Chapter 312 Wedding (Part 1)
There are three tables in the restaurant, with Cantonese cuisine, Jiangsu and Zhejiang cuisine, and Northwestern cuisine serving three different dishes.
After pouring the drinks, Qiao Qiming patted Yue Baohua on the shoulder and said, "Baohua, let's toast to our relatives and friends from the northwest."
The two grandfathers came over, and Yue Baohua raised his glass: "Everyone has taken care of Zhirong and Ningning, I am here to thank you all."
Qiao Qiming: "Without everyone's care, Ningning's life in the northwest would have been even more difficult."
Yang Fugen knew that Yue Ning's husband's grandfather was a guest of a senior leader. He heard this from the county and city leaders.
Yang Fugen waved his hands again and again: "No, no! We are all poor, and being able to give us an egg and a few potatoes is already a great thing. Lao Mo and Xiao Yue would rather suffer a loss than take advantage of others. They shared the things sent from Shanghai and Yuecheng with us. On the contrary, after Ningning came out, she built roads, schools, and water cellars for our village, paid tuition for the children, and gave money to the elderly every year. Those who were unwilling to take care of the old ladies in the past now take good care of them, hoping that they can live a few more years and get more money."
"Giving a few eggs and potatoes are good things you can give. She does these for the village because she has the ability to do it," said Yue Baohua.
"Yes! Everyone is doing what they can do. From the heart, it's the same." Qiao Qiming also said, "Let's drink."
Everyone clinked glasses with the two old men.
After drinking, Yang Fugen sat down and looked at the soup on the table: "Is this the fish soup?"
"Yes, Ningning and her grandchildren's signature fish soup." Mo Weiwen poured a bowl for Yang Fugen.
Zhuang Baoru also poured a bowl for He Hua: "Sister, try it. Many people come from far away to eat this soup made by Ning Ning and Uncle Hua."
Lu Chunmei pointed to the small dish of chili peppers with salt and oil in front of each person and said, "Lotus, add salt and chili peppers. People here don't like food very much."
"This is the taste." Yang Fugen added salt, oil and chili peppers, stirred it, and took a sip. "This is the taste."
"It's delicious, delicious." said Lotus.
"Hehua, let's eat some lobster meat." Lu Chunmei passed the stir-fried lobster with green onion and ginger to Hehua.
"What is this?" He Hua had lived inland for decades and had never seen such a thing.
"The meat of the big shrimps in the sea is very delicious." After a few years, Lu Chunmei has become knowledgeable.
Lotus picked up a piece and put it in her mouth. The meat was tender and sweet, but a little bland.
"Girl, this may be more to your taste." Zhuang Baoru picked up a piece of crab meat for Hehua and scooped a spoonful of the sauce of spicy fried crab.
Lotus tasted it and said: "Sister-in-law, this is delicious."
After she had eaten the crab, she saw Jiasha coming over and said to Zhuang Baoru, "Sister-in-law, try this. We eat this during the New Year."
"You can eat it too. Our Lao Mo will also cook it for us when he gets home, but we use pork at home."
"This is beef." Lotus took a bite, "But we are in the northwest, so we can't bear to put so much meat in it. It's full of potatoes."
Lu Chunmei couldn't help but complain: "Sister-in-law, we asked you to come out so that you could have meat to eat, but you didn't want to."
He Hua looked at Yang Fugen, "He said that if they all came out, there would be no one to take care of Xiaoyanggou. He didn't want to come out, so I stayed at home with him. It was nothing! But Danier was admitted to Lanzhou University with great difficulty. She was the first university student in Xiaoyanggou. As soon as his daughter came home, he told her to stay in the northwest after graduation. He said that all the educated people in our place had left, and we would be even poorer in the future."
Yang Fugen glared at his wife and said, "Does what I said make no sense?"
"What major is your child studying?" Mo Weiwen picked up a piece of mutton and handed it to Yang Fugen.
"Bridge and road construction. I told her that the Northwest is poor because there are no roads. You have to go through so many twists and turns to get out of Xiaoyanggou. You learn this and build roads for your hometown in the future." Yang Fugen took a bite of mutton and put down his chopsticks. "Just tell me, this mutton is not as delicious as the mutton in our hometown, right? But our hometown is too far away and there is no way out. No matter how good the cattle, sheep, and potatoes are, we can't transport them out. We can't just think about ourselves, we have to think about Xiaoyanggou and our township and county."
Yue Ning looked at Secretary Fugen. Uncle Fugen was a man of insight, ideas, and willingness to contribute.
Aunt He Hua looked at him with a long face. Mo Weiwen patted Yang Fugen's hand and said, "Secretary Fugen, I want to say a few words from my heart. It's up to you whether you listen or not."
"Lao Mo, you are a great scientist and a capable person. How can I not listen to what you say?"
"China is too big and now everyone is poor. We must first develop places that are easy to develop, like Pengcheng and Shanghai. When these places have money, we will build roads and bridges step by step. If you ask Danier to go back now, she can only pave a dirt road and build a stone bridge. It is better to let her come out and build a bridge over the Yangtze River and a highway in Shanghai. Don't worry that Danier will stay in the big city and not come back. Let her learn technology first and then give back to her hometown. How can you, who listens to the news, reads newspapers and understands national policies all day, not understand these things?" Mo Weiwen told him, "Let some people see the light first, and then let the light illuminate the way for more people."
Secretary Fugen lowered his head in silence, his fingers unconsciously rubbing the edge of the bowl. Aunt Hehua quietly piled the peeled crab meat into his bowl and whispered, "Old man, our eldest daughter is smart. She knows what is good for our hometown."
Yue Ning looked at Aunt Hehua and said, "Aunt, I have to say something to you. Our uncle is a practical man. If he becomes the deputy township head, many people will definitely benefit. You can't stop him."
"I'm just afraid..."
"Don't be afraid." Yue Ning interrupted Aunt Hehua, "Don't let him take things out of the house anymore. If he needs anything, he can tell us."
Yue Ning looked at Yang Fugen and said, "For the time being, it will be difficult for the northwest to develop, but you can let more children go to school, so that they can leave the mountains and live a good life. We can build primary schools, middle schools, health centers, and water cellars in each village. When these children have a promising future, they will go back to help their hometown, and things will gradually get better."
Yang Fugen nodded: "I understand."
"Brother Fugen, you better remember this," said Yang Yonggen.
Yang Fugen didn't quite understand, so he looked up at him and asked, "What are you remembering?"
"I'll pay for the repair of our township's health center." Yang Yonggen was just saying this when he felt a pain in the inside of his thigh. He frowned and looked at his wife, "Ouch, ouch! Be gentle, it hurts..."
Everyone at the next table started laughing. People at the next two tables looked over. Ge Yueqin felt even more embarrassed and glared at the man unhappily. It's been so many years, is he going to stop yet?
Yang Fugen smiled and nodded: "Okay, I'll fix it when you come back."
*
The wedding of Qiao Junxian and Yue Ning attracted the attention of the whole Hong Kong. It was even more exciting than the wedding of the eldest son of the Qiao family three years ago.
The kitchen of the Xin Bao Hua Lou main store is bustling with activity, with all the master chefs from various restaurants gathered here, each cooking his own specialty.
Lu Mingde, Lu Peide's younger cousin, took out the pressed crystal braised pork from the refrigerator. This crystal braised pork is the specialty of his master, Huaiyang cuisine master Zhou Zhaokang. Next to him, Chef Zhang from Shanghai brought out Jiaxing's Wenhu duck in soy sauce, Wu Zhihai made a Taiwanese five-flavor octopus, the Chengdu chef served a Fuqi Feipian, the Beijing chef served a red and white, sweet and sour Beijing cake pear shreds, and the Singaporean chef served Nyonya a-za.
Since Nicolas came to Hong Kong and mastered the art of deboning a whole duck, Pierre's Restaurant has added a traditional dish that few French chefs can make: duck galette.
This is a traditional French dish similar to Eight Treasure Gourd Duck. The whole duck needs to be deboned, the duck meat is chopped and mixed with French ingredients, then stuffed back into the duck embryo, and finally sealed and baked.
Even Pierre didn't expect that his son would learn how to cook this difficult traditional French dish after coming to Hong Kong.
Nicholas not only learned how to debone ducks, but also pigeons and quails. He used this method to create quail galantine: debone the whole quail, brush it with crispy water, fry bacon until crispy, mix it with chicken stuffing, add pistachios, and then add onion cream black truffle sauce and other French seasonings, and stuff it back into the quail's stomach.
The outer layer adopts Chinese roast duck technique, and the inner layer has the traditional French taste. After this dish was introduced in Pierre Restaurant, it immediately became a popular dish.
Lewis from the United States served a Mexican-style cocktail shrimp.
At this moment, the guests outside have arrived at Baohua Building one after another and walked into the lobby of Baohua Building. The 20-meter-high lobby is very shocking. The ceiling adopts the concept of drying rice paper. The overlapping layers of rice paper texture allow sunlight to pass through the rice paper-colored ceiling during the day; and at night, it is illuminated by a series of lights and shadows.
In the middle of the lobby is a huge woodcut mural "Zheng He's Voyages to the West".
This building was designed and built when the Li family was expanding rapidly. It was during the oil crisis and oil prices were skyrocketing. The Li family's biggest business was oil transportation, and it was at its peak. As the new headquarters building, this building was naturally as grand as it could be.
It is said that this mural was created by skilled craftsmen from China over a period of six years. On both sides of the mural are two staircases leading to the second floor, which are now surrounded by flowers.
Going up to the second floor, there is a wide and deep corridor with red patterned carpet on the floor. Now the doors of the restaurant lobby facing the corridor are open, and the guests are walking into the lobby of Baohua Building.
The stage background is the huge painting "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains", and the other side facing the stage is the unbeatable view of Victoria Harbour. The mirrors on both sides are decorated with auspicious clouds and auspicious patterns, and the copper art partitions, rice paper-colored walls, and the interweaving of red and walnut-colored lines create a huge banquet hall with low-key luxury in Chinese style.
Yue Ning did not use the luxurious Chinese wedding decorations of her previous life. Such complicated weddings were not popular in this era. The traditional wedding ceremony had already been held at home, and the banquet was to entertain the guests.
Waiters dressed in modified Tang suits came in one after another carrying smart trays and began to serve the dishes.
The Lingnan-style red lacquer door of the hall was closed, background music sounded, and the guests' laughter gradually became lighter. The door was opened again, and Qiao Junxian walked in with Yue Ning.
Qiao Junxian wore a tuxedo. Yue Ning did not use a wedding dress designed by a French designer like Cui Huiyi did. Instead, she commissioned Zhao Xiru and a domestic embroiderer to design this Chinese wedding dress. The off-shoulder design just revealed her slender collarbone. The neckline was embroidered with a lotus pattern that meandered from the shoulder to the waist. The skirt was a horse-faced skirt with a hundred birds paying homage to the phoenix. The inner layer was a red-bottomed gold-threaded brocade, and the brilliance flowed between her movements.
The scarf is made of moon-white silk, as thin as a cicada's wing, embroidered with various birds, echoing the phoenix on the horse's face, forming a long tail from the shoulders to the back. She wears a string of thumb-sized South Sea gold beads around her neck, and a ruby phoenix crown designed and made by Tianxiang Jewelry on her head.
Both families had many foreign guests. Many of the Qiao family's guests had attended Qiao Junshen's wedding last time. Generally speaking, apart from the luxury, that wedding was not much different from a Western wedding, but this one was different in almost every way.
Paul, Pierre, Lucas, Miyamoto and others kept asking Qiu Chunming. Fortunately, Yue Ning asked him to prepare early, saying that he came to the banquet with a mission to promote Chinese culture.
Paul picked up a piece of quail galantine made by Nicholas. The quail skin was crispy on the outside and the inside was filled with juicy chicken filling. The crispy pistachios and the charred bacon created two layers of taste, and the familiar soft truffle aroma came from the seasonal black truffles from China.
Since Yue Ning recommended Chinese black truffles to Paul, the Durand Group has introduced Chinese black truffles into the international market. In recent years, it has begun to squeeze the high-end market of European black truffles. Now Europe and the United States have begun to discredit Chinese black truffles as being for pigs. These news came out at this time of year, when black truffles are of the best quality and have the largest output. If the impact cannot be eliminated, the sales volume of Chinese black truffles will definitely drop a lot this year. It would be a pity to not be able to sell so many high-quality black truffles.
Paul couldn't help feeling a little annoyed in front of the delicious food.
At this time, the waiter came in again and served the first dish of the wedding banquet, roast suckling pig.
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