In an instant, Jiang Xiaoman couldn't help but recall the years he had spent dominated by his graduation thesis...
"Never mind, let's hurry up and cook!" Jiang Xiaoman shivered through the window and quickly ran to the kitchen to prepare dinner.
The cudweed is at its tenderest this season, making it the perfect ingredient for making qingtuan (a type of glutinous rice dumpling).
In the past, to make qingtuanzi (green glutinous rice dumplings), you had to put cudweed or mugwort into a stone mortar and pound it repeatedly. After pounding it, you would wrap it in gauze and squeeze out the juice before you could use it to knead the dough.
But it's not that complicated now.
After all, Jiang Xiaoman is a (unofficial) food blogger with millions of followers. Since he became popular, many brands have approached him and sent him products, hoping that he would incorporate their products into his videos.
The majority of items here are various kitchen utensils and small appliances.
Now, the rice cooker, juicer, air fryer, food processor, and other appliances in his kitchen are all samples sent by the brand.
Chop the washed cudweed into small pieces, put it into a juicer, turn it on, and then you don't need to do anything else. In just a few minutes, you can pour out the freshly squeezed cudweed juice.
Scoop out three bowls of glutinous rice flour and one bowl of rice flour, pour in the freshly squeezed cudweed juice, and knead into a dough for later use.
Next comes stir-frying the filling.
Peel the bamboo shoots you just picked this afternoon, put them in a pot of cold water and bring to a boil. Then take them out and rinse them repeatedly to remove the astringent taste that the bamboo shoots naturally have.
Then dice it, soak some wood ear mushrooms and shiitake mushrooms, chop them in a food processor, and finally dice the cured pork. Stir-fry it in oil, then add diced bamboo shoots, wood ear mushrooms and shiitake mushrooms and stir-fry. Add a little chicken bouillon for seasoning. The cured pork is already salty, so there is no need to add salt to the filling.
Knead the dough, roll it into a ball, flatten it, then wrap the filling inside, shape it into a large dumpling, place bamboo leaves underneath, and then steam it.
While the qingtuan were steaming, Jiang Xiaoman washed and chopped the houttuynia cordata she had dug up, making a cold houttuynia cordata salad. Then she went to the vegetable garden behind the house and picked a bowl of pea shoots, making pea shoot and egg drop soup.
A simple yet delicious dinner is ready.
"Oh my, it's qingtuan! This is my first qingtuan this year!" Sun Zheyuan exclaimed with delight.
"Hehe~ Time is tight, so we'll just have something to eat tonight. I was originally planning to stir-fry some cured pork and bracken, but fresh bracken needs to be blanched and soaked for half a day before it can be used in cooking. I don't have time for that now, so I'll save it for tomorrow."
"Aren't we going to Laoshan'aozi tomorrow?" Sun Zheyuan took a bite of half a green rice dumpling, panting heavily from the heat, while still inquiring about tomorrow's itinerary.
"I guess it will have to wait until tomorrow afternoon. I just called Brother Yan, and he said he's taking the two girls to the town's health center for flu shots tomorrow morning." Jiang Xiaoman felt that raising children these days was really difficult. In the past, they only needed to get vaccines like chickenpox and smallpox, but now they even need to get a flu shot.
"Right, right! Spring is here, and the flu season is just around the corner. No wonder there are always long lines at the town's health center every day." Sun Zheyuan suddenly realized.
Looks like this guy is single too.
The next day, around 1 p.m., Shan Yan arrived, bringing Jiang Xiaoman a basket of fresh snails with their tails still attached.
"Little Fish specially saved these for you, saying you'd definitely love them. He told you to keep them in the water for a couple of days before eating them." Shan Yan casually placed the bamboo basket containing the snails in the pond in front of his house.
"Oh! Little Fish is so good to me! I've been so busy lately that I forgot. This is the season when snails are at their freshest. If we don't eat them now, after Qingming Festival, the snail shells will be full of eggs, and the snail meat won't be plump anymore." Jiang Xiaoman happily poured the half-basket of snails into a deeper bucket, and covered it with something to prevent the snails from crawling out.
As the saying goes, "snails are better than geese during Qingming Festival." Snails that have been hiding in the mud all winter have emerged as the temperature rises. They devour large amounts of plankton in the water and become plump and tender within a month. Whether they are used to make soup with cured meat or stir-fried with chili peppers and perilla leaves, they are exceptionally delicious.
A few years ago, when she was in college, she couldn't afford it. Every year around this time, the frugal Jiang Xiaoman would reluctantly spend a dozen yuan to go to the night market and order a plate of stir-fried snails with soy sauce to satisfy her craving.
Now that I'm finally back in my hometown, I'm going to eat my fill of snails!
Unfortunately, he's been too busy lately. If Jiang Yu hadn't given him a basket of snails, he would have almost forgotten that snails are in season.
"Forget about your snails, hurry up and feed your chickens and pigs. Let's set off early and try to get to my house before dark," Shanyan urged.
Jiang Xiaoman quickly scooped up a large spoonful of crushed corn and scattered it into the chicken coop. He then carried a bucket of pig feed and poured it into the pigpen's trough. He had already arranged with Jiang Youliang that he would leave in the afternoon and Jiang Youliang would return before dark, so that his two piglets wouldn't go hungry.
Alas! Once a farmer starts raising pigs, he's completely tied to his family...
Chapter 152
The mountain rocks' urging was not without reason.
As evening fell, when they were still a mile away from Laoshan Aozi, the three of them could faintly hear the howling of wolves.
“Everyone says that wild beasts roam this mountain valley. A few years ago, someone went into the mountains to pick mushrooms and was dragged away by wolves.” Sun Zheyuan couldn’t help but shudder.
Fortunately, the three of them soon arrived at Shanyan's village. Upon entering the village, seeing the smoke rising from the chimneys of every household, even Jiang Xiaoman couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief, feeling cold sweat break out on her back.
He had always heard that there were wolves in the Laoshan Aozi area, but that was just hearsay. This was the first time he had ever heard a wolf howl with his own ears.
Shan Yan couldn't help but frown.
He stood at the village entrance and listened intently for a while, then his expression turned somewhat grim.
These blind bastards, of all places they could run, they had to come to his territory.
They just put in a dozen or so beehives over there.
After bringing Jiang Xiaoman and Sun Zheyuan home, Shan Yan asked Jiang Xiaoman to make some tea to entertain Sun Zheyuan. He then took a string of firecrackers from the storage room, ran out, and set off the entire string of firecrackers in the direction of his family's land!
The wolf howls gradually faded away.
"I never expected that this wolf would be a bully who preys on the weak and fears the strong..."
After a burst of firecrackers, the wolf howls gradually subsided, and Jiang Xiaoman couldn't help but laugh.
Sun Zheyuan, a township cadre, couldn't help but twitch his lips twice.
This is the painful part of being a civil servant in Langshan.
On the one hand, hunting is prohibited, and people are encouraged to use traditional methods such as firecrackers to drive away wild animals; on the other hand, strict measures must be taken to prevent wildfires caused by setting off firecrackers...
Sometimes even ordinary people think they might have some serious illness, because they let them set off firecrackers one minute and then forbid them the next!
Fortunately, neither Jiang Xiaoman nor Shan Yan took the opportunity to mock him, and Sun Zheyuan secretly breathed a sigh of relief. He then busied himself helping Jiang Xiaoman wash the mushrooms and prepare dinner.
Wild mushrooms are not yet widely available this season, but some early-blooming mushrooms have already begun to appear. On their way here, they came across a patch of chanterelle mushrooms.
This is good stuff! And it's in the woods not far from the roadside, and the area is safe, so Shanyan led them in and picked a bagful, just in time to eat it that night.
At this point, Sun Zheyuan still felt quite regretful. That area should have been a mushroom grove, and there were definitely more to come if they went further in. However, Shan Yan said it was getting late and it would be dangerous to go any further, so they had to give up and only picked this one bagful.
When Sun Zheyuan first came to Langshan, he had just received his salary and excitedly ran to the mushroom market in town, intending to buy some freshly harvested wild mushrooms to take back to his family to try. But when he asked about the price, wow! A pound of chicken oil mushrooms cost 650 yuan!
This isn't mushrooms, it's RMB!
Poor Sun Zheyuan, his monthly salary at the time was only a little over three thousand yuan, which wasn't even enough to buy six catties of chicken oil mushrooms. This made him extremely impressed with this expensive wild mushroom.
Therefore, when Sun Zheyuan saw Jiang Xiaoman generously pouring a large bowl of chicken oil mushrooms into the pot and stir-frying them, he inexplicably felt a pang in his heart.
He burned through a week's salary with that one pot of stir-fry...
Despite the heartache, I was quite happy while eating.
After all, these freshly picked chanterelle mushrooms are just too delicious! They had a strong apricot aroma when I was washing them. Jiang Xiaoman even cut a plate of fatty and lean cured pork to stir-fry with the mushrooms. The resulting chanterelle mushrooms were tender, juicy, and incredibly delicious!
After finishing their meal, the three sat around the fire. Jiang Xiaoman set up her tripod and phone, while Sun Zheyuan took out his laptop. Seeing the two of them looking like they were about to go to court, Shan Yan couldn't help but twitch his lips a couple of times.
Fortunately, Sun Zheyuan only asked questions such as "Why can beekeeping and honey collection be done in Laoshan Aozi for three seasons of the year?", "What are the local nectar-producing plants?", and "Where do wild bees usually like to build their nests?" These were valuable experiences they had accumulated over many years of traveling in the mountains. Shan Yan was originally only willing to teach these things to his own apprentices, but when he heard that Director Sun was asking such detailed questions in order to help their beekeeping cooperative obtain project subsidies, he opened his mouth and told Sun Zheyuan everything he knew.
However, Shan Yan was stunned when he heard Sun Zheyuan warmly invite him to serve as the cooperative's technical consultant.
Wasn't he already one of the owners of this cooperative? Why would he need to be a technical consultant?
“Sigh! You don’t know, our town used to hire technical consultants from outside. They also had their own jobs, and they rarely came more than twice a year. They would organize a meeting, visit the farmers’ homes, take a few photos, and then leave. They couldn’t solve any problems, and the town still had to spend money to pay their salaries.”
“Yesterday I was at Xiaoman’s house and saw the simple beehives that her father made. Xiaoman told me that her father was inspired by you, so he thought of using the terrain to create a suitable place for wild bees to build their nests. This is cheaper than making beehives, and the effect of attracting bees is also good.”
"At that time, I was thinking, what expert could understand the habits of wild bees better than you honey gatherers who spend all year in the mountains harvesting honey?"
"Brother Shanyan, for the sake of our fellow villagers in Langshan, why don't you become the technical consultant?"
"I promise I'll do my best to get you a good salary! It might not be as good as what the experts offer, but at least it'll be a secure job in our town, right?"
...
Jiang Xiaoman never expected that Shan Yan would be the first among their group to get a government job.
Shan Yan didn't really care how much salary the town paid him, but the title of "technical consultant" sounded like someone who was very cultured and highly respected.
Seeing that he didn't speak, Sun Zheyuan took it as his tacit agreement and immediately filled in Shan Yan's name in the technical consultant column of the opened form with a happy smile.
To their surprise, when their beekeeping cooperative published its member list, the local people were immediately filled with confidence when they saw the word "Shanyan" written in the technical consultant column!
Even if they saw the titles and positions of the experts outside, they still wouldn't understand.
But the rocks are different!
This guy is a well-known money-making expert in the surrounding area, and a professional honey-collecting master!
If they can tame even wild bees, how much more so domesticated native bees?
Suddenly, people flocked to sign up for the beekeeping cooperative, something no one had expected.
...
After spending another day in Laoshan Aozi, visiting the beehives in the homes of the villagers, and taking pictures of some old beehives with Shanyan, Sun Zheyuan hurriedly returned to the town to write reports.
Jiang Xiaoman's side also officially got busy.
The unfinished house near the courier station has been built, and the payment has been settled with the contractor. Jiang Xiaoman quickly called the "Old House Renovated" program to say that they could start the renovation and filming here.
Before the production crew arrived, he visited the dozen or so households that had previously agreed to cooperate with him.
Unexpectedly, the other party had already collected quite a few small tea cakes at home, eagerly waiting for him to collect them.
Jiang Xiaoman asked them why they hadn't called to urge him, but to her surprise, these women actually argued back with great conviction.
"We've all seen it! You've been accompanying our town's poverty alleviation cadres everywhere lately!"
"This is a great thing that will make our village rich! Even if our tea cakes spoil, we can't let them ruin your business!"
Jiang Xiaoman was both touched and amused.
However, the new tea season has only just begun, so there's no rush to sell. After all, Qingming and Guyu are traditionally peak seasons for green and white teas, and their old-fashioned tea cakes certainly can't compete with famous teas like West Lake Longjing, Huangshan Maofeng, Dongting Biluochun, and Anji White Tea.
Jiang Xiaoman decided to skip the wasteful expense of advertising and instead pooled together about 200 jin of newly made spring tea cakes from a dozen or so companies to sell directly in his own live stream.
Fans thought he had given up on making tea cakes, and were a little confused when Jiang Xiaoman suddenly took out a jar of mini tea cakes and started introducing them during the live stream.
Wait a minute! Isn't this the mini tea cake they almost forgot about while waiting?
Aaaaaah!
For a moment, no one cared about listening to Jiang Xiaoman's somewhat clumsy product sales pitch. They quickly opened the shopping cart, selected the item, and placed the order in one go!
As everyone knows, the things sold by Brother Xiaoman in the countryside are always genuine and of high quality.
Moreover, they genuinely dislike engaging in scarcity marketing; they sell as much as they have, and once it's sold out, they truly remove it from the shelves!