The story of a cook

Chapter 147 Going Home for the New Year (Part [-])

On the 29th of the twelfth lunar month, Lin Yan and I started to clean up the house.

There is nothing to clean up. Most of the Fifth Sisters have almost cleaned up when they are at home. They just wash and clean, wipe this and that. There is nothing missing at home, and we don’t go to the store below. Lin Yan and us also Bringing back a lot of things is enough for the Chinese New Year.

I spent the whole morning simply cleaning up, and there was nothing to do in the afternoon.

Mother asked what to eat for dinner, Lin Yan said: "I saw rice cakes in the outhouse, let's have rice cakes tonight, I haven't eaten yet."

Mother asked: "Didn't your family steam rice cakes during Chinese New Year?"

Lin Yan said: "No steaming, we don't have big yellow rice, and we don't have red beans like yours."

Mother said: "Oh, you are all paddy fields, and you can't grow these miscellaneous grains. I will bring you some when you leave."

Lin Yan said: "Then eat less these few days, don't eat all of them, hee hee."

My mother said: "I can't eat it. I'm old and I can't steam rice cakes. Those are steamed by your elder sister. After steaming, they will be brought to me. There are still sticky bean buns in the spare room. Take them for you when you leave. I can't eat either."

Lin Yan said: "Hehe, when we come back, we will be mopped up like devils, and we will take whatever we see."

My mother said, "Take it, it's all yours anyway. When I'm old, these four houses and this compound will all be yours."

Lin Yan said: "Don't let this one go, keep it. If you go to the city with us, we won't sell this house. The rural house will definitely be valuable in the future. Lao Tan and I will come back to live when we grow old. If you don't want to stay with us Go, give it to whoever you go to my sister's house to go to this house, we don't want it."

My mother said: "What is this broken house worth? Every family has it."

In the eyes of my mother, rural houses are worthless, and every family has them.My house is a large courtyard with an acre and a half of land. When I was studying, I had an idea that when I had money, I would overturn the four main rooms and build four BJ bungalows, and then build three wing rooms on the west side of the main room. The garden in front of Zhengfang is well maintained, and all kinds of vegetables are planted in it. When I wake up in the morning, I go to the garden to pick some peppers, pinch shallots, and eat a few burritos. There is no one in this day.

This is my idea and have been wanting to make it happen.

In the evening, eat rice cakes and stewed sauerkraut vermicelli.I don't like rice cakes, I eat leftover dumplings.Lin Yan ate a bowl full of rice cakes.

When eating rice cakes, my mother brought the sugar over and said to Lin Yan, "You have to dip the rice cakes in sugar, or you will get heartburn."

Lin Yan sprinkled sugar on the rice cake, took a bite, and said, "Well, it's delicious, Lao Tan, it's delicious, don't you want some?"

I said, "You can eat it if it's delicious. I don't like it. It will burn my heart."

Lin Yan said: "Didn't Madam say that sprinkling some sugar would stop heartburn?"

I said, "That doesn't work either, and it also causes heartburn. I can't eat sticky ones."

My mother said: "He can't eat sticky ones. When he was a child, steamed bean buns were steamed with vegetable fillings for Chinese New Year when he was a child, and he didn't eat bean fillings."

Lin Yan said, "You were really naughty when you were young."

I said, "That's not naughty, it's that I don't have that kind of word of mouth."

The mother said: "He, and his third sister, don't like to eat sticky things, like this rice cake and bean buns. They don't even eat it. My second and fifth children like it, and your eldest sister doesn't like it very much."

As the mother said, she picked out a mouthful of rice cakes, dipped them in sugar, and said as she ate, "I'm okay, but now my teeth are bad, and I can't bite hard things. I don't dare to eat more at night because I can't digest it."

Lin Yan said: "I think you're okay, you don't look old at all."

My mother said: "I'm not old yet, I'm 66 during Chinese New Year, I'm 66, and Guohua is 26, so you two should get married during Chinese New Year."

Lin Yan said: "There is no rush to get married, just wait a year."

The mother said: "Don't worry, how old are they? The 26 children are quite old, so don't worry."

Lin Yan laughed and said, "We'll get married the year after tomorrow."

Lin Yan ate a bowl of rice cakes, but she still wanted to eat them, her mother said: "Silly girl, don't eat too much if they are sticky, you don't like to digest them, you will know when the time comes, hurry up and eat rice cakes, you can't just eat rice cakes. "

Lin Yan looked at the rice cake, feeling reluctant to part with it, and I said, "There is more, let's eat it tomorrow, and eat some sauerkraut quickly, or your stomach will feel uncomfortable before midnight."

Lin Yan had no choice but to give up and ate a few mouthfuls of sauerkraut.

After dinner, Lin Yan cleared the table, and her mother took out two tablets of norfloxacin and told Lin Yan to take it, for fear that she would get heartburn from eating rice cakes for the first time, and her stomach would be uncomfortable.

Lin Yan boiled a large pot of hot water, first washed her mother's hair, then washed her feet, and then began to wash her own hair.Seeing that Lin Yan and her mother got along well, she was also very happy, and she hoped that it would be good if she could always be like this after she got married.

Everyone wants to marry a filial daughter-in-law, but filial daughter-in-law is hard to find.

My principle is that it is not good for a daughter-in-law to belong to me, but she must be filial to her mother.This is also a contradiction. If you treat me badly and have no common language with me, it is impossible to be filial to your mother.

Now it seems that Lin Yan is okay with her mother, but she doesn't know what will happen after marriage?At that time, I also knew that people and children are mutual. If I want Lin Yan to be filial to my mother, I have to be filial to other mothers. My mother is a mother, and other mothers are also mothers.Thinking about what Lin Yan's family did well, the money is under Lin Yan's control, and she can get money for her family whenever she wants. I don't have any opinion. There is no way, mainly because I don’t have time. When I have some time, the first thing I think about is going home to see my mother. This is human nature and understandable.

Fortunately, Lin Yan also understands, otherwise it would not be possible to be where she is now.

New Year's Eve, the day when thousands of families are reunited, is the most anticipated festival for hundreds of millions of Chinese, and it is also the happiest festival.

Over the years, from my personal point of view, the Spring Festival is my favorite, followed by May Festival, August Festival and Double Ninth Festival.I think Chinese people should celebrate Chinese festivals, and foreign festivals don't need to be taken too seriously.Take "Valentine's Day" as an example. The Chinese have their own Valentine's Day. The seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar is the Chinese Valentine's Day, but few people celebrate it. On the contrary, the number 14 of February every year is celebrated by many.As for the holidays of foreigners, the ones I appreciate the most are: Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. I accept these two holidays and celebrate them for my parents.

After eating dumplings at thirty in the morning, Lin Yan and her mother were busy with housework, so I started posting couplets and money.It's cold outside, and the paste on the couplets will be frozen when taken outside, so they won't stick.

Lin Yan said: "Isn't there a transparent tape, use the tape to stick it."

Fortunately, I have a smart wife, otherwise the couplets outside would really not be posted.After posting the couplets and entering the house, I saw Lin Yan and her mother picking up the steamed buns. The steamed buns were well steamed, white and fat.

Lin Yan held a steamed bun and said to me: "Look, this steamed bun is steamed well."

I said: "Okay."

Lin Yan said: "I must learn how to steam this steamed bun with my aunt, and I will steam it when I go back."

I asked: "Haven't you learned it all morning?"

Lin Yan said: "This page was posted yesterday afternoon, I don't know how it was posted."

Mother said: "It's easy to make noodles, I'll tell you later."

I grew up in the same environment as Lin Yan. She had no father, and I didn't have a father. We grew up poor and were not spoiled. We all know how hard it is for our mother, so we are very kind to my mother.

Lin Yan is not as old as Lanzhi from the eldest sister's family. In the eyes of her mother, Lin Yan is just a child, and her mother treats Lin Yan as a child.

It is said that children from poor families are the first to be in charge of the family. This sentence is true. I started to support my family when I was in school. Among them, I am more sensible.The same is true for Lin Yan. She is the eldest in her family and has two younger brothers. She thinks about things earlier and is more mature.

Thirty noon cooking is useless for me. Lin Yan said that my cooking smells like a restaurant and is not good.She cooks the dishes herself, and I help her.It is not easy to help her, she is only responsible for adding seasoning, and the rest is all my work, including cleaning the pot.After frying a dish, I have to take out the dish, clean the pot, and give her the ingredients for the next dish to put on the pot, and then she starts to fry.

I said, "I don't want this preferential treatment, it's better to fry it myself."

She said: "That's what you said. From now on, cooking in our family will be all your business, and I will be in charge of eating."

I said, "Okay, it's fine, as long as someone eats it."

In my hometown, the meal at noon on New Year's Eve is called "Jiannian meal", and it is usually eaten after twelve noon.

In rural areas, every family eats two meals in winter. They don't do any work and are not hungry. They eat around two o'clock in the afternoon.

At noon on New Year's Eve, incense is offered to the ancestors before eating. In the past, the "family hall" of our old Tan family was in our branch. After the death of our father, we no longer offered offerings, and moved to Changzhi.If the "family hall" is still in my house, it will be lively. When it is time for lunch on the thirty day, as long as it is Tan in the village, every family will send a representative to offer incense and kowtow to the ancestors. It can start to line up to a little more.Now that the family hall is not in my house, it saves a lot of trouble.I heard from my mother that there was no me at that time. When my father was alive, there were many people in the family every year during the Chinese New Year. Apart from offering incense and kowtow to the ancestors, they just sat and chatted with my father and let my father talk about it.

My father is in poor health and sick, but he loves to read. My mother said that what my father reads is "books of fortune-telling". Whether people in the village or in the family, they all fall in love with my family and talk to my father. By the way, let him do the calculations. That is what is called speaking.My mother said that although my father knew how to tell fortunes, he never gave them fortune-telling. He just told them how to behave and how to do things. Everyone in the village admired and respected his father.

After I learned how to read in elementary school, I saw the book my father always read. On the cover of the book was "Book of Changes".When I was young, I didn’t have any toys at home, and I didn’t like to go out to play with the children in the village. After school, I just did my homework. After I finished my homework, I took out the books that my father had read at home. I didn’t know the characters in many books. They are all traditional characters, and they are written vertically. Many books do not have punctuation marks.At that time, I was illiterate and illiterate. I knew what the words on the book read. I didn’t know what the word meant. I liked to read it even so. When I encountered a word I didn’t know, I asked Fifth Sister. No Sister. Fifth Sister is two years taller than me. At this age, she knew more characters than me, so she taught me what to say with that word.In the six years from the first grade to the sixth grade of elementary school, I almost read all the books at home, but I couldn't understand them all. The ones I could understand a little were "Three Character Classics", "Thousand Character Classics" and "Hundred Family Surnames".

When I arrived in junior high school, the learning tasks became heavier, so I rarely had time to read those books.But I can't put it down to that Book of Changes, and I read it when I have time. At that time, I still half-understood and ambiguous.When I was in high school, I gradually learned more, and I began to know what kind of book it was, so I stopped reading it, knowing that it was not time for me to read it.It is difficult for people under the age of 40 to understand the Book of Changes.

The Book of Changes was written by King Wen of Zhou. Confucius added annotations to the Book of Changes, put on wings and flew.It is the crystallization of the wisdom of the Chinese nation.

I read the Tao Te Ching from elementary school to junior high school, and then to high school. At that time, I didn’t understand it very well. I just felt that after reading it, I found that it was different from my previous understanding. I felt that I understood a lot. I thought this book could be read. No harm.

When it comes to "The Analects of Confucius" and "Four Books and Five Classics", I also have them at home and read them often, so I almost read them several times when I was in elementary school.When I was in junior high school, I took an ancient Chinese class. I could understand almost without reading the annotations, and I felt that it was no different from modern Chinese.Seeing that other students struggled to learn ancient prose as if learning a foreign language, I was very grateful to my father. It was he who left me those books that I couldn't understand, which allowed me to get in touch with ancient prose in advance, so that learning ancient prose was so easy.

My precocity is also related to reading these books.

After offering incense and kowtowing to the ancestors, put a whip outside to startle the gods, drive away the beasts of the year, and welcome the gods to the lower realms.

There are only three people in the family, and there are not too many dishes.

Six dishes are quite affordable.Stew a chicken, stew a sauerkraut vermicelli, stew a saury, stew a tofu, fry a ball, scramble an egg and leek.

I drank alcohol, and my mother and Lin Yan drank almond milk.

The almond milk is locally produced in Beipiao.

The mountains in my family are rich in almonds, and every family has apricot trees, so there are a lot of almonds. Xingshunde Town opened an almond milk factory, which not only solved the employment problem of local rural people, but also created benefits for the town government.Almond milk sells very well, but the production is limited, and it can only be supplied to the Beipiao area, not outside.Almond milk has a strong almond flavor and is slightly bitter. Drinking it for a long time is good for your body.Almonds are bitter and lukewarm, and eating a small amount can lower the cholesterol content of the human body, and can effectively reduce the risk of heart disease and many chronic diseases.Almonds can relieve cough and asthma, promote skin blood circulation, and accelerate skin blood circulation, which will make the skin rosy and shiny, and has a certain cosmetic effect.At the same time, almonds also have the effect of laxative and weight loss. If women want to lose weight, it’s okay to drink almond milk often, but they have to drink our Beipiao product. Other places don’t work.If the child in the family has bad bowel movements, the adults in our family often say, "Drink a bottle of almond milk, just drink a bottle of almond milk."

The director of the almond milk factory is an ordinary old farmer in our local area. The mayor of the almond milk factory should have promoted him to be the director of the almond milk factory at that time, because he is honest and honest, and he is a well-known good person in our local area.

Good people always do good things.

After almond milk became famous, many fruit drink factories in the province came to talk to him, planning to cooperate with him, asking him to reduce the content of almonds and expand production, so as to make more money.He rejected them all one by one. He said, "As long as I work here as the factory manager for one day, I will never reduce the almond content, and I must make the folks in Beipiao drink the best almond milk." Just saying this to him, he This factory director is qualified, and he is still in office at almost 70 years old, and everyone supports him.

The annual output of almond milk is only so much, and there is a holiday every year when the farming is busy. The workers in the factory are all nearby farmers, and every family has land, so the holiday starts every year when the farming is busy.The factory manager said, "What do you do if you don't have a holiday? The old farmers just point to the harvest in the field, and go to work after work. Almond milk can be produced day by day, and the land can't be delayed."

This is the character of Beipiao people.

When I was at home, I asked my mother to drink almond milk for a long time, and my mother insisted on drinking it, and she still drinks it until now.The mother's high spirits and good digestion have a lot to do with drinking almond milk for a long time.In addition, almonds also have anti-tumor effects, so it is good to drink some almond milk, which is better than drinking Coke Sprite.I remember that when my son was a child, he had bad stools and some dry stools. I happened to be out of town. My wife called me and told me about the situation. I told my wife that it would be fine to buy two bottles of almond milk for my son.The next day my wife called and told me that my son was no longer dry.

During the meal, my mother asked: "Lin Yan, you would like to eat rice cakes, why don't you have hot rice cakes?"

Lin Yan said: "I won't eat. I ate too much yesterday, and I felt a little uncomfortable in the second half of the night. I ate big steamed buns today. The steamed buns are also delicious."

Mother said: "The steamed buns are delicious. When you leave, I will steam them for you and take them home to eat."

Lin Yan laughed and said, "This old lady, she will bring us whatever I say is delicious."

My mother said: "Don't think I didn't go to your place, but I also know that the house you rented is not big, and there is no big pot like ours. It takes a lot of effort to make everything. Unlike at home, a big pot, steaming some steamed buns, steaming It is convenient to order rice cakes. I made them for you, and you can eat them ready-made when you take them back. You are far away from here. If you are close, I can steam them. When you come back, you can eat them. Fresh steamed ones are better."

Lin Yan said to me: "My aunt is so kind, she thinks about us in everything."

Mother said: "Aren't you children?"

Yes, they are all mother's children at any time.

I have been working part-time for nearly five years, and this is the most comfortable New Year's Eve.

(End of this chapter)