The pork butcher is smoother than a pig butcher!

Chapter 147 Eating Meat as Rice
With over twenty people working, the host didn't need to organize or direct them at all.

They started cleaning their rooms according to the customs of the people of the border town.

The series concluded perfectly before nightfall.

The kind-hearted aunties even helped to heat up the earthen bed.

The earthen beds in the three main rooms are all connected together.

If the flue is not blocked, once the middle room is heated, the kang beds in the two side rooms on the left and right will also be warm.

The skillful craftsman also built a small stove on the side of the earthen bed.

This small stove is not suitable for cooking.

Usually, a kettle is placed on it so that family members can pour hot water out of it at any time. It can also be used to dry shoe soles that have been soaked by snow water.

This method makes the most of the heat energy from the fire in the kang (heated brick bed).

Before leaving, the women checked the house inside and out again.

Gan Minglan's family of four and She's mother and son sat down on the warm earthen bed without lifting a finger.

Before the two families could express their gratitude for the hospitality of the border town's military households, the courtyard gate was once again pushed open from the outside.

The women, who had left, returned, calling out loudly, "Scholar's wife, scholar's wife! We've brought you vegetables!"

Well, people in the border town don't have the habit of knocking on doors.

They call out from outside the yard to give you a heads-up, and then they come in without you having to invite them!

Not shy at all, that's great!

The main room in the middle became lively again.

Steamed lamb, hand-pulled lamb, charcoal-grilled lamb trotters, lamb offal soup, braised carp
The large bowl of food was moved from the kang table to the head of the kang.

More than twenty bowls, each one overflowing with broth.

The dishes have a repetition rate as high as 30%.

Since they were being helped with chores and brought over vegetables, they naturally couldn't be impolite.

Since other things were inconvenient to handle, Gan Minglan's final gift to Fatty was maltose.

The maltose, with its unique sweetness and slight caramel aroma, was cut into pieces about the size of a thumb.

It is as hard as a rock on the outside, but it will soften after being put in your mouth for a short while.

It tastes sweet, chewy, and slightly sticky.

The stock she had in her online store was only enough to deliver about one pound to each household.

The burden she used to cheat was only so big.

After she sent out about twenty packets of maltose, both her mother-in-law and her husband were quite shocked.

Zuo Wenkang: Could it be that my wife really has some kind of magical illusion?

Mrs. Luo: I never expected that my daughter-in-law, after recovering her brain, would be even better at hiding things than I am!

Fatty glanced at the pile of hand-pulled mutton on the kang table, then at the bundle of malt sugar his mother had put out.

After her mother announced that the malt candy had all been delivered.

I couldn't help but hug my chubby self and whine: "Waaah, I'm not grown up yet, I don't want to experience what it means to have to give up something to gain something!"
Luo, unaware that sugar and meat are equally important to children, was still enthusiastically selecting vegetables.

He said to Madam She:

"Let's pick nine dishes from these. The number nine is auspicious, which means that our whole family will have a smooth and prosperous year, be reunited, and live a long and happy life together."

Look how honest these people from the border town are! The New Year's Eve dishes they sent are all either mutton or carp; there's not a single vegetable dish to make up the numbers!

Mrs. She was also very happy, as she ate fish and meat almost every day during the Spring Festival in Leyuan County.

Although the child's father and grandfather have passed away, their New Year's Eve dinner this year was still quite good.

As long as they cling to Xia Ge'er's teacher's wife and follow in her footsteps, their future will surely be bright.

The women who were seen off by Gan Minglan were overjoyed.

The Tan sheep are all raised by our own children.

In previous years, they could sell them for a good sum of money in the twelfth lunar month, enough for the whole family to have a good New Year. This year, they all froze to death, and we have to desperately eat them before the snow melts.

The carp were all obtained for free.

You can catch all of these things in the Zhuohe River all year round.

The women from military households usually complained that cooking fish was too oily, and that boiling or steaming it left a muddy taste.

Carp tastes best when pan-fried or deep-fried.

In short, when every household was short of oil and fat, carp was not a very popular type of meat.

The temperature in December this year was extremely low, and the ice on the Zhuohe River was very thick.

As long as you drill a hole in the ice, the silly fish inside can jump onto the ice surface on their own.

And because of the soaring grain prices and purchase restrictions that started a while ago.

The thrifty women began to devise ways to stock up on meat, and ordered the men in their families to take their underage sons to catch fish on the ice all day long.

Even the laziest men love to do these things.

So these days, every household uses mutton and fish as their staple food, and rice and noodles are made into soups and stews.

Food supplies are so scarce.

Who would still use wheat and glutinous rice to make maltose for their children as a snack?
Buying is even more out of the question!
As a result, the children of military households in the border town didn't get any sweets for the New Year this year.

Now that the scholar's wife has given him this return gift, who wouldn't be happy?
Clutching the candy wrapper tightly to her chest, she hurried home.
Everyone is excited about the upcoming New Year's Eve dinner.

Apart from the family in the west side room, which is separated by a wall.

The Lü family was not short of money.

She was the richest person in the entire exiled group, besides Gan Minglan.

In the afternoon, I gave Zuo Wenxuan one hundred taels of silver and asked him to prepare food and drink for the family.

Zuo Wenxuan disappeared after he left.

Lady Lü sat down on the kang (a heated brick bed) and listened intently to the sounds coming from the next room.

After her twins were injured, they often suffered from convulsions and nightmares. They were also chased by a pack of wolves at Hangu Pass, which made them extremely frightened.

Now I feel resistant and afraid of everything and everyone that is unfamiliar to me.

I'm like a quail all day long, just wanting to hide myself from being discovered.

The west wing room where their family lived was entirely cleaned and tidied up by Granny Li alone, at a leisurely pace.

Without paper covering the windows, the wind, carrying snow, howled and blew into the house.

The chimney of the kang (heated brick bed) was blocked, but no one noticed.

So much so that after the earthen bed in the middle room was lit, they couldn't borrow any fire for their own room.

It was cold, I was hungry, and there was no one around.

As night fell, the temperature grew colder and colder.

Zuo Wenxuan, the head of the household, has not returned home or sent anything back.

Lady Lü's anger was so intense it could set the room ablaze.

Even with outrageous prices, surely a hundred taels of silver can't buy a New Year's Eve dinner?

The bowl of mutton noodles I had this morning has long been digested and is nowhere to be found. The two children can't be allowed to go hungry.
"dong dong dong"

There was a knock on the door of the next room.

The group, who were praising the authentic and delicious hand-pulled mutton from Biancheng, all turned to look outside the door.

Outside the door, Granny Li, all smiles, offered ten taels of silver, hoping to buy six dishes.

Her words were so pitiful:
"Our mistress sent our husband out this afternoon to prepare the New Year's Eve dinner, but we don't know if he got lost or what, he hasn't returned yet. We adults can be patient, but it's poor Xiang-ge and Yi-jie."

Ten taels of silver is quite a lot!
Anyway, the dishes that the aunties brought were mostly the same.

Sell ​​it!

(End of this chapter)