The reason Bai Yu had to take leave to go home for his mother's birthday was because it was her 40th birthday this year, and it had to be celebrated in a special way.
However, their family doesn't have the habit of going to a restaurant to celebrate birthdays. Instead, they just set up a few tables at home, with Dad Bai, the chef, cooking the food himself. Isn't that much better than eating at a restaurant?
"Mom and Dad, Xue'er and I are back. Is there anything we can help you with?"
As soon as she got home, Bai Yu put down her bag and went to her father to ask if he needed any help. He wasn't the kind of person who just ate and did nothing.
"Change the water in those basins of conch, scallops, and razor clams. Then scrub the conch thoroughly and add some salt and vinegar to make them expel the sand."
Under Bai's father's direction, Bai Yu started washing the dishes, using all sorts of basins, big and small.
It wasn't until midnight that Bai Yu finished her work and went upstairs to wash up and go to bed.
The next morning, Bai Yu got out of bed early, ate breakfast, and started helping her father with chores.
Strictly speaking, Bai Yu's culinary skills are quite good, after all, his father is the head chef of a hotel, and he has been raising his younger sister alone at home since he was a child.
However, he is not interested in cooking. He knows how to cook, but he doesn't do it. From childhood to adulthood, he would take Bai Yue to eat at any place he could mooch off.
Over time, only a few people knew how good Bai Yu's cooking skills were, and he never told others that he could cook.
But today is different. It's Mom's birthday, and there are a lot of relatives coming to the house. Dad definitely can't handle it all by himself.
So, Bai Yu had no choice but to put on an apron and go into the kitchen.
The first step is to kill the fish. As the saying goes, no feast is complete without fish, and fish are the most abundant thing by the sea.
According to Bai's father's arrangement, their family is to prepare three tables of dishes today, including three fish per table, which is nine fish for three tables.
Three of the fish were live and needed to be killed on the spot. They were three pearl grouper that Bai's father had just bought from Uncle Bai's purchasing station early that morning.
As soon as Bai Yu entered the kitchen, he picked up a cleaver and began to work on the three groupers. First, he slapped their heads with the back of the cleaver, and then he gutted them and removed the gills.
He quickly finished processing the three groupers, and then came the three pomfret, which were frozen. By the time Bai Yu arrived at the kitchen, they had already thawed.
Don't be fooled by the fact that these three are frozen; they're not cheap at all. This pomfret is the most expensive member of the pomfret family, selling for over a hundred yuan per kilogram.
These pomfret are not only expensive, but also extremely difficult to buy. These three pomfret were only obtained by Bai's father from the hotel; otherwise, they would have been impossible to buy.
While Bai Yu was making preparations, Bai's father had already started cooking. Some of the more time-consuming dishes needed to be prepared in advance so that lunch could be served on time.
As noon approached, Bai Yu's relatives arrived one after another. As the main character of the day, Bai's mother naturally spent her time chatting with these relatives.
Around noon, almost all of Bai Yu's extended family members, except those who couldn't come, arrived. Even Wang Hai, who had grown up with Bai Yu, and his mother came.
Meanwhile, Bai Yu was still busy in the kitchen. As one of the chefs today, he was making his signature dishes: braised prawns and spicy baby crabs.
The reason these two dishes are considered his specialties is because they are the two dishes he has made the most often.
Thanks to his experience of beachcombing since childhood, Bai Yu has never lacked shrimp and crab ingredients.
After all, if he wanted to eat shrimp and crab, he only needed to take a stroll along the beach. He might not be able to catch many large shrimp and crabs, but he could still pick up quite a few small crabs and shrimps that didn't fetch a good price.
Even if it's not enough to fill my stomach, it's certainly enough to make a plateful.
At this moment, Bai Yu was cooking braised prawns. As the deveined and deveined prawns were put into the oil, Bai Yu stirred them over the wok.
When it comes to making braised prawns, Bai Yu prefers the sweet version. In no time, he had prepared three plates of sweet, reddish-brown braised prawns.
"Dad, the food's ready!"
"Huh? What did you say, kid? You want me to serve you the dishes? You probably don't know the difference between king and queen!"
Upon hearing Bai Yu's voice, Bai's father, who was standing to the side, was stunned. He had been a chef for so many years, but he had never served food to anyone since he entered the industry, so he was really unfamiliar with these words.
Bai Yu belatedly realized that the person next to him was his father, not Wang Hai, who always obeyed him.
"Um... Dad, sorry, I'm used to calling him Ah Hai. I'll get the food myself, I'll do it myself."
As soon as she finished speaking, Bai Yu quickly left the kitchen carrying a plate of braised prawns and placed it on the table in the yard.
After the braised prawns were served, Bai Yu started preparing spicy baby crabs. These baby crabs were the kind that don't grow very big; each one was smaller than an egg.
At this point, all the crabs in the pot had been cut in half. Following the same procedure as before, heat oil in a wok, but this time use more oil, a full half-wok. Once the oil is hot over low heat, add the crabs and fry them until they change color. Fry them for a while longer, ideally until they are crispy, then remove them and set them aside.
Then leave a small amount of oil in the pan, heat the oil, add scallions, ginger and garlic and sauté until fragrant, then add the fried crab and stir-fry quickly, followed by various seasonings.
The main feature of this spicy crab is its spiciness. For this large family, who are native to Hainan Province, the amount of chili peppers that Bai Yu put in is lethal.
In his own opinion, his relatives would only have a taste of the spicy crab and that would be enough; they certainly wouldn't be able to finish it.
What should you do if there are leftovers that you can't finish?
What else can be done? The rest will definitely belong to Bai Yu, since he, Wang Hai, and Li Xue can all handle spicy food.
In addition, they are taking a bus back to Ocean University this afternoon, so the remaining spicy crabs can be eaten on the way as a snack, which is not a problem.
With the last dish of spicy baby crabs ready, Bai Yu's work for the day came to an end. Now she just had to wait for her father to finish his work before they could eat.
Who knew that just as Bai Yu brought out the spicy crab, Bai's father also called people into the kitchen to bring out dishes.
Bai's father had already prepared all the dishes. The reason he didn't call anyone in to serve them was that he wanted to wait for Bai Yu to finish cooking so they could start eating.
With all the food served, all the relatives who had come in were also seated at their respective tables.
Bai Yu naturally sat at the same table as Wang Hai. He didn't go to join his parents' table, which was full of elders. As a child, he should sit at the children's table.
That's right. Even though Bai Yu is an adult and a college student, he is still a child and should sit at the children's table when eating.
At the table of real children, the oldest was Bai Yu, followed by Wang Hai and Li Xue, and eight or nine children who were even younger, all of whom were Bai Yu's younger brothers and sisters.
"Let's eat. We're all peers at this table, so don't hold back. Move around to another table if you want, and grab whatever you want. The main thing is to eat until you're full."
Just as Bai Yu finished speaking and was about to pick up his chopsticks to eat, Wang Hai, who was sitting next to him, tugged at his sleeve.
"Brother Yu, when are we going to give Auntie a gift? I've already prepared it."
As Wang Hai spoke, he showed Bai Yu his gift, a Chow Tai Fook jewelry box.
"Put it away for now, we'll talk about it after we finish eating. Let's eat now, hurry up and start eating, or these kids will eat it all."
While Bai Yu and Wang Hai were chatting, the other children at the table had already started eating. In the blink of an eye, ten of the braised prawns that Bai Yu had made had disappeared.
Seeing this, Bai Yu also picked up her chopsticks and joined the fray, immediately grabbing a large shrimp for herself, followed by a steamed blue crab.
After lunch, to Bai Yu's surprise, not a single spicy crab was left, not even half a small crab or a single crab leg.
Looking at the empty plate, Bai Yu was momentarily doubting his life. Were all his younger siblings able to eat so much spicy food? Are you sure this is Hainan Province and not Sichuan Province?
It's okay, though. They didn't have much left at their table, but the other two tables should have some left, right?
Filled with hope, Bai Yu arrived at the main table, the table where his parents sat. Looking at the empty plates, he fell silent.
He then went to another table, and as expected, there was a lot of spicy crab left over, almost untouched.
Before he could even get closer, he saw two old men approach with bags, and in the blink of an eye, they had divided up a plate of spicy crabs.
Bai Yu remained silent as well, because he couldn't afford to offend either of them; one was his grandfather, and the other was his maternal grandfather.
Through their conversation, the two gentlemen agreed that spicy crab was an excellent dish to accompany drinks. In fact, half of the spicy crab on their table was left over and they packed it up.
They planned to take it back and have a drink together that evening.
What could Bai Yu say in this situation? He could only bow his head and admit defeat. Maybe the two old men would come back to him for more after they finished eating.
After lunch, the relatives went about their business, the children went to school or went out to play, and not many people remained at Bai Yu's house.
Just then, Bai Yu gave Li Xue and Bai Yue a look, and then they went back to their rooms to get their things.
Just as Bai Ma was about to go shopping with her best friend, who was also Bai Yu's godmother, she was stopped by Bai Yu. Bai Yu then handed Bai Ma a small box, turned around and left without looking back.
After Bai Yu finished giving her gift, Wang Hai followed suit, placing his own gift in Bai Yu's mother's hands and turning to leave, just like Bai Yu did.
This scene was shown to Bai's mother and godmother, and they were somewhat bewildered.
"What does this mean? Are these two kids giving me birthday presents?"
"Of course! Let's open it and see what the gift is. Oh, it's jewelry from Chow Tai Fook, isn't it?"
Upon receiving the two small boxes, Bai's mother abandoned her plan to go shopping with her godmother and returned to the living room to unpack the gifts.
Just then, Bai Yue and Li Xue came downstairs, each carrying a Chow Tai Fook tote bag, and handed them to Bai's mother.
Unlike Bai Yu and Wang Hai, the two of them didn't plan to leave after handing over the gifts, and instead sat down and waited.
As several small boxes were opened, one of them, a pair of gold earrings, was given to Bai Ma by Wang Hai. They were not very big, weighing only a few grams.
He had asked his mother to take him to a jewelry store in the county town to buy these earrings, which cost him more than a thousand yuan. He had this idea when Bai Yue said she wanted to prepare a gift for Bai's mother, and it was his mother's suggestion to buy the earrings.
Bai Yue bought a necklace. Just as she had said before, she had been eyeing this necklace for a long time before finally choosing it. During the National Day holiday, she went beachcombing with Li Xue and scraped together the money left over from buying the necklace.
Bai Xue bought a gold bracelet, weighing 20 grams, with no engravings or patterns on it, just a plain bracelet, which cost her more than 5,000 yuan.
The gifts given to the three individuals were all traceable, and just by looking at the boxes containing these items, it was clear that they contained jewelry.
However, when they opened the gift Bai Yu gave them, the four people present looked at the four big characters "Industrial and Commercial Bank of China" written on the box and were momentarily at a loss for how to react.
What gifts were bought from the bank? In other words, when did banks start selling things?
Even after they opened the box and saw what was inside, the four of them were still stunned, because what was inside the box was not anything else, but a gold bar.
A small gold bar bearing the four large characters "Industrial and Commercial Bank of China" is displayed, along with a shopping receipt and other relevant documents.
"Lily, did Xiaoyuer give you a gold bar? Is this kid always this extravagant when he gives things away? He just comes up here with a gold bar. This one must be worth more than ten thousand yuan."
The gold bar that Bai Yu gave him weighed fifty grams, and based on the current gold price, it was worth more than thirteen thousand yuan.
(The price of gold in 2015 was only a little over 200 yuan. Unlike now, it's rising higher and higher every day!)
"How would I know? Xiaoyu didn't tell me when she bought this. Lao Bai, Lao Bai, come here for a second."
At Bai's mother's call, Bai's father came to the living room wearing an apron. He stared blankly at the gold and silver jewelry on the table for a long time before finally uttering a sentence.
"Do you think Xiaoyu will give me a gold bar for my birthday next month?"
.............
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