America: A Prodigy of Stereotypes

"The steamed buns aren't ready yet; I'll make them today."

“We’ll help after school,” Harry said to Stephanie.

"Thanks, Harry."

School time passed quickly, and before we knew it, it was afternoon after school.

Club president Harry Osborne is going to make steamed buns, so there will be no club activities today.

Li Qun drove Harry, Peter, Gwen, and Stephanie to buy groceries, as he knew where to find the best quality ingredients at the lowest prices.

"The cabbage here is so cheap! And the beef isn't expensive either!!" Stephanie exclaimed.

"Is this cilantro? I've only read about it in a book. Some people think cilantro tastes like soap because of genetic differences."

Stephanie secretly tore off a sprig of cilantro and put it in her mouth. The next moment, she realized she was one of those people, as she felt soap in her mouth.

The group did some shopping, carried the ingredients back to their car, and finally drove the food truck back to Stephanie's house, where they prepared steamed buns.

"Children, would you like to stay for dinner?" Stephanie's mother, Skylar, asked with a smile.

Stephanie looked at her friends, her eyes showing some tension.

"You've gone to so much trouble!"

"It's nothing, just a simple home-cooked meal."

"Mom, can we steam some buns to eat together?" Little Walter was also helping to make buns.

"Ok."

After Aunt Skylar had prepared dinner, they sat down at the table, each with a standard white dinner on their plate. Stewed beans in tomato sauce, mashed potatoes, stewed chicken, fried sausage, and boiled green beans were all crammed onto the plate.

Li Qun immediately recognized that the stewed beans in tomato sauce was a heated canned food, which he had eaten at his father's house before.

It wasn't bad, just not very flavorful. Li Qun finished off the white dinner on her plate, and the others also ate theirs out of respect for Aunt Skylar.

They steamed a few cabbage-filled buns to taste. The cabbage-filled buns had a light flavor, but no one thought they were bad.

Little Walter didn't finish his food, and Stephanie also left some, but Skylar felt a great sense of accomplishment looking at the plates that Li Qun and the others had emptied, and his confidence in his cooking skills was restored.

"Could we try making mashed potato buns?" Little Walter suddenly suggested.

“Anything that isn’t filled with chocolate or jam is fine,” Li Qun said.

"Can't there be sweet buns?" Little Walter asked.

"There are sweet buns, like those with red bean filling. But putting chocolate or fruit inside buns feels too strange, I can't accept it."

“I even allow the use of white sugar and ham as fillings,” Li Qun said.

"The ham is salty, and the sugar is sweet. What does this taste like?" Harry asked curiously.

"It tastes just like the ham mooncakes from the Mid-Autumn Festival," Li Qun said to Harry.

The Mid-Autumn Festival has already passed. This year, Liqun distributed mooncakes to Peter and his classmates, as well as other club members. The mooncakes were Yunnan-style ham mooncakes, which are relatively safe, and no one was allergic to any of the ingredients.

After dinner, Aunt Skylar drove Li Qun and the others home, while Harry was picked up separately by Bernard.

For Stephanie, who had never been to Harry's house, Harry's home address was a mystery.

Chapter 183 Eating with Chopsticks

“Walter, your daughter is applying to college, right? Do you need me to get you a few recommendation letters? It’s just a small favor,” Norman Osborn asked, turning to Walter White who was looking at a magazine.

In the institute's rest area, Norman, Walter, and Storm waited for the experimental equipment to finish working in eighteen hours, a rare moment of rest for them.

“I’ve said it before, don’t get close to my family in any way, Norman.”

“What do you look like now? A kind of Asian fruit, a durian. Its shell is full of thorns, and it smells terrible,” Norman said to Walter.

“Don’t think I’ve never seen a durian before.” Walter looked at Norman.

“I’m serious, you guys could pick a time and go to the octagon for a fight, vent any pent-up frustrations you have on the stage,” Dr. Storm suggested from the side, taking a sip of coffee.

"Norman, what kind of university can your son go to? You didn't pay money to get him a spot at a good university, did you?" Walter mocked.

“Even if he doesn’t go to college, his life will be better than your child’s.”

"Do you need me to be your daughter's student loan guarantor? I can help her get a lower interest rate," Norman retorted.

“My daughter is just as smart as me, so please, don’t let her run into your son,” Walter said.

……

……

"Harry, this is yours!!"

Wow! We really made that much money?

Over the weekend, the group gathered at Stephanie's house again.

Stephanie and her friends set up their stall and sold goods again, and after calculating their accounts, they made a huge profit.

After deducting costs, Stephanie even considered setting up a stall to sell steamed buns full-time.

“I’m going to use this money to buy a camera and have Liqun film Peter’s games,” Harry said.

“That can’t be right, can it? Home video cameras are very expensive, costing over two thousand dollars. Harry, what you have is just a fraction of the price of a video camera,” Gwen said, looking at Harry.

“I can scrape together enough myself,” Harry laughed.

"Just trying to scrape together a little something, huh?" Stephanie laughed along.

Peter and Li Qun stood outside the food truck, arms crossed, looking at the exclusive "Red Spider" advertisement photo hanging on the truck window.

Peter also received his first endorsement fee.

Every time Stephanie set up her stall, she would split the money with her friends. Little Walter kept the accounts meticulously, even calculating the taxes that should be paid.

"I can't tell it's the same person," Li Qun said, looking at the photo of "Red Spider."

"How did you come up with the nickname 'Red Spider'?" Li Qun turned to look at Peter.

“I find spiders scary, just like Bruce Wayne finds bats scary,” Peter said, turning to Li Qun.

“More than a thousand people participated in the preliminary rounds in New York, and in Queens, only eight people were eliminated to participate in the Queens main tournament. There were more than ten matches every day, and we couldn’t keep up with them all,” Li Qun said, turning to look at the photo of “Red Spider.”

“It’s good that it’s over tomorrow, Peter. Are you confident?” Li Qun asked.

“Of course, our goal is the overall championship, not just the Queens district championship,” Peter said calmly.

"You were shaking after the first game."

“Not anymore. Li Qun, would you feel no guilt at all if you had to fight just to stand in one place?” Peter asked.

“That’s how competitions are; they can create a lot of psychological pressure. After this competition, will you participate in other competitions?” Li Qun asked Peter.

“I won’t do it without a good reason,” Peter said, shaking his head.

Li Qun and Peter went inside; they were going to start making steamed buns.

If the food truck were to serve fried dumplings, the interior would be covered in grease, and the fumes would make the interior greasy. Steamed buns don't have this problem, but they're inconvenient for people who wear glasses, like Gwen, who has some trouble with them because the steam fogs up her glasses every time she opens the steamer.

Li Qun and Peter sat down at the table, their feet off the ground on high stools. They transformed into relentless dumpling-making machines, rapidly wrapping dumplings as if programmed. In the time it took Little Walter to wrap one dumpling, Li Qun and Peter had already wrapped three or four.

“You’ve all wrapped it up, we’ll just watch you do the work,” Harry joked.

“Some customers suggested that we could also sell some steamed dumplings,” Stephanie said.

"We don't need to consider the guests' suggestions."

"We're just riding the wave of the competition to earn some pocket money," Li Qun said.

“Stephanie didn’t mean that, Liqun. She meant she wanted to try what steamed dumplings tasted like,” Harry said to Liqun with a smile.

“Hey!” Stephanie laughed and nudged Harry, who was sitting next to her.

“I find making Chinese pastries just as fun as baking Western pastries,” Stephanie said.

"Why did you think of steaming instead of baking?" Stephanie asked Li Qun.

"I believe this is related to the development of civilization."

"To explain this clearly, I feel like I would have to write a short essay on the spot," Li Qun said.

"Those with fillings are called baozi, and those without fillings are called mantou."

"Steamed buns are a common staple food in northern China, just like bread."

"I'll steam a couple of buns later so you can have a taste."

“Mantou? I know what mantou is. In ancient times, people in China called steamed buns ‘mantou’ and steamed buns ‘baozi’,” Gwen said.

“I read it in the reading materials I use to learn Chinese,” Gwen added.

"What do you eat with steamed buns? Just like bread needs butter or jam," Harry asked.

"It can be served with pickled vegetables or chili sauce, or condensed milk," Li Qun replied.

“There’s a lot of hot sauce in the cupboard, Mexican hot sauce,” Stephanie said.

After all the ingredients on the table were used up, Stephanie started boiling water and soon steamed dumplings and steamed buns.

Although Li Qun didn't tell them the difference between steamed dumplings and buns, Stephanie and the others discovered that the dough for steamed dumplings didn't need to be fermented.

"Steamed buns and dumplings are probably the best healthy food I've ever eaten. The dough is carbohydrates, and the filling has meat and vegetables, providing protein, fat, vitamins, and dietary fiber," Little Walter exclaimed.

"All right!"

Stephanie lifted the lid of the steamer and served the buns, dumplings, and steamed bread.

“Walter, you don’t have to force yourself to use chopsticks,” Harry said to young Walter.

"The book says that practicing using chopsticks can improve a person's neural control, fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, wrist and forearm stability, as well as concentration and patience. I plan to use chopsticks more often when I eat from now on," said little Walter in his wheelchair.

Chapter 184 Come Here

Peter used his key to open the door. Uncle Ben, who was lying on the sofa watching TV, turned his head to look at Peter and sat up.

“Peter.”

"Hi, Uncle Ben."