The craft of making tea cakes was passed down from our ancestors, so there's no need to spend money to find a master to learn the craft.
Now, Jiang Xiaoman even delivers the tools for making tea cakes directly to their door. All they have to do is make the tea cakes according to Jiang Xiaoman's requirements and sit at home waiting to receive the money.
If someone else were to do this, these families might hesitate, worried that they might have encountered a scammer.
But who is Jiang Xiaoman?
That's Principal Baichuan's cousin! I heard that Principal Baichuan even gave Jiang Xiaoman his retirement money, so isn't that practically like having a son?
In Langshan, the name "Jiang Baichuan" is more effective than the county magistrate's name!
Not only that, but seeing Jiang Xiaoman run over from afar, the parents felt quite guilty, and before he left, they stuffed all the good food they had into his basket.
Jiang Xiaoman didn't think this was all about saving face for himself.
The villagers valued and trusted him, mostly because of Jiang Baichuan's influence.
They stuffed food and drinks into his basket, hoping that Principal Baichuan might also get some.
Normally, they wouldn't dare to give Principal Baichuan anything; they could only try to send gifts indirectly, hoping Jiang Xiaoman would convey their respect to the principal on their behalf...
"Jiang Xiaoman, you've got some nerve! You're even accepting things from students' parents?" Jiang Baichuan's face turned green when he saw him bring back another pile of things.
Sir, have mercy! ! !
Jiang Xiaoman quickly grabbed the broom head that her uncle had raised.
"I'm not going to take someone's things for nothing! Uncle, please listen to me!"
"My dad said that the most important thing in dealing with people is to keep in touch. I'll be doing business with them in the future, so I'll definitely need to visit them often, right?"
"They gave me some good food today. Next time I go into the mountains, can't I bring them something back?"
"These feelings are all built up over time. You get to know each other better with each other, right? I can't keep using your name to do business with other people, can I?"
Jiang Xiaoman snatched the broom head from her uncle with a grin and ran to the kitchen to prepare a meal.
"You've spouted a whole bunch of fallacies and heresies... Is this all the university teaches you?" Jiang Baichuan cursed, but the corners of his mouth involuntarily turned up.
In terms of character, his nephew is definitely better than him.
Unlike in the city, in the countryside, there's a real emphasis on reciprocity when relatives and friends visit each other. However, as the school principal, it wouldn't be appropriate for him to accept gifts from parents. But Jiang Xiaoman didn't have that concern. Since she was going to do business with the villagers in the future, she really needed to gradually build up these relationships.
That evening, Jiang Xiaoman kept her promise and made a big pot of braised fish chunks and tofu stew. She also made two pork hocks, one braised and the other stewed. The stewed pork hock even had mushrooms grown at the school added to it!
Speaking of these mushrooms, they were originally mushroom spawn that Jiang Xiaoman bought for the school. Later, the spawn stopped growing mushrooms, so Jiang Baichuan crushed them up and scattered them in the vegetable garden as fertilizer.
To everyone's surprise, the broken mushroom log sprouted a lot of mushrooms again, which delighted everyone!
Because the students love to eat these oyster mushrooms, Jiang Baichuan later asked Jiang Xiaoman to buy a batch for him. Now they are placed in the backyard of this old house, covered with straw, and the students take care of them themselves, treating it as a kind of labor practice class. The mushrooms they grow can also be eaten. The teachers and students at the school are very satisfied with this kind of "teaching aid".
The wild mushrooms were a gift from the students' parents. After washing them, I made two large plates of stir-fried mushrooms with cured pork because there were quite a few.
"I left a bowl of stir-fried mushrooms in the cupboard. Tomorrow morning, we'll make some sweet potato porridge, steam a pot of cornbread, and eat it with the stir-fried mushrooms and cured pork. It'll be incredibly delicious!"
"Tomorrow morning? You're not going back tonight?" Jiang Baichuan looked at his nephew, seemingly having thought of something, pulled him aside, and whispered his instructions—
"Jiang Xiaoman! Have some sense! Don't always go to Shan Yan's house to sleep! Those two sworn brothers have a very good relationship! You spend all day playing with Jiang Yu. If this goes on for a day or two, people will start gossiping about you!"
Jiang Baichuan is really worried sick about his nephew!
"Well, then I have nowhere to sleep, right? The school's been demolished, and I don't know anyone in the village," Jiang Xiaoman muttered.
Jiang Baichuan glared at him for a while, then thought about the other families in the village. Either they didn't have enough room for themselves, or the men had gone out to work, leaving only widows and orphans at home. In those cases, it was even more impossible to ask them for lodging!
After thinking it over, it turns out that the Yamai family really is the most convenient...
"Alright! Just be careful! Get that rented house built as soon as possible, do you have enough money?"
"Hehe~ It wasn't enough to begin with, but I made some money selling honey and shooting videos recently. With all that, plus the money you lent me, Uncle, it should be enough to build a basic house. The TV station can handle the rest of the renovations!"
Actually, if it weren't for the TV program's sponsorship, Jiang Xiaoman had originally planned to build a brick house, just run the power lines and move in directly, without even planning to whitewash it!
It's just a parcel pickup point anyway. Why decorate it so nicely when it'll just get dirty in the end?
However, his agreement to cooperate with the TV station on a program was not solely because he wanted the free renovation.
The main goal was to leverage the influence of the television station to give their village's local specialties a free advertisement.
...
The next day happened to be Saturday. Jiang Xiaoman went to the market early in the morning to buy some meat and tofu, and then met up with Jiang Yu's family at the foot of the mountain. The two families walked up the mountain together.
Today, Jiang Xiaoman is going into the mountains with Shan Yan's family. Autumn has arrived, and it's the season to go into the mountains to pick mushrooms again.
The villagers have limited sources of income each year. Apart from growing potatoes and corn, they rely on the mountains for the rest of their income. Every year, they go into the mountains to dig bamboo shoots, pick mushrooms, and some common Chinese medicinal herbs and more expensive wild vegetables. These are the main ways for the villagers to earn some pocket money.
Because of this, Jiang Baichuan made a point of finishing his midterm exams before heading into the mountains to pick mushrooms.
This way, we can try not to assign homework for the next two weekends, so that the children can help with some chores at home and the adults can focus on earning money.
When passing by the river, I saw two small fishing boats moored on the bank. Jiang Yu even went over to buy two big fish and a bag of loaches from an acquaintance.
"Xiaoman, when we get home tonight, can you teach me how to make that braised loach you made last time? I saw the girls all loved it." Jiang Yu excitedly held up the loach and discussed it with Jiang Xiaoman.
"Okay! Anyway, it'll be late by the time we get there today, so let's have a big meal tonight. After dinner, can you help me prepare the food for tomorrow's hike up the mountain? We'll be on the mountain all day tomorrow."
Jiang Xiaoman's trip into the mountains this time was not primarily about picking tea leaves and making tea cakes for her family. Her main goal was to film the entire process of picking, frying, and making tea cakes, and then edit the footage and post it on several video accounts.
After all, seeing is believing. Only when fans see wild high-mountain green tea picked from deep in the mountains with their own eyes will they dare to place an order!
Moreover, the scenery of Langshan in autumn is truly beautiful!
Jiang Xiaoman had already thought of several themes to photograph on her way into the mountains. Picking mushrooms was definitely one of them, and there were also many wild fruits to pick in the mountains during this season.
Wild animals are hard to film, but he can go fishing with river fish!
I heard that Jiang Yu's family has been fishing on the river for generations. With the recent good weather, they're catching more fish to make dried or smoked fish, which will be perfect for winter.
Autumn is also the season for collecting honey. At this time, the mountain climate is comfortable, which is very suitable for bees to go out and collect nectar. Moreover, flowers such as osmanthus, loquat, buckwheat, sunflower, and chrysanthemum bloom in this season. Countless wildflowers in the mountains also bloom in competition, making it the second peak honey production period of the year after spring.
Thinking about it, it's fortunate that I sent Camellia to her aunt's house for a temporary stay this time. Otherwise, if I went up the mountain on Saturday and came down on Sunday, I would hardly have had time to go up the mountain to work in between.
Jiang Yu hadn't been home for a long time. He didn't expect to find the house so clean when he returned. Even the pine needles used for starting fires in the kitchen were dried and packed in woven bags. The vegetable garden in front of the door was growing even better than when he left!
"Qingshan's mother helped us plant the vegetable garden. When she heard that we had three daughters, she was overjoyed and asked when we would be having a wedding banquet. She was also worried that we would have a heavy burden, saying that vegetables were expensive down the mountain, so she helped us plant some vegetables."
"The firewood and pine needles we have at home were all brought back to us by Qingshan and Ahu when they went into the mountains to find a place to stay," Shanyan explained to Jiangyu.
It has to be said that Shan Yan's choice of these disciples was truly worthwhile!
It was already past three in the afternoon when they arrived at Jiang Yu's house. Shan Guo and Shan Hua had been carried on Shan Yan and Jiang Yu's backs the whole way, and they had already fallen asleep while swaying. The two of them hurriedly went into the house and put the children on the bed.
Jiang Xiaoman went to the kitchen as if she knew her way around, put down her basket, and took out the fish and loach to process them.
Chapter 117
"Xiaoman, let me help. What else do you need?" Jiang Yu put down the child and came out to prepare the meal. Unexpectedly, Jiang Xiaoman was faster than him and had already prepared the two fish.
"Go to the vegetable garden and pick some vegetables for me, like scallions and garlic. I need a few big radishes, and if you have any carrots, get a few to use as side dishes."
"Also, there's bok choy, scallions, garlic sprouts, young ginger, and chives. Oh, and if you have any houttuynia cordata, give me a handful too. No need to dig it up, just pinch off the tender shoots with leaves on top."
Jiang Yu took a vegetable basket and went to her own garden to pick vegetables.
Here, Jiang Xiaoman finished processing the fish and loach, set up her phone, and planned to shoot some footage first, and release a preview in the evening.
Ever since he went into the old forest with Shan Yan and the others, fans who love hiking have been asking him in the comments section every day when he will go into the mountains again. They are worried that he will lose fans if he doesn't go into the mountains soon, so Jiang Xiaoman quickly arranged it.
"We've come to Shanyan's hometown today. Autumn has arrived, and wild mushrooms are sprouting up in the mountains. Tomorrow we're going to go into the mountains to pick mushrooms. Look, I've scooped up so much rice. We'll cook a lot of rice today, and make rice balls out of the leftovers. We'll be in the mountains all day tomorrow, so we'll have to bring extra dry food with us."
While chatting with fans in front of the camera, Jiang Xiaoman poured a full basin of washed rice into Shan Yan's large wood-fired pot.
Because we're cooking a lot of rice tonight, there won't be any steamed vegetables on top of it.
Fish and loach become very fishy when they cool down, so they can't be used as dry rations. He plans to cook them all into a dish and eat them all at once that night.
In addition to the dishes for dinner, we also need to prepare some side dishes for the rice balls.
The rice balls they often make here are not the fancy rice balls sold in the city.
Rather than calling it a rice ball, it's more accurate to say that it's rice wrapped with vegetables.
People in the mountains are very frugal. During the busy farming season, they don't have time to cook, and they can't really do what some short video bloggers who use rural life as a gimmick do, bringing ingredients to the fields for a picnic during the busy farming season. They usually just roll up the leftover food from home, and when they are extremely hungry, they don't even have time to heat it up. They just open the plastic bag containing the rice balls and start eating.
Those who can afford to eat rice balls are considered to be from well-off families.
His father said that when they were young, they would go into the mountains to pick mushrooms and cut bamboo shoots, but they couldn't bear to bring white rice to make rice balls as dry food.
White rice? That's something we only eat during Chinese New Year or when entertaining guests.
Jiang Youliang and the others would simply carry baskets filled with cooked potatoes from home, along with some chili powder and salt. When they got hungry, they would dip the potatoes in the chili powder and eat them...
In comparison, their lives are so much better now!
At the very least, because he needed to go into the mountains to work, Shan Yan bought fifty kilograms of rice directly from the market and carried it back.
Jiang Xiaoman first cut the two large fish into pieces, then cut the tofu used for stewing loach into pieces and rinsed it several times with cold water.
Local tofu is made by curdling with gypsum water, which gives it a slightly off-taste. Adults may not mind, but if two young children want to eat it, it's best to rinse it several times with clean water and then soak it in cold water.
Tofu treated in this way, when used to cook loach, has absolutely no taste of gypsum water.
After finishing all that, Jiang Yu hadn't returned from picking vegetables yet. Jiang Xiaoman, unable to stay idle, simply took a piece of cured meat from the kitchen beam, first roasted it in the stove, then soaked it in hot water. After the blackened parts on the surface softened, she scraped off the layer of soot with a knife, washed it clean, and cut it into finger-sized pieces.
"Xiaoman, I dug up half a basket of potatoes. Shall we fry some potatoes for dinner tonight?" Jiang Yu returned excitedly, carrying a vegetable basket.
During this season, every household in Langshan has potatoes in their vegetable gardens. These potatoes can be used as a vegetable or as a staple food, making them very versatile. Even though people's living conditions have improved now, some older generations still have the habit of roasting potatoes and bringing them up the mountain as dry rations.
The locals in Langshan have a love-hate relationship with potatoes.
When I was broke, I ate potatoes every day until my stomach ached and I wished I never had to eat potatoes again.
But if I don't eat it for a while, I crave it again.
"Wow! These red-skinned potatoes are growing really well this year!" Jiang Xiaoman was thinking about what vegetables to add to the rice balls when she saw the potatoes. She immediately had an idea and decided to cut some potato shreds, add some dried chili peppers, stir-fry them in rapeseed oil, and then put them in the rice balls. They would taste both fragrant and spicy.
When Jiang Xiaoman said she would bring rice balls into the mountains tomorrow, Jiang Yu's mouth watered.
He had eaten the rice balls made by Jiang Xiaoman, and they were even tastier than the meals he made himself!
The rice balls would be made after the meal, so Jiang Xiaoman squatted down and emptied all the vegetables from the vegetable basket.
Qingshan's mother is a real expert at tending the vegetable garden. The radishes she grows are even better than his, almost as long as Jiang Xiaoman's arm. The carrots are also very plump, and even the greens she grows have leaves that are almost as big as a pot lid!