NOVEL NEXT Chapter 21
During Qingming Festival, the whole country of Huaihe has a seven-day holiday, and Qingming Festival and Cold Food Festival are celebrated together.
The donkey cart arrived at the outskirts, where the fields were full of peaches and apricots, drums and drums were singing, and it was extremely lively.
Looking up, there are many outings. There are prodigal sumo wrestling, cockfighting and eagle watching, monks giving lectures, gentlemen storytellers, and literati playing music.
Mu Zhiyuan parked the donkey cart and took the kite in his hand to fly the kite with Mian Xi and Xiaodouzi.
Unlike the paper kites in the north, today's kites use bamboo whistles that sound when the wind blows.
Mao Xi asked Xiaodouzi to use a brush to write words about disease and disaster on the kite in advance. When the kite flew high, he would cut the kite with scissors, which meant letting go of the bad luck on his body.
Xiaodouzi wanted to fly the kite for a while longer, and made trouble to Mao Xi to cut his kite later.
"You and Brother Mu play kite together, and Sister Lan'er and I go to deliver food together."
Ms. Chen took her daughter Ajiao for an outing on the grass. Ajiao was happily playing with the windmill.
The food that needs to be delivered today was ordered a day in advance by several regular customers, mainly baked naan bread and cold food festival cakes.
The main cakes are date cakes, milk cakes and green dumplings.
For the "Qingtuan" made by Ah Shu, she followed the recipe from "Ancient and Modern Recipes" given by Mu Zhiyuan, followed the ancient method and improved it.
The Qingtuan ingredients are mugwort leaves, orange leaves, glutinous rice flour, sticky rice flour, mixed with sugar, water, and honey. In addition to the bean paste filling sold in other fruit shops, she also added salted egg yolk filling, which she has eaten in modern times. , deeply loved by diners.
The first reservation diner found was Su Xuexu. He was listening to his husband's story. Lou Laner handed several green dumplings wrapped in orange leaves to Su Xuexu, who opened them and shared them with his friend Mi Yuan.
Su Xuexu also loves to delve into food. After tasting the Qingtuan dumpling, he praised: "It's wonderful! The fragrance is subtle, and it feels like eating it in a vast cave! Haha... Millet girl, I don't know what surprises you have. Woolen cloth?"
"Su Xuexue likes it. I'll make more someday and let Zian bring some to you."
After sending off a few ladies, there was still one from Nalan Jue, a regular customer.
According to what Nalan Jue said when he made the reservation, he was drinking tea under the peach blossom tree next to Tingyu Pavilion and going for an outing.
Lou Lan'er handed Nalan Jue two portions of green dumplings and one portion of jujube cake. Nalan Jue raised his eyes to look at Lou Lan'er, picked up a green dough ball, and said to Shu Xi, "Miss Ah Shu, how did you make this green dough ball?"
Without answering directly, Ma Xi poured tea for Nalan Jue: "It's just a homely recipe. It was made in a hurry this morning. It's fresh for everyone. You don't need to go into details, sir."
Lou Laner secretly laughed from the side.
Nalan Jue said with disdain, "Is this funny?"
Lou Laner said calmly: "Master Nalan, if I tell you all the ways to eat, how will my shopkeeper open a shop in the future?"
"I just like to study food and cook it myself." Nalan Jue frowned slightly, seeming displeased.
"The food has been served. Mr. Nalan takes his leave."
Just as Ma Xi was about to leave, Nalan Jue took out a cup, poured tea and handed it to Ma Xi: "Miss Ma Xi, the peach blossoms are in full bloom today, why don't you come here to drink tea with me and discuss your delicious food."
Mao Xi took the tea from him and didn't linger after drinking it.
"Today is Qingming Festival, I still have something to do. Mr. Nalan likes my food. Please remember to pay more attention to Liuxiang Snacks. Thank you very much."
Carrying the empty food boxes, the two returned the same way. However, they had just had a cup of tea with Mr. Nalan under the peach tree when they heard some sarcastic remarks from some ladies on the way.
"Ah, she is a cook. Why did Mr. Nalan ask her to accompany him to drink tea? It must be his sister too."
"She used to sell roasted sweet potatoes on the roadside. Mr. Nalan bought his soy milk cup. I also have one of that cup."
"Look at what she's wearing, she looks like a country girl. She doesn't put makeup on when she goes out, and her shoes are covered in mud. She's not ladylike at all!"
……
Originally, he just wanted to take advantage of Nalan Jue's popularity among the ladies and ladies to boost the sales of snacks in his snack shop. Unexpectedly, he was laughed at just after taking a sip of his tea.
Mao Xi thought for a while, it should be the reason for the peach blossom tree. If Mr. Nalan usually came to the food shop to buy it, no one would think wrong.
Lou Lan'er sounded a little angry, but she didn't want to argue with them, so she thought of a little idea and played with these ladies.
"Master Nalan is really weird. He said he was going to fly kites by the river soon, but our kites have already flown. What a pity!" Lou Lan'er deliberately said loudly to make these ladies listen.
Several young ladies quickly took their kites and came to the river. They flew the kites and wanted to meet Mr. Nalan.
Lou Lan'er held pebbles between her fingers and hit the ladies on the riverside one by one. These ladies were so weak that they couldn't help but hit them. They fell to the riverside one after another in a state of panic. The maids and servants hurried down to the river to fish them out. .
"Hehehe..." Lou Lan'er laughed so hard when she saw that all these gossiping ladies were drowned in water.
Xue Jinlan stood by the river, twisting the hem of her wet skirt, not angry at all. She looked at Lou Lan'er and Liu Muxi who were walking away, glaring at them fiercely.
She was originally the daughter of a salt merchant, and had lived in fine clothes since she was a child. How had she ever experienced such humiliation? Today, she heard that Nalan Jue came to the outskirts of Lihua Town for an outing. She came all the way from Kaitang County. She never thought that Mr. Nalan was cold-tempered and did not like to socialize. She was tricked by a wild girl and fell to the river, losing face in front of everyone. .
"Liuxiang Snacks, I will remember you, hum!"
Mao Xi returned to Xiaodouzi, who was still flying a kite with Mu Zhiyuan. After Mao Xi asked him to cut the kite and fly it, he took him to the storyteller to listen to stories.
"Ah Shu, how's Lou Lan'er doing in the store? Has it caused any trouble for you?" Mu Zhiyuan understands Lou Lan'er's character. She is fierce and straightforward, but doesn't know how to adapt. Her martial arts is pretty good. If she meets someone who eats a meal or deliberately She can handle the trouble alone.
"Thanks to Lou Lan'er making the oven for me, now she is the one doing the errands and delivering meals. I even gave her a monthly salary increase."
Mrs. Liu took Ajiao to go to hear the book, and happened to encounter Goudan from the village, carrying roasted sweet potatoes on his back and shouting for sale.
Since Ah Shu sold sweet potato seedlings and other vegetables to villagers in Liujia Village last year, almost every farmer now grows sweet potatoes. Some children followed the example of Mao Xi and started selling roasted sweet potatoes.
"Aunt Chen, I just came out of the village and saw that the peanut seedlings in your field were eaten by pigs. Go back and take a look!"
"That's serious. Go back and take a look."
The group of people drove to Liujiacun in Mu Zhiyuan's donkey cart.
When I returned to my own field, I saw rhubarb barking "woof, woof" at a little wild boar. The wild boar had stolen half an acre of peanuts, and now it had gone to the vegetable field to dig up sweet potatoes.
Although this wild boar is not big and looks like it is not yet mature, its pair of large tusks look extremely ferocious in combat. Rhubarb just bared its teeth and roared at the side, not daring to get close.
Everyone had no choice but to go home, take long-handled brooms and wooden rakes, and drive the wild boar up the mountain step by step. The wild boar seemed to be full, so it went up the mountain.
Mu Zhiyuan helped Mao Xi tidy up the fields trampled by wild boars. The losses were serious today!