For others, the rice food shop had only been closed for half a month, but for Xu Milu, it had been more than three months since she last opened.
Taking advantage of the lively atmosphere of winter vacation and the lingering cold of winter, Xu Milu plans to continue hosting a radish feast using the giant, delicious radishes she has stored, and also to practice her knife skills.
In Cui Shengguo's words, Xu Milu was born to be a chef. Since ancient times, being a chef has been hard work. All day long, you have to flip the wok and chop vegetables. After going around the kitchen, there are not many fat people.
"You're strong enough and smart enough to know to forge yourself a handy knife, but you just don't have enough control over the force. You know, you need to have a lot of skill in handling food!"
Cui Shengguo slowly slurped up a mouthful of spicy edamame, and moved the chess piece in his hand one step forward.
Opposite him sat Old Man Liu, also sitting on a small stool. To his right was Grandpa Jiang, who had come over to join in the fun out of boredom. With nothing else to do, the three old men simply started chatting in the back kitchen alley.
Cui Shengguo was incredibly multitasking, instructing Xu Milu, playing chess with Old Liu, and even slapping away Grandpa Jiang's hand as he tried to steal some braised food.
"Go away, go away! My apprentice gave me this as a gift, and you, you lousy chess player, ate it all by yourself. At least leave me some!"
"What are you saying? If I had an apprentice like that, would I be fighting with you for food? You don't know, yesterday my husband brought home a pot of braising broth, and my son ate it all with rice. It was so delicious."
Grandpa Jiang adjusted his glasses, smacked his lips, and savored the moment:
"Alright, alright, you're just showing off to me that you have a good apprentice! Old Liu has a good granddaughter too. At worst, I'll let you take back your move next round, okay?"
Choi Seung-guk finally beamed with joy: "That's exactly what I was waiting for!"
He pushed the plate of braised food next to him forward, and while glancing at Xu Milu who was chopping celery, he called out loudly:
"Yes, yes, right now, the force you're using is too hard. You need to soften it. You need to be able to be hard when you need to be hard, and soft when you need to be soft. That's the best way—"
"Understood, Master."
Xu Milu stared at the cutting board, concentrating on pressing down on her wrist and controlling the force.
These past few days, whenever she had free time, she would practice the strength in her hands according to the method Cui Shengguo had taught her.
There are two methods. One is to use the back of a knife to pound the tofu. Practice until you can slowly pound it with your wrist, and the outer skin of the tofu will not break apart, but the inside will be completely crushed.
Another technique she's practicing now involves placing two chopsticks on a cutting board, with a row of raw celery between them, and a hard-boiled egg on top of the celery. She then presses the tip of a knife against the egg and quickly slides it down the shell. Once she can practice until the celery breaks but the egg doesn't, she can replace the hard-boiled egg with a raw one.
"Click".
Xu Milu twisted her wrist, and the eggshell broke again. Without even blinking, she peeled off the eggshell and swallowed it in one gulp, then continued to take an egg from the pot on the side to practice.
Li Ning, watching from the side, had a ferocious expression on his face.
"That's how my master trained me. So you learned this move from your grandmaster?"
He bared his teeth, looking somewhat uneasy.
"Little aunt, why don't we take a break? You've eaten fifteen eggs this morning. Even if you're not full, aren't you going to choke? Come on, have some water. I'll cook you a dish later."
To motivate herself, Xu Milu only used boiled white eggs. How delicious can raw eggs be?
After eating fifteen eggs in one go, Xu Milu felt a bit overwhelmed, but she still shook her head.
"You don't understand. This is called pressure creating motivation. I was thinking that if I didn't eat too many boiled eggs, my hands would be lighter subconsciously, right? It's okay. By the way, did you post the video you filmed a few days ago?"
Li Ning perked up at the mention of this and quickly made a gesture:
"Five million views! Five million views in just one night! And in the last few days, the views have been climbing like crazy. My private messages are flooded with people asking me to buy grapes for them."
He eagerly handed over the water bottle, his face full of ingratiation:
"Little Aunt, I heard from Grandpa Liu that you've brought in another batch of new ingredients from the Red Rice Research Institute? Can you take me with you when you go to pick up the goods in a couple of days?"
Xu Milu took the water bottle, took a sip, raised her eyebrows, and asked, "You keep calling me Grandpa Liu, did my grandpa even tell you this? What else did he tell you?"
"I didn't say anything, just that you have a good relationship with Ren Honghe and that most of the ingredients you use are air-freighted from the Honghe Research Institute. Don't worry, Junior Aunt, I definitely didn't tell anyone else."
Li Ning, cutting radish chunks in his hand, confidently declared:
"I just wanted to learn something from you, Junior Aunt! You don't know, the Honghe Research Institute was trending on Weibo for a whole day the other day. It seems they're going to switch to selling ingredients. They even put pictures on their website, saying it's some kind of giant delicious mushroom, part of their 'super fruits and vegetables' series."
Giant, delicious mushrooms have passed quality inspection and are now on sale?
Xu Milu was slightly surprised, but her expression remained unchanged.
She hadn't expected Zhang Cang to be so efficient; he had gotten everything done in less than a week, which suggested there might be official involvement behind the scenes.
It's so easy to cling to the official's coattails.
She couldn't help but blink.
Just then, Xiao Tao handed in the customer's order. Li Ning took it, grabbed a cleaver, and started chopping radishes, his face full of curiosity.
"Little Martial Aunt, do you think that super mushroom might be as big as a super radish? It's understandable for a radish to grow that big, but how big can a mushroom be? I saw some mushrooms that herb gatherers brought back from the mountains in Yunnan before, and the biggest one was only about the size of a bull's head. The Honghe Research Institute doesn't release any pictures, they're just teasing us!"
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