My Happy Daily Life After Being Reborn
Chapter 109 - 25 Preparing to Entertain Guests_2

Chapter 109: Chapter 25 Preparing to Entertain Guests_2

But Lin Xiaoguai didn’t mind this at all. Compared to the large, yet hormone-injected meat, pesticide-laden vegetables, and diesel-tainted fish flooding the markets in her time, she preferred this small marketplace before her eyes.

At least back then, she went through the motions of buying groceries, only to replace them with supplies from her space. Now, however, she wouldn’t waste like that anymore.

Seeing that today’s pork ribs were quite good, Lin Xiaoguai bought a section and also got two pork knuckles, planning to go home and make sweet and sour ribs, radish rib soup, and soy sauce braised pork knuckles.

At the poultry stall, she bought a freshly slaughtered chicken and duck. She intended to cook half the chicken into three cup chicken and the other half into eight treasure chicken rolls, whilst using the entire duck to make beer duck.

At the fish stall, Lin Xiaoguai picked out two of the largest carps, planning to prepare sweet and sour carp once back home.

With the meat dishes, which were the main focus, now sorted, the vegetable dishes were easy; all she needed to do was pick the freshest and most vibrant looking ones.

In the end, Lin Xiaoguai could be said to have returned with a full load. If not for Little Niangao’s pushcart with a decent-sized wicker basket at the back, she would have struggled to bring everything home.

Shen Chi had said there would be over a dozen guests, so she feared her dining table at home wouldn’t be big enough. She went to the cafeteria and borrowed two round tables and their supporting frames.

Having placed her son on the carpet and given him toys to keep himself occupied, Lin Xiaoguai began to get busy in the kitchen.

In addition to the meat and vegetables bought from the market, she planned to add two more meat dishes: spiced beef tripe and soy sauce beef, both of which were cold dishes she had made previously, stored in the fridge to be eaten gradually.

Two cold dishes seemed somewhat insufficient, so she decided to prepare a cold wood ear mushroom salad, five-spice flavored peanuts, sweet and sour lotus roots, and crystal clear pork aspic.

Six cold dishes were about enough, then she started to think about stir-fries and other dishes. Assessing the vegetables she had bought today and what was in the fridge, she quickly settled on a menu—tomato and egg stir-fry, eight treasure rice, carrot and pea stir-fry, green pepper and shredded pork, stir-fried Napa cabbage, and fresh bamboo shoot soup.

With a total of eighteen dishes, Lin Xiaoguai figured it was about right and began to prepare the ingredients.

Yaya arrived when Lin Xiaoguai was making the aspic. Yaya looked at the kitchen filled with various ingredients and asked, "Auntie, do you have guests coming today?"

"Yes," Lin Xiaoguai answered as she stuffed a piece of soy sauce beef into her mouth, "Yaya, have dinner at Auntie’s place tonight."

"Is that okay? Won’t Uncle Shen get angry?" Yaya understood that their invitation surely involved other military uncles. Her own family had hosted such gatherings before, but her father didn’t allow her to sit at the table; she would have to eat the leftovers with her mother in the kitchen.

"Not at all, you see, Auntie has prepared so much food. There will be plenty to eat when the time comes," Lin Xiaoguai said with a smile.

She was aware of Yaya’s family situation, which Yu Xiaomiao had told her about; when guests came over, because they didn’t buy a lot of food and feared there wouldn’t be enough for the guests, she and Yaya would not sit at the table. Wang Guozhong would only sit at the table because he had to drink with the guests, yet he also tried to eat as little as possible and just focused on the drinks.

Thinking of this, Lin Xiaoguai suddenly realized she had arranged all the dishes but had forgotten to buy alcohol! She had plenty of good wines in her space, but since they had only recently moved to the Military Family Area, she had no excuse to take them out.

With that in mind, Lin Xiaoguai handed ten yuan to Yaya, "Yaya, please go to the general store for Auntie and ask them to deliver a case of yellow wine and a case of white wine here."

Yaya, who had never seen so much money, swallowed nervously and asked, "Should I buy the cheap ones or the expensive ones?"

"The most expensive ones," Lin Xiaoguai replied, "Keep ten cents for yourself to buy some snacks."

Yaya ran out excitedly, and Lin Xiaoguai returned to her busy work in the kitchen.

—If this were in her later life, she would certainly not dare let a child of Yaya’s age go shopping alone. But in this era, children had a much better understanding of money than those of later generations. Yaya had been helping Yu Xiaomiao with grocery shopping like buying soy sauce for the past two years. The general store was located in the Military Family Area, with no vehicular traffic, and Yaya, having grown up in the Military Family Area, knew every blade of grass and tree and had no worries about getting lost.

When Lin Xiaoguai finished slicing the beef tripe, Yaya came back in a hurry.

"Auntie, where should the wine be put?"

Lin Xiaoguai wiped her hands and went out, directing the people from the general store towards the dining room, "Just place it in the corner will be fine."

After the general store’s staff left, Yaya dug the change out of her pocket, "Yellow wine is forty cents a bottle, a case of six bottles is two yuan and forty cents, white wine is sixty cents a bottle, a case of six bottles is three yuan and sixty cents, that’s six yuan in total. Here’s the change of four yuan, they were all whole yuan notes, Auntie, you gave me ten cents."

Listening to how accurately Yaya calculated the account, Lin Xiaoguai was somewhat surprised and asked incredulously, "Didn’t you buy any snacks for yourself?"

Yaya took the ten cents and replied, "I want to save up to buy meat."

Unlike other children, Yaya also enjoyed various snacks, but her favorite was meat. According to Yu Xiaomiao, this trait was very much like her father and grandmother.

Lin Xiaoguai shook her head helplessly and took two malt candies from the drawer, handing them to her, "Have them yourself, your brother can’t eat these yet."

Yaya nodded seriously upon hearing this. Ever since the soda incident, Yaya had been very conscientious about what Little Niangao eats, always making sure to ask if her brother could eat something before giving anything to him.

When Yu Xiaomiao came over, Yaya was watching TV. Seeing the scene in the kitchen, she guessed, just like Yaya, that Lin Xiaoguai’s family was having guests over and asked, "Can you manage on your own? Do you need a hand?" She thought, since Xiaoguai had always been giving treats to her daughter, and she hadn’t been able to reciprocate materially, helping her out was the least she could do.

Lin Xiaoguai was going to decline, but seeing her eagerness, she guessed Yu Xiaomiao’s intentions and changed her mind, "Perfect timing, I need to scald this chicken and drain the blood. Give me a hand."

(To be continued. If you enjoy this work, we invite you to vote for it with recommendation tickets and monthly tickets at Qidian.com. Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users, please visit m.qidian.com to continue reading.)