NOVEL NEXT Chapter 473.
Chapter 473. A Slow Day on a Farm. (6/6)
Inside the house, about half an hour later, Dawn presented the dish she cooked to me. There was a dry overcooked pork chop on the plate. Next to it was a whole peeled raw carrot, a sliced-up raw tomato, and a pile of fried soybeans. Well, at least she had enough sense to cook the soybeans and I won’t end up sick if I ate them.
Somehow, I was impressed by the simplicity.
Did this girl at the very least salt the pork chop?
“Did you space out when cooking the pork chop or something?”
“Sorry… I messed up. I’ll eat this set and try remaking yours.”
“It’s fine. It’s not a big deal, I’ll eat it.”
I picked up the knife and fork and cut off a small piece from a corner of the tough pork chop.
It looked like cardboard. Just how did she overcook a pork chop this badly?
“Stop. Yuh don’t have to force yourself to eat it.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t hold back in my assessment and I won’t mince my words.”
“That’s exactly why I’m worried. Just let me try making it again.”
“You’d just be running away from facing your failure. You won’t get better at it if you don’t get some feedback.”
“Just give me feedback on the next one. I already know what I did wrong. I overcooked the pork chop because I spaced out like yuh said. Ah! Stop, don’t eat it.”
She reached out to grab my hand but it was too late as I’d already put a piece of cardboar- pork chop inside my mouth.
“As expected of overcooked cardbo- ehem… pork chops. It’s... really chewy and tough.”
“Yuh were gonna say cardboard, weren’t yuh!”
“Anyway, going beyond texture, to make this cardboar- pork chop taste better, I’d suggest at least coating it with a bit of salt before you cook it next time. Right now it’s completely bland. You do at least have salt, right?”
“Uh… yeah, we do.”
“Do you have any seasonings?”
“No.”
“What about sugar?”
“We do have sugar too.”
“Then, in preparation to cook the pork chop, try browning some sugar in the oil before you put the pork chop in the pan. Be careful not to burn the sugar though.”
“Right… do yuh actually know how to cook?”
“Not really. I only picked up a few bits here and there from my mother. She taught me a few really simple things.”
I picked up the carrot and bit into it. Honestly, it wasn’t bad or anything… but… it was just a peeled carrot at the end of the day.
“How’s the carrot?”
“I mean… it's a carrot. A carrot’s a carrot. Though… I will admit it does taste pretty good for a carrot.”
“Because we grew it and it’s fresh.” Dawn sounded strangely proud.
“Don’t get cocky. You could have done so much more with this carrot. You’re just letting it waste by serving it as it is.”
“Yuh can do more with it?”
“Of course you can. You have an oven, right?”
“Yeah, we do.”
“Then here’s a very simple recipe. You even have all that you need already. First cut the carrot in half. Then cut both pieces of the carrot lengthwise into halves or quarters. Once you’ve done that, coat it in oil. Once coated in oil, sprinkle sugar over it and rub it in evenly across the surface by hand. Dump it in a tray in the oven and let the carrots bake at 350 F. They will shrink down and parts of them will turn black, but that’s fine. When they start turning black that’s about when they’re good to eat.”
“That’s all yuh need to do?”
“Yeah. It’s really simple, but I guarantee they taste great. A lot better than raw carrots. Their taste becomes concentrated and the sugar and oil bring out a richness to them.”
“Somehow, my mouth’s watering just thinking about it.”
I picked up a tomato slice and bit into it. It was juicy, much better than the tomatoes I got in stores, but… just the same as the carrot, it was just a tomato at the end of the day.
“As for the tomatoes. Since you don’t have any condiments like ketchup, you can use tomatoes as a sort of replacement in the form of concentrated tomato paste. It’s pretty easy to make. Normally you’d use a food processor to purée them, but you can just put them in a plastic bag and use a mallet until the tomatoes are broken down. Once broken down into a slushy form, put it in a strainer to separate out the seeds and skin to get just the juices. Dump the tomato juice into a pot, mix in some salt and oil, then let it dry down. If you do this, you’ll end up with a very rich concentrated flavor from your tomatoes.”
“I see. I didn’t know it was that easy. We always just ate them like this.”
“Now, if you ever want to spice up your meals and bring out some real flavors, you’ll have to go beyond using only what you grow on your farm. In terms of seasonings for meat my mother used when cooking, she often used a mix of soya sauce, oyster sauce, ketchup, which you can replace with the concentrated tomato paste, and a purée of a few different vegetables including cilantro, garlic, green onions, and a touch of pepper. She also often sauteed chopped-up onions.”
“That’s quite a bit.”
“It may seem like a lot, but what I’m talking about right now is nothing. Cooking is very deep and complicated. Rosa knows a lot more about the subject than I do. If you want to learn more, ask her. But the next time you visit a town or city I’d suggest picking up some of the things I mentioned. You definitely won’t regret it. These seasonings can last you a month if you use them sparingly. That way you don’t need to continually make trips every day to get more.”
“I never thought yuh’d know so much about cooking though.”
“My mother cooked a lot and tried to drill a small fraction of what she knew into my head so I’d be able to cook for myself if she died. That way I could eat some of the things she made even if she was no longer around.”
“The way yuh say it… your mom’s…”
“Yeah. So you should hurry up and go see your own mother before that happens to her. People can die at any moment without warning. The longer you postpone things, the less time you’ll have together with her. Life is short. Eighty to a hundred years will come and go before you know it. Considering her current age, you don’t even have that much time to begin with. Time with your loved ones is precious and limited, it is very scarce, and once lost, you cannot get that time back.”
I got to go back to the past, but even then, I didn’t get that time with my mother back.
Sniff. Sniff.
When I heard a sniffle, I looked up from the plate in front of me and Dawn had her right hand curled up in front of her mouth with the back of her fingers under her nose.
“Haha, was my critique of your food too much for you to handle and you’re gonna cry?”
“I’m not... I just have... a runny nose.”
“I see.”
“Ran…”
“What?”
“I’ve made up my mind… tomorrow… I’ll go to the city… and meet her.”
“Who are you going to meet?” Of course I knew, but I still asked anyway.
“My mom…”
I scooped up a few of the fried soybeans, put them in my mouth, and chewed.
“The soybeans could use some salt when you fry them.”
Tears were pretty salty, weren’t they?
“I’ll take note of that next time.”
She didn’t cry and held it back.
I hadn’t seen this girl cry before. She probably didn’t want to cry in front of other people after all. She’d likely grown up not wanting to trouble her father by crying.
I understood the feeling since I never wanted to worry or trouble my mother by crying too.