Chapter 27: Boiling Brine, Making Dace Cakes, and Rolling Up Seals
The end of the month is busy and every day goes by quickly. Around 8 p.m. on the 29th, Sister Zhou was washing dishes in the kitchen. Gu Qingqiu sat and rested for a while before going to the cashier to work on the computer.
The restaurant has been open for nearly twenty days, and its total revenue has reached 56,000 yuan. After deducting the costs of purchasing ingredients, water, electricity, kerosene, etc., the profit is quite considerable.
This is the money she earns after taking one day off each week. Of course, this doesn't include Zhou Jie's salary, nor does it include the labor costs of her as the boss and the chef.
Gu Qingqiu felt that she was supporting most of the restaurant by herself. If she weren't the boss, she would have to pay a very high monthly salary to make her work so hard cooking, otherwise the restaurant's profits would be minimal.
The boss isn't making any money, so why would he want to hire her? If he put her in the kitchen as a cook, he'd probably treat her like a donkey in a production team, making her swing pots and pans all day until closing time.
Laughing at her own wild thoughts, Gu Qingqiu shook her head with amusement, then used the mouse to save the April transaction records on her computer and sent a copy to her email as a backup.
Tomorrow, the 30th, is Tuesday, and the restaurant will be closed.
May has two statutory holidays for Labor Day, plus the weekend and a day off in lieu of a holiday, making it a five-day mini-holiday. The day off in lieu of a holiday was made up last Sunday, but it didn't affect the restaurant, Gu Qingqiu, or Sister Zhou much; they were all operating as usual.
The five-day Labor Day holiday in May is the peak season for some tourist destinations, and also a rare peak in traffic for restaurants and other shops. Gu Qingqiu plans to buy more ingredients and cook more dishes during this short holiday to earn money while improving her cultivation.
She opened an Excel spreadsheet, which showed that Zhou Jie was currently the only employee at the restaurant. The corresponding half-month salary for April was calculated to be 2250 yuan, and the social security and medical insurance for April had been paid in 1600 yuan, which needed to be deducted from the individual's contribution.
The social security and medical insurance deduction scheme she adopted was the same as that of most companies: the restaurant paid the employer's share for its employees, and the employees paid their own share, which Ms. Zhou was very willing to do.
Gu Qingqiu's own flexible employment medical insurance and social security contributions were also around the same price, and naturally neither of them contributed to the housing provident fund.
After calculating and annotating the wages, Gu Qingqiu saved the table and forwarded it to her WeChat account. Then, she went upstairs to her room and found a MeowMeow printer that she used to print out her mistakes in high school.
She found this while cleaning her room the night before last, and kept it because she found it still worked after charging it. There was also a small roll of printing paper in the printer.
This came in handy. After connecting her phone to the MeowMeow machine via Bluetooth, Gu Qingqiu printed out Sister Zhou's pay slip. The paper was a bit small, but the black text on it was clear enough to read without any problem.
She smiled with satisfaction, thinking that she still needed to buy a printer so that it would be more convenient to print her pay slips every month and to print other things herself.
With so much money earned, buying a printer that costs a few hundred yuan is nothing.
When Gu Qingqiu went downstairs, Sister Zhou was already cleaning the restaurant. The water in the floor cleaning bucket was filthy and black. She was mopping the floor. Gu Qingqiu found a chair, sat down, took out her phone, and opened her mobile banking app to transfer her salary to Sister Zhou's bank card.
When Sister Zhou first started working, she asked Sister Zhou to fill in her bank account number so that she could receive her salary, as well as some information needed for paying social security and medical insurance.
Mobile banking transfers are very convenient. For non-large amounts, there are no handling fees for card-to-card transfers within the same bank. Gu Qingqiu transferred the money after a few steps.
At the time, Sister Zhou told her that receiving salary through a bank card had another advantage: you could use any payment app to buy things if you had money in the card. For example, the restaurant owner used to transfer salaries directly via WeChat, and the money was always in WeChat. Sometimes, if you needed to withdraw the money for other purposes, you would have to pay a fee, which was very inconvenient.
Gu Qingqiu thought it made sense and naturally agreed to this small request.
Zhou Jie's phone pinged in her pants pocket. Gu Qingqiu knew it was a text message notification that money had been deposited into her account, but Zhou Jie didn't know that. She wasn't in a hurry to check her phone; she wanted to finish cleaning the restaurant first.
After she finished her work, Gu Qingqiu poured her a glass of water: "Sister Zhou, please sit down and rest for a while. You've worked hard."
"Thank you, boss, it's no trouble at all." Sister Zhou was sweating profusely from her busy work. She sat down, wiped her sweat with a tissue, and then drank some water, which instantly relieved her thirst.
The water was just the right temperature to drink, not too hot, and not too cold, which would be bad for your health. Feeling the boss's thoughtfulness, Sister Zhou was even happier.
Gu Qingqiu smiled and said, "Tomorrow is the last day of April, so you should take a good rest. I expect there will be a lot of customers in the store during the May Day holiday, and we will be even busier then."
Sister Zhou: "It's good if customers are busy. We're happy no matter how busy we are when the store is doing well. I'll rest well tomorrow and recharge so I can serve customers even more enthusiastically."
After working at Gu's Private Kitchen for half a month, Sister Zhou really loves this job. The workload isn't too heavy, and the boss is easy to talk to. Lunch and dinner are the happiest times of the day, and she can also take better care of her daughter.
She genuinely hoped the restaurant would do well and continue operating for a long time, so that she could continue running it for as long as possible.
Gu Qingqiu smiled and nodded: "Okay, I've already deposited this month's salary into your bank account. If you check it and it's correct, please sign this payslip so I can keep a record. Our restaurant isn't big, but it's always good to have a standardized process."
"Okay," Sister Zhou replied with delight, immediately pulling out her phone from her pocket to unlock and check the text messages. It turned out the text message notification sound was the sound of her salary arriving in her account.
After deducting her personal contributions to social security and medical insurance from the 2250 yuan, she was left with about 1800 yuan. However, she had only worked for half a month, and lunch and dinner were provided.
When Sister Zhou saw the amount deposited into her bank account as shown in the text message, her eyes welled up with tears of joy.
Today is only the 29th. Although it's said that tomorrow is a rest day, many bosses will delay paying wages as long as possible, and this is still the salary for the current month.
Sister Zhou said happily, "Thank you, boss, I've received my salary."
She picked up the pen on the table and signed her payslip. Seeing her name followed by her salary and the amount she had paid for social security and medical insurance, her smile widened.
Gu Qingqiu smiled and said, "You're welcome. You work hard, and customers have even praised your service. You deserve it. By the way, your probationary period is over, and you've successfully become a full-time employee of the restaurant. Starting in May, you'll receive a full attendance bonus of 300 yuan, which will be paid at the end of the month along with your salary if you haven't taken any leave."
This was the first time Sister Zhou had ever heard of a restaurant worker receiving a full attendance bonus. She was used to working every day without ever receiving a word of praise, and taking leave would result in a deduction of wages based on the number of days.
Regardless, it was a raise of 300 yuan, and she nodded happily: "Okay, boss, I will definitely work hard."
"Okay, that's settled then. You should rest for a bit and go home early, Fangfang is waiting for you at home," Gu Qingqiu said.
Sister Zhou smiled and agreed. After she cooled down a bit, she said goodbye to the owner and left, her steps light and brisk as she walked out of the restaurant.
Seeing how happy she was, Gu Qingqiu was happy too. She had earned quite a bit this month, more than four or five months' salary when she worked at the magazine.
She hummed a catchy song she'd heard on her phone at noon, closed and locked the restaurant's wooden door, shut all the windows, turned off the air conditioner and fan, and turned off the lights. She then went upstairs by the light of her flashlight.
The air conditioning in the room had been on for a while. Gu Qingqiu grabbed a change of pajamas, took a shower, and then lay on the bed, engrossed in playing on her phone. Tomorrow was her day off; she didn't need to think about anything, she could just play until she was exhausted and then go to sleep.
The next morning, Gu Qingqiu didn't wake up until eight o'clock.
The early summer sun was already close to the window, but it was blocked by the pink blackout curtains, and with the air conditioning on full blast, it was still as cool as at night.
Gu Qingqiu picked up the remote control and turned off the air conditioner. After a moment, she sat up.
The air conditioning was still on, so there was no need to open the window immediately. She could enjoy it a little longer. Remembering the food videos she had watched last night and her own plans, she picked up her phone and called Boss Zhu.
"Hey, Mr. Gu, aren't you off today?" Mr. Zhu now knew her restaurant's opening hours perfectly; it was always closed on Tuesdays. If she wanted to order pork, she would have called long ago.
Gu Qingqiu said, "Hello, Mr. Zhu, I'm off today. I wanted to ask if you have any good pig's feet left? I need the kind with the trotters still attached. I'll take about twenty pounds."
To most people, there is no difference between pig's feet and pig's trotters, but in Jiang City, the part of a pig's lower leg excluding the trotters is traditionally called pig's feet.
For braised pig's feet, the trotter part is sometimes called "four-point gold" in some places. The meat is firm and chewy, and it can be said to be the essence of the pig's feet. It is also the most expensive part in many pig's feet shops.
Upon hearing this, Boss Zhu smiled happily and said, "Yes, I just slaughtered three pigs today to sell. I've already sold some pig's feet, so I have about fifteen catties left. If you don't mind, Boss Gu, my brother sells pork at the Hengtai Market nearby. We both get our pork from the same slaughterhouse, so the quality is guaranteed to be the same. Can I get five catties of pig's feet from him? I promise you can have all the pig's trotters."
Gu Qingqiu replied, "Sure, Boss Zhu, I trust you to get things done. If you say the meat quality is guaranteed to be the same, then it's definitely not a problem. Also, could you send me another ten catties of hind leg meat, five catties of pig skin, and two pork bones? Is that alright?"
Even over the phone, you could feel Boss Zhu grinning from ear to ear: "Sure, of course. I'll pick the best for you and send it over. For the pork skin, I'll choose the skin from the pig's back, that's the fattiest part. Once my brother brings over five catties of pork, I'll have my son deliver all the meat to your restaurant."
"Okay, no problem, thank you very much, Boss Zhu," Gu Qingqiu said.
Boss Zhu: "You're welcome. I should thank Boss Gu for taking such good care of my business."
After hanging up the phone, Gu Qingqiu called the beef stall owner again to ask him to send over ten catties of beef shank. Then she found a number she had never called before and contacted the noodle stall owner whose food was very authentic to order twelve catties of noodles and one catty of rice noodles to be delivered the next morning.
The twelve jin of noodles are for cooking in the shop, and the jin of rice noodles are for personal consumption.
After ordering all the available ingredients, Gu Qingqiu got up, drew back the curtains, and opened the window, letting the sunlight stream into the room.
She went out of her room to wash up, made herself a simple breakfast, watered the mint, changed her clothes, and went downstairs to sit.
After the pork and beef shank I ordered were delivered, I paid for them and put them in the freezer. Then I changed my shoes, grabbed my shopping cart, and headed out.
Gu Qingqiu had originally planned to rest well today, but a sudden urge she had last night forced her to go out and buy groceries first.
Foods like braised pig's feet and braised beef shank need to be braised a day in advance to ensure they are flavorful and delicious. Just making the braising liquid takes a lot of time.
When her grandfather was young, he obtained a braising liquid recipe. The braised pork trotters, chicken, duck, beef, and even vegetables he made were all delicious. When he opened Gu's Private Kitchen, in addition to his own cooking skills, he also benefited from this braising liquid recipe.
Later, her parents took over the restaurant business. Although their cooking skills were average and the food they made was just average, the meat dishes they made with this braising liquid were exceptional, and they maintained a considerable amount of business by relying on these braised meat dishes.
Braised meat and vegetables once became the signature dish of Gu's private kitchen.
Grandpa passed the braising liquid recipe to my parents. Although I will not take over the restaurant after studying Chinese literature, Gu Qingqiu still knows the family's braising liquid recipe. She has also watched my parents make braising liquid many times. From frying the oil, making the broth, and preparing the sauce to actually making the braising liquid and starting to braise meat and vegetables, she still remembers every step.
After arriving in the cultivation world, once she had gathered most of the ingredients for the braising liquid, the spirit beast meat and even the spirit vegetables she braised in the braising liquid were so fragrant that they could be smelled for miles around, attracting countless cultivators who came by the aroma.
The once aloof and detached cultivator transformed into a glutton, devouring braised meat and dishes with unrestrained speed and gusto. After finishing one, he would order another, and the braised meat and dishes made by Gu Qingqiu quickly sold out.
That incident boosted the restaurant's business to its peak, thus solidifying her position in the restaurant's kitchen. No one dared to look down on her anymore because the meat dishes she made only had a tiny bit of spiritual energy. Even the manager spoke to her kindly.
What's even funnier is that she gradually earned the nickname "useless spiritual chef," with people saying that although the meat dishes she made only had a tiny bit of spiritual power, they were really delicious and irresistible.
In the two weeks since the store opened, Gu's Private Kitchen's meat dishes have been very popular with customers. Some elderly people from Suli Street have also asked, "Xiao Qiu, when are you going to make your signature dish? I remember your braised dishes used to be the best."
Gu Qingqiu would always smile and say that she would definitely do it when she had time.
Making braised dishes is a bit of a hassle, so she prefers to cook dishes fresh daily. But last night, while scrolling through her phone, she saw a picture of glistening, tender, and flavorful braised pork knuckle rice and suddenly got hungry. She thought she should come up with some impressive dishes to attract customers during the May Day holiday.
This is a great opportunity to enhance the restaurant's reputation, make a lot of money, and improve her skills, so she plans to braise pig's feet, beef shank, and vegetables.
When Gu Qingqiu arrived at the market, she first bought two cleaned old hens, then a pound of shrimp and a pound of cabbage to cook for herself that day.
Passing by a fish stall, I saw that the fish looked quite fresh today. Suddenly, I remembered the delicious fish cakes. I turned around and poured some braising sauce over them, and they tasted especially delicious. So I stopped and bought twelve catties of mud carp.
Making fish cakes was too complicated, so she asked the fish stall owner to help her remove the skin, bones, and internal organs.
One advantage of the vegetable market in Jiang City is that the stall owners are willing to work. They can help you cut pork into slices, and they can even cut a one-yuan winter melon for you. At the fish stalls, they can easily help you remove the skin, bones, and internal organs, let alone the large amount that Gu Qingqiu bought.
After paying and waiting for a while, Gu Qingqiu put a large bag of prepared fish into the shopping cart. She then bought some scallions, ginger, garlic, and cilantro. She specifically bought dried scallions and green onions. Afterward, she went to the grocery store and bought large pieces of dried tofu skin.
She wandered around the market and asked at several stalls before finally buying dried flounder.
After leaving the market, Gu Qingqiu saw that it was already past ten o'clock, so she went to the pharmacy to buy ingredients for braising liquid.
She could just buy common ingredients like star anise, sand ginger, bay leaves, cinnamon, and Sichuan peppercorns directly. For the rest, such as cardamom, white cardamom, vanilla seeds, nutmeg, cloves, gardenia, and monk fruit, Gu Qingqiu went to two or three pharmacies to buy them.
It was almost eleven o'clock when Gu Qingqiu returned to the restaurant. She put the ingredients and spices she had bought in the kitchen, sat and rested for a while in the dining area, and then went into the kitchen to get busy.
She's full of energy now and plans to start by making the braising liquid.
After sorting through the various spices purchased from the branch store, Gu Qingqiu used a small kitchen scale to accurately weigh out the corresponding gram amounts of spices according to the proportions. She then took a small basin filled with water and brought it over to the stove, putting the weighed spices in to soak first, which would remove the bitterness of the spices.
She washed the scallions, cilantro, dried vegetables, and garlic, then took two large basins and put the twenty pounds of pig's feet into them, adding scallion and ginger water to soak them.
As soon as the stove was lit, Gu Qingqiu poured peanut oil into the pot, and then scooped in two ladles of lard that had been rendered a few days ago. The two oils mixed together and instantly released a more layered aroma.
She put in a handful of scallions, cilantro, dried vegetables, and garlic, and fried them until fragrant. Only this kind of oil can make delicious braising liquid.
Once the scallions were fried until golden brown and fragrant, Gu Qingqiu scooped them out and put them into a muslin bag for soup, while the oil was poured out and left to cool.
Next, we started processing the two old hens. After cleaning them and removing their internal organs, we chopped the pork bones into smaller pieces, washed the pork skin, and put them all into a large pot to blanch.
She took out a large pot that her parents used to use to cook braising liquid. After washing it clean, she also blanched the ingredients on the stove and scooped them all out and transferred them to the large pot.
In the broth, old hen, pork bones, and pork skin can enhance the aroma, freshness, and collagen content, while galangal and dried flounder are indispensable spices. Gu Qingqiu put all these ingredients into the pot and simmered them over high heat.
In the meantime, she took scissors and started processing the shrimp. She cut off the shrimp heads at an angle, squeezed out the internal organs and removed the shrimp veins, cut off the shrimp legs and tails, and peeled off the shrimp shells as well. She chopped some scallions, ginger and garlic and was ready to stir-fry garlic shrimp. After that, she also stir-fried some cabbage with pork lard.
There was some rice left over from last night; it can be heated up and eaten.
The restaurant usually uses up all the ingredients it buys, but sometimes the rice sells out early, and sometimes there's a bowl or two left.
Gu Qingqiu's principle is to serve customers fresh rice. As for herself, she can eat whatever she wants. Rice that has been refrigerated can still taste the same when heated up. She can't afford to waste it.
After heating up a bowl or so of rice taken from the refrigerator in the rice cooker, Gu Qingqiu, seeing that it was still early, sat down in the dining area to rest for a while and browsed her phone.
She opened her WeChat Moments and saw a video posted by Sister Zhou. It turned out that she had taken a day off today and went to the suburbs to pick mangoes with her friends.
Gu Qingqiu scrolled through her WeChat Moments to the spot she had seen last night, then exited WeChat. Seeing that half an hour had passed, she went into the kitchen.
She opened the lid of the large pot, and the ingredients inside had been emulsified, resulting in a rich broth.
Adjust the heat to a simmer; the broth alone will take about five hours to cook.
Take the soaked pig's feet out and blanch them twice in another pot to remove as much of the pig's odor as possible. Then set them aside for the afternoon to make a sauce and continue cooking the braising liquid.
Gu Qingqiu checked the time on her phone and set an alarm for five hours later. She put a bowl of heated rice on top of the plate of garlic-fried shrimp, then took a plate of stir-fried cabbage and went to the dining room for lunch.
After lunch, Gu Qingqiu washed the dishes and took a nap. After waking up, she drank a glass of water and went downstairs to the kitchen to get busy.
She took out ten pounds of pork hind leg meat and twelve pounds of dace from the freezer and placed them by the stove, intending to process the dace first.
Gu Qingqiu took a kitchen knife, scooped out a mud carp and placed it on the cutting board. She used the knife to gently scrape large pieces of fish meat, creating fine fish paste.
She has excellent knife skills and is quick at doing this kind of meticulous work. After scraping a large piece of fish meat down to a thin layer, she flipped the fish over and continued scraping the other side.
After processing one fish, a new mud carp is taken out and scraped to continue, and slowly the scraped fish paste fills the large basin.
After Gu Qingqiu finished processing all the mud carp, she poured all the mud carp meat onto the cutting board, chopped it finer with a cleaver, then scooped it back into the bowl, added various seasonings, and then beat it until it became firm.
This is also a bit of a laborious task. After the fish paste is pounded until it becomes sticky, she adds a little starch and mixes it evenly so that it will be easier to shape later.
Gu Qingqiu took out the long strip of steaming paper she had bought, scooped out the fish paste, squeezed it into a ball, and then kneaded it into a rectangular strip. Since the edges were a little irregular, she gently pushed them inward with the flat side of a kitchen knife, finally making a rectangular fish cake about 15 centimeters long.
Pour water into a pot, place the six mud carp cakes on a steaming tray into the pot, cover and start steaming.
After tidying up the stove a bit, Gu Qingqiu checked her phone to note the time and began processing ten pounds of pork leg meat.
The hind leg meat is beautiful. Boss Zhu is a generous and good businessman. Even though she didn't choose it herself, the pork she sent over was all good quality, with three parts fat and seven parts lean, which is perfect for making rolls.
After washing and cutting the ten pounds of hind leg meat into chunks, then slicing each chunk, Gu Qingqiu chopped it into minced meat with a swift and rhythmic motion. The sound of the sharp knife striking the pork was melodious, becoming a rare melody in the busy kitchen.
During this time, Gu Qingqiu opened the pot lid and used tongs to take out the steamed fish cakes and put them on a clean plate to cool.
After steaming, the fish cakes are white with a hint of yellow. Because they are well shaped, the surface is very smooth and there are no air bubbles. They smell of fresh and sweet fish meat.
She placed the remaining seven fish cakes on a steaming plate, covered the pot, and continued steaming. She also continued chopping pork leg meat.
Ten pounds of pork leg meat was minced and filled a large bowl. It was seasoned, a little flour was added, and the meat was kneaded until it became sticky. This step was completed when the minced meat became a large, slightly sticky mass.
She took out the dozen or so tofu skin rolls she had bought, laid them flat on a dry cutting board, scooped up enough minced meat and spread it on the side of the tofu skin roll closest to her, and then used a cleaver to shape it into a rectangle the same length as the tofu skin roll.
Then Gu Qingqiu held the two sides of the tofu skin roll with both hands and rolled it forward along the shape of the minced meat. During the rolling process, she would occasionally pinch the rolled minced meat tightly. Slowly, the rectangular minced meat turned into a cylindrical shape. After the tofu skin roll completely wrapped the minced meat and wrapped it twice, a roll was made.
The roll of tofu skin was also pinched tightly on both sides to seal it, so that the minced meat would not leak out later.
She rolled the minced meat quite quickly, without even needing to buy bamboo slips to fix the shape of the minced meat like others did when making rolls.
Soon the minced meat in the basin decreased, and a new large plate was filled with rolls of meat. In the end, a total of sixteen rolls were made.
The pot used to steam the dace cakes had been turned off long ago, and the lid was left open to let the seven steamed dace cakes cool down.
Gu Qingqiu then took out all seven fish cakes and placed them together with the six that had been steamed earlier. She took out the steaming plate and set it aside to be washed later. She poured out the water in the pot and put it back on the stove to dry the water in the pot.
After the iron wok had dried completely, Gu Qingqiu poured in half a wok of oil, then slid the prepared rolls one by one into the wok. After adding five rolls, the bubbling oil just covered the rolls, and the wok was already a little full and couldn't hold any more.
The oil sizzled in the pan, and the high-efficiency range hood was constantly working to suck away the fumes and heat.
Observing that the outer skin of the rolls in the pot had turned slightly yellow and set, Gu Qingqiu gently pushed them with a spatula to ensure that each roll was heated evenly on each side.
Frying tofu skin rolls is undoubtedly a patient task. You have to stand in front of the stove and gently push them with a spatula from time to time to prevent them from burning. The best way to fry them is when the outer skin turns a dark soybean color and wrinkles slightly with nice patterns, while the minced meat inside is cooked through but not too dry, and it is still tender and juicy.
She carefully controlled the heat, and only when all the rolled fritters in the pot turned a deep yellow color did she use chopsticks and a slotted spoon to scoop them out, drain the oil, and place them on a new plate. Then she slid four fresh rolled fritters back in and continued frying.
Another half hour passed after all that fuss, and the kitchen was filled with the aroma of slightly charred meat, which smelled very tempting.
Gu Qingqiu barely managed to restrain herself, deciding to make some for dinner later to try first. She glanced at the time and noticed the large pot of broth had been simmering for half an hour; she decided to start making a sweet soy sauce for the braising liquid.
This sweet soy sauce can be said to be the soul of the braising liquid. She had seen her parents make it countless times, and from last night to today she kept recalling it. Now she prepared chicken powder, MSG, dark soy sauce, salt and some secret seasonings, and mixed them according to the proportions to make a savory and sweet soy sauce.
She scooped out the bone fragments from the large pot, which were the pork bones, old hen, dried flounder, pork skin, and galangal from before. Then she added various spices wrapped in a fine gauze bag, poured in the previously fried braising oil and freshly prepared sweet soy sauce, and continued to cook for 30 minutes to allow the braising liquid to fully absorb the aroma of the spices.
After finishing her work, Gu Qingqiu went out to sit and rest for a while. She looked at her phone for a bit and vaguely heard someone calling her, followed by the sound of knocking on the wooden door.
She stood up and opened the wooden door, and exclaimed with delight upon seeing the person who had come, "Grandma Lin, what brings you here?"
Grandma Lin carried a large bag of things: "Xiao Qiu, I knew you were off today, and a relative happened to bring over some peanuts they grew themselves. I was thinking of bringing some over for you to eat, or you could cook them and sell them. These peanuts have all been sun-dried and roasted, they smell really good, don't mind them."
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