wanted to test her reaction and let her accept this matter. When she really thought this was a good idea, I would tell her that the store was opened by her together.
I told her that you could make a net profit of more than 100,000 yuan a month after deducting employee salaries, but she denied it right away, saying that there's no such thing as a free lunch.
She thought we were young and fooling around, and said she wanted to advise you not to take shortcuts and to be down-to-earth.
My mother's thinking hasn't changed in all these years."
Su Yuchen spoke in a muffled voice, imitating her mother's tone, and then began to pull at the split ends of her hair.
"That's a normal thought. She's never been to our shop, nor has she tasted my cooking, so naturally she wouldn't believe that a girl who, in her eyes, has just entered society, can earn 100,000 yuan a month by opening a shop. Furthermore, this girl repeatedly asked her how to cook the dishes.
Of course she would think that we don't have that ability and that we made the money by taking shortcuts.
And since this is the first time you've told her about this, it's reasonable for her to react this way. Just take it slow."
Zhao Xiaojing patted Su Yuchen's shoulder gently and comforted him softly.
“Besides, people are stubborn. It’s hard to change our own ideas, let alone our parents who have lived 20 or 30 years longer than us.
They cannot change us, so we should not try to change them. We should learn to live in peace with them, do what we should do, and walk the path we like.
After all, the emperor is far away, and she can only say a few words, but the actual path is still chosen by us, right? "
"Hey, you have a point. Keep trying. I'm going to take a shower."
Su Yuchen nodded, took a deep breath, and stood up from the chair with a slightly relieved expression.
Zhao Xiaojing watched her tidy up for a while, then gradually sank into her own thoughts.
Making shredded dried radish is actually quite simple. After drying, the flavor of dried radish has largely disappeared. Aside from the crispy texture from drying, the rest of the flavor is brought out by seasoning. Recipes like spicy dried radish, sour and crispy dried radish, and braised radish with meat are all simple.
But what Chen Huiping wanted to eat was something without any seasoning, just a simple salty and fragrant taste. Often the simplest dishes are the hardest to make. Zhao Xiaojing was afraid that adding oil would make the taste too strong.
In this case, one can only pursue the aroma of sesame oil and the dry fragrance of radish itself, but these two are difficult to achieve in Jiangcheng.
Although making dried radish for Chen Huiping had nothing to do with the mission, and even if it wasn't perfect, Chen Huiping wouldn't mind, given her personality. But having already made something Wang Jiandang wanted twice, she naturally had to put her heart into making something Chen Huiping wanted. Otherwise, it would feel like favoritism, as if their relationship was just a mission.
But when it comes to the task, I felt completely clueless at first, but once I actually did it, I found it wasn't as difficult as I imagined.
By now, she already knew that Wang Jiandang liked pasta, wild vegetables, and vinegar. His taste was quite broad and he was not difficult to please.
Even if you cook a few more kinds of wild vegetables, the task can always be completed.
Although there are not as many wild vegetables in this season as in spring, there are still some. After a little thought, Zhao Xiaojing had an idea in her mind.
Early the next morning, Zhao Xiaojing bought ten kilograms of spicy vegetables from the vegetable market.
Spicy cabbage is a very common wild vegetable in autumn and winter. Now is the time to eat it. Many people use it to pickle sauerkraut, but Zhao Xiaojing prefers to eat it fresh.
It just so happened that it was now on the market in large quantities, so after Zhao Xiaojing returned to the store, she directly added a dish of stir-fried minced meat with seasonal spicy vegetables to the end of the whiteboard menu.
"How is it? Is grandma here today?" When Su Yuchen saw Zhao Xiaojing coming back, he brought out rice porridge, steamed dumplings in the steamer, pickled radish, and salted duck eggs one by one.
The salted duck eggs had been sealed for half a month and seemed to have just absorbed the flavor. However, Zhao Xiaojing was not sure how to make them since it was her first time, so she asked Su Yuchen to boil two first to taste them, so that she could know how long to marinate the rest.
The soup dumplings were leftovers from yesterday's batch. Everyone loved them, but by mid-afternoon, lunch hadn't even been digested yet. After only five baskets, they couldn't eat any more, and everyone was burping from the fullness. Finally, some were shared with Wang Jiandang and Chen Huiping, and some were frozen in the refrigerator for the two of them to have for breakfast.
"She wasn't here today, so I called her and asked. She didn't grow any green radishes, but her neighbor did," Zhao Xiaojing said, unable to resist laughing. "That grandma is quite energetic. She yelled, asking how many green radishes her neighbor had. She yelled back, telling her to pick them herself if she wanted some."
I didn't know where they were, but the two of them shouted at the top of their lungs for a long time to explain the situation. Then I realized that someone next door wanted to buy it. They said they could spare ten pounds and asked when I would need it. They said they would sell it to me for 1.5 yuan per pound and I would take it out now.
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