The Garden Life of a Little Gardener

When Zhou Quan and the others returned to Bao's old house, the construction team had already left after a busy day.

The grilled lamb chops are cut into suitable sizes and placed in a large porcelain basin, with dry sauce for dipping and eating.

The kitchen was full of heat, and the sound of sizzling vegetables meeting oil, as well as the sound of stir-frying and frying, could be heard non-stop from inside.

Returning the keys to the motorcycle to the eldest cousin, Zhou Quan took the bag of steamed buns into the kitchen. They guys want to drink, and they probably won’t be able to eat the staple food for a while, so they have to find a steamer to put it in, so as to save it from cooling down for a while Lose.

Bao Erlong also followed him into the kitchen, and very consciously helped Chef Bao bring the fried appetizers to the yard.

When Zhou Quan came out, he brought the bowls and chopsticks, and Chen Wenli had already set up the tables and wine glasses. When Chef Bao came out with the last cold dish, the outside had already been set up.

The youngest Bao Erlong was used to pouring wine for his brothers, so when everyone was seated, he unscrewed the bottle of Moutai Prince very naturally, stood up and poured wine for the others.

Chef Bao took his wine glass, pushed the pot of grilled lamb chops to the middle of the table and said, "Erlong, just now I asked Wen Li to send some lamb chops to my uncle and grandma Chen. Aunt Jia Xiuzhi, you can also send some over there."

Chen Wenli, who was also going back to get his wine glass, said, "Yes, ride my motorcycle, go and come back quickly."

Bao Erlong, who had a naturally smiling face, heard the words and said: "No, my mother doesn't eat mutton. I don't need to stir-fry. Just now when I came out with beer and drinks, those women from the village came to my house again in groups. No need to ask, the mahjong table must be set up again, and those old women don't care whether they eat or not when they play."

People in their city love to play mahjong and poker. Bao Erlong's grocery store is the most crowded place in the village, and it has served as the village chess and card room for many years.

People in the village regard playing mahjong and poker as their daily leisure after work.

While explaining Bao Erlong, he sniffed the white wine in the wine glass, heheed a few times and said, "It's the first time I've drunk Moutai national wine. I'll try it to see if it's different from the shochu in the village."

After sipping it lightly, Bao Erlong smacked his mouth a few times and said, "It's quite fragrant, but it doesn't feel as strong as shochu."

After speaking, the boy raised his glass and stood up and said, "Brothers, I'm here to toast you."

Then he raised his neck and took a sip first.

Zhou Quan couldn't help laughing at the kid who deliberately imitated the hero of Liangshan.

This kid has been a living treasure since he was a child, and Dao's temper has not changed at all now.

The familiar atmosphere quickly dispelled the estrangement that everyone hadn't seen for many years. Zhouquan put down his wine glass and eagerly stretched out his chopsticks to the protagonist on the table tonight, the pot of grilled lamb chops.

You don’t even have to eat it, just listen to the crisp sound when the chopsticks are clamped on the lamb chops, Zhou Quan knows that this pot of grilled lamb chops is absolutely unmissable.

Sure enough, the lamb chops in the mouth are crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. After being heated by flames for a long time, a crispy shell has appeared on the outside of the lamb chops, and all the juice inside is locked in this shell. The fragrant gravy splashed out immediately.

Covering his chin with his hands, Zhou Quan was afraid that the gravy would flow onto his clothes, but even so, he still refused to give up the mutton in his mouth.

Although the crispy and tender mutton has been marinated for a long time, it only removes the smell of the meat and does not weaken the deliciousness of the mutton itself. Pink, one can imagine how smooth and tender the meat of this lamb chop should be.

The outside is not burnt and the inside is tender, and it is crispy and juicy in one bite. This lamb chop is absolutely perfect no matter whether it is heat or marinade.

Although Chef Bao prepared dipping sauces for them, Zhou Quan felt that they didn’t need them at all. The taste of the lamb chops was just right, slightly salty with a hint of sweetness, plus the milky flavor of the lamb itself. It would be a pity not to have another one own appetite.

All of a sudden, the sound of gnawing lamb chops was heard on the dining table, and the national wine in the cup was ignored, and no one even spoke.

Only Chef Bao, as the host, tasted a piece of lamb chops and understood the taste, then silently ate cold dishes, and gave the lamb chops to the faxiaos.

After eating three or four pieces of mutton chops in a row, Chen Wenli, who finally came to his senses, let out a sigh of relief: "It really is the authentic Baojia grilled mutton chops, even though I haven't eaten them for ten years, the taste is still fresh in my memory. "

Hearing this, Bao Erlong threw away a clean bone and licked the gravy on his finger, agreeing: "That's right, it's still the same taste, a taste that you will never forget after eating it once."

As for Zhou Quan, he didn't have time to express his opinion, because he had already fallen into the delicacy of lamb chops and couldn't extricate himself.

Chef Bao is very satisfied with this dinner party. For a chef, the biggest compliment he gets at the table is that the guests finish all the dishes he has carefully prepared.

After several sips of white wine, Bao Erlong looked at the other people at the table, and said with a little sigh: "Do you still remember that when Brother Baoyan tried to make roasted whole lamb for the first time more than ten years ago, he The mutton was not fully roasted, and the mutton leg was still bloodshot."

Chen Wenli laughed while pinching the wine bottle and said, "Of course I remember, at that time Grandpa Bao punished him to eat all the uncooked mutton. If he couldn't eat it, Ah Quan secretly asked us to share it with him. .”

"Yeah, a whole sheep, even though it's still a lamb, it's still very important, we all ate it for him all day." Zhou Quan, who finally remembered the embarrassing things about his friend's opinions, also interjected.

"At that time, it was almost this season. We hid from Grandpa Bao and went to Ah Quan's house to steal roasted whole lamb. In fact, I think we knew about helping Grandpa Ah Yuan Bao, but he also loved his grandson very much, so he turned his eyes and closed it. Just a glance."

"It was the first time in my life that I ate so much mutton. Except for some raw meat, it actually tasted pretty good. In late spring and early summer, can a group of half-sized children not get angry after eating so much mutton? How many of us I couldn't sleep in the middle of the night and wandered around in the village, almost being caught by my father as a thief."

Hahahahahaha, thinking of the situation at that time, Zhou Quan couldn't help laughing out loud.

Bao Erlong took a pair of chopsticks to eat with wine and put them into his mouth, chewing while recalling: "Later, it was late and we were tired from walking, so we sat under the big willow tree by the river to rest. I don't remember who asked first, it seems We all said what we want to be when we grow up, right?"

Hearing this, Zhou Quan held the wine glass and thought about it carefully, but the time interval was really too long, and he couldn't remember it.

He didn't remember, Bao Erlong remembered very clearly, he put down his chopsticks and said: "Everyone said it, I remember it very clearly. Brother Baoyan said that he wanted to be a chef in the future, brother Wenli, you said that he wanted to be a cook." A general, Brother Ah Quan said he wanted to grow the most beautiful flowers, I said I wanted to be a scientist."

"Isn't that right? Did you remember? Now Brother Baoquan's wish has been fulfilled, and Brother Ah Quan's flower shed has been erected again. Although Brother Wen Li did not become a general, he was a soldier. The photo in military uniform It’s handsome to send it back, and it can be regarded as having worked hard for my dream. Only I am farther and farther away from scientists, why do you think I casually called scientists at that time?”

The other people at the dining table looked at each other, and Chen Wenli, who knew the situation better, asked with concern: "Erlong, what's wrong with you? Did something happen to Lihua?"

Lihua is Bao Erlong's girlfriend, and the two have a good free love relationship, and it's time to discuss marriage, but I heard that the bride price at the woman's house is very high, and the two parties have been negotiating.

Bao Erlong nodded and shook his head when he heard the words, sighed and said: "Lihua's side is nothing, the key is her natal side. My mother-in-law asks too much for the bride price there. If it's according to what she wants, I will marry you." Not to mention that all the wealth is wiped out when we return to marriage, and we still have to owe 30 to 40 yuan in the famine. Don’t even think about paying it off in ten or eight years. But if we really pay off the debt for ten years for marriage, do we still have to live our own lives? gone?"

Chef Bao frowned slightly when he heard this, and just as he was about to say something, Bao Erlong raised his hand.

After gesticulating with a cross, Bao Erlong said: "I just want to complain in my heart. It's nothing else. I also know the situation of my partner. She has two younger brothers under her, both of whom are not married yet. The boss is not bad, at least he found a serious job in the city after graduating from college, and the younger one has to rely on the family for everything, but it doesn’t mean that he has to go back when the girl gets married. I just feel sorry for my partner, Caught in a dilemma between me and her mother, what do you think I learned about computers when I was in vocational high school? Learning excavators is better than now.”

Bao Erlong's academic performance is not very good. After graduating from junior high school, Bao Erlong failed to enter high school. He went to the city to study in a vocational high school.

Helplessly, this kid is not interested in computers. Although he also studied in school, his grades were only so-so, and he barely passed and did not fall behind.

After graduating, it was not easy for him to find a job because of his education and technical problems. After working as a network administrator in the city for more than a year, he decided to resign and go home to concentrate on running his own grocery store.

To be honest, this kid still has some brains in business. The small grocery store in his family has more than doubled his profit in four or five years. worry free.

But according to the girl's request, it would cost at least 90 to [-] yuan, and they really couldn't afford it if they asked their family to spend so much money all at once.

"Then what do you mean here?" Chen Wenli, the oldest of the four, couldn't help asking because he cared about the little brother.

"What can I mean? You can buy a house in the city, but you can't afford the full price in the city center. If you have to pay the full price for a two-bedroom and one living room, I can accept around 30. A small car worth around [-] yuan was used as a dowry gift. Their family chose one of the two, and I should give a lot of jewelry and so on. The wedding banquet invited their own, how much dowry was given, and I didn’t even choose whether to give it or not. I live as a human being, as long as Lihua's life is easier."

Chen Wenli nodded slightly when he heard the words and said: "According to the rules in our village, these conditions are really acceptable, but I don't know if the woman's family will accept it or not."

"Hey, sometimes I really want to learn from you, Brother Wenli, and tell the matchmaker that I can't marry you, hahaha, it's really tough."

"Don't make trouble, I was on a blind date. Can you and Lihua be the same if you are in free love? But now the wedding gifts in the village are too harsh. Isn't this making the man sell everything?"

"There are more boys than girls, and things are rare. If you want to marry a wife, you don't have to bleed. But who can blame this? I think my sister hid at my grandma's house for several years in order to want me. She still blames my mother for being partial" You said that if my mother and the others knew that it would cost so much money to marry their son in the future, would they go around and hide and insist on giving birth to me?"

Zhou Quan, who hadn't been back for many years, couldn't say a word on this kind of issue, so he had to drink and eat food in silence, and then it was no surprise that he drank too much as the one with the worst alcohol intake among the children.

Looking at Zhou Quan who was lying on the dining table and his eyes had started to blur, the others ended the dinner in a tacit understanding.

After seeing off Chen Wenli and Bao Erlong, when Chef Bao came back, he saw Zhouquan laying on the table sleepily, keeping his eyes closed and his head bowed and raised again, like a chicken pecking at rice.

Chef Bao, who was angry and funny, walked over to wake up his friend, but Zhouquan stared at him in a daze, then raised his hand and slapped Chef Bao's face.

"Hey, Brother Baoyan, why are you dark? The beard on your face has also become so hard that it hurts your hands even if you press it."

Baoyan was dazed after being rubbed, it was the first time in his more than [-] years of life that someone dared to rub his face. When he was living abroad, no one who bullied others because of his size dared to do this to him. Do.

However, despite being teased by others, Chef Bao found that he was not angry at all.

Seeing that he was already drunk and confused, he sighed and turned his back on him as if resigned to his fate, and said, "Get on my stomach and carry you home."