These two months are one of the best weather periods in Suzhou, in the second month of the lunar calendar, the spring breeze blows, and the area around Suzhou and Hangzhou is a famous tourist attraction in the world, so tourists from all over the world are naturally indispensable. Therefore, in Zhongnan's small restaurant, in addition to the usual regular customers, there will be many people from other places who come to Suzhou to play, they will wander around the overpass, and some will be attracted by the fragrance of Zhongnan's stir-frying, and then they will introduce other tourists they know to patronize. So these days, Zhong Nan is busy from morning to night every day, tired and exhausted, but looking at the daily flow account, he feels that it is worth it.

Don't underestimate this small restaurant, according to the popularity of today's business, it is not difficult to earn two or three hundred taels of silver a year, Zhong Nan plans to work hard for another year this year, recruit a chef next year, and he will be liberated to be in charge of the lobby, so that Qiu Xiang will stay in the backyard, so as not to disturb those wild bees and butterflies. Do it so well for a few years, and then buy some real estate to rent, and when the times are good, you can also make money, and when you almost have some assets, the young couple can be the shopkeeper. Zhong Nan and Qiu Xiang mentioned this idea, and she also agreed, so in the face of the current situation, even if they are tired and tired, the two can only endure and endure again.

……

Within two days, Cao Fu sent someone to invite Zhong Nan to cook for the young lady, and he instructed Qiu Xiang to sell some cold dishes and snacks for dinner, and close early.

When Zhong Nan came to the back kitchen of Caofu, all the ingredients needed had been prepared, and the little girl on the road had already informed him that today was the young lady entertaining relatives in his hometown, so the dishes were mainly Sichuan cuisine, and what he needed to do was to return to the pot meat, mapo tofu, braised fish and a few other things, and other local dishes could be cooked by the chef of Caofu.

The practice of mapo tofu is very simple, cut the old tofu into squares of about one centimeter (tender tofu can also be, but the taste is not as good as the old tofu), when the oil temperature is eight or nine minutes in the pot, add an appropriate amount of bean paste, sugar, ginger, minced garlic, add a small amount of water after stir-frying, wait for the soup to boil and then pour in the cut tofu pieces, add minced shallots and monosodium glutamate to taste after cooking, and then pour in an appropriate amount of water starch juice to thicken, turn the pot and stir-fry evenly, you can get out of the pot and put it on the plate, and finally sprinkle some peppercorn noodles on the top of the dish, so that Mapo tofu is ready.

For braised fish, it is best to use about one pound of carp (preferably no more than two catties), clean and remove the scales and internal organs, and then cut a flower knife on the fish and marinate it with salt for 15 minutes; Crack two eggs into a bowl, break them with chopsticks and stir well; Chop an appropriate amount of bean paste with a knife and mince a small amount of lean meat; In addition, you need to prepare an appropriate amount of starch, add a little water, stir well and set aside. When everything is ready, pour more oil into the pan (it is advisable to basically submerge the fish when frying), and when it is hot for 7 minutes, spread the marinated fish evenly in the egg mixture prepared earlier, coat it with dry starch, and then fry it in the pan until golden brown on both sides. When frying fish, one side should be fried and then turned over to fry the other side, and at the same time, it should not be flipped at will, so as not to end up fried into a fish shape and affect the shape of the dish. If you have enough time, you can also wait for the fried fish to cool down and fry it again in the oil pan to make it more crispy. After the fish is fried, drain the oil and set aside, pour the oil in the pot into other containers (these oils can be used for other purposes), leave only a little base oil, put the meat foam, minced bean paste, ginger, minced garlic, and an appropriate amount of sugar into the pot and fry until fragrant, then add an appropriate amount of water, add an appropriate amount of sesame oil, dark soy sauce, monosodium glutamate, pepper, green onion and other white sections after boiling, and finally add the previously adjusted water starch juice and stir evenly (the amount is appropriate to the thick and flowing juice of the stirred), and pour it on the fried fish.

After Zhong Nan finished the few dishes requested by the young lady, he waited in the backyard of Cao's Mansion to settle the bill and go home. The young lady is very generous, she comes to cook a dish and gives two taels of silver, and the cash is settled, which is more profitable than opening a small restaurant for a day, so Zhong Nan is also willing to come to Cao's Mansion to cook. In fact, there are no more than ten dishes to cook for the young lady every time, all the ingredients and seasonings are provided by the Cao Mansion, Zhong Nan only needs to cut, match, and spoon, and it takes less than half a day. Therefore, every time he cooks in Caofu, Zhong Nan does his best, and strives to make every dish he cooks with all his strength, so that the young woman spends this big price in vain.

didn't wait long, the housekeeper of the Cao Mansion took the silver and gave Zhong Nan to sign the settlement, and asked him to wait a while before going home, saying that the young lady wanted to see him. Zhong Nan was a little puzzled, he was a cook who cooked, the favorite concubine of the prefect of Suzhou, she had nothing to do with herself, what could she do when she saw herself?

After waiting for about half an hour, it is estimated that the young lady's banquet is over, and the housekeeper led Zhong Nan to the living room in the backyard of Cao's mansion. I saw a bright young woman sitting on the main seat in the hall, looking at the age of twenty-four or five, with a married woman's hairstyle, willow eyebrows, slender big eyes, and a little powder. This young woman not only has a beautiful face, but also has the charm of a mature woman, although the maid standing behind her is also a little beautiful, but compared to her, she is just a chick, thinking that this young woman is undoubtedly the young lady Zhou Bing'er of Caofu.

Zhong Nan stood aside after stepping forward and saluting, although the atmosphere of the Ming Dynasty at this time was relatively civilized, but there were still many taboos about the relationship between men and women, not to mention that the identity of the other party was not ordinary, so Zhong Nan showed enough respect. The young lady sat in her seat, picked up the cup in front of her with her jade hand with her beautiful nails, and took a sip of tea before she asked leisurely: "I don't know where the shopkeeper Zhong is from?" ”

"Mrs. Hui, my little hometown is in the northeast of Sichuan and Shu." Zhong Nan replied truthfully.

"That's good, we're still out-and-out fellows, no wonder the Sichuan cuisine made by Shopkeeper Zhong is very authentic!" Zhou Bing'er laughed.

Zhong Nan thought to himself, this beauty won't be chatting with a fellow countryman, but it doesn't make sense, he is not familiar with her, and today is the first time they have met. It was the first time for Zhong Nan to deal with this kind of ancient charm*, and he didn't know the other party's intentions, so he couldn't help but speculate in his heart. Seeing that Zhong Nan was holding back a little sweat on his head, the young woman covered her mouth, giggled for a while, and then said the theme of tonight: "I wonder if the shopkeeper Zhong will make hot pot?" ”

"The hot pot base is small and can be fried, but I don't know which dishes the young lady likes, so I can prepare it in advance."

"It's good to be able to fry the base, and as for the dishes, I'll have people prepare them." Seeing that Zhong Nan did not disappoint himself, Zhou Bing'er immediately set a time, "Three days later, I will see off my relatives from my hometown, I want them to eat an authentic Shudi hot pot, and when the time comes, I will trouble the shopkeeper Zhong to fry the base, and I will send someone to fetch it." ”

"No problem, I'll fry the base in the morning after tomorrow, and I bother to ask the young lady to send someone to my store."

After everything was agreed, Zhou Bing'er asked the housekeeper to send off the guests. As soon as she turned around and walked two steps, she seemed to remember something again, and stopped and said to Zhong Nan: "I heard that Master He harassed Mrs. Zun a few days ago, and the next time you encounter this kind of thing, you can come to Cao's Mansion to find me." ”

Zhong Nan didn't expect Zhou Bing'er to mention this stubble, and hurriedly thanked him: "Thank you for your care!" ”

Zhou Bing'er waved her hand casually, didn't say anything more, and then left accompanied by the maid.

Zhong Nan returned home and told Qiu Xiang what happened in Cao Mansion at night, which made her happy for a long time, in the eyes of the two, as long as they move around more with Zhou Bing'er in the future and have a good relationship, it will definitely be of great help to them in Suzhou Mansion. The little couple who were in a good mood were also in high spirits at night, and they tossed in bed for an hour or two before stopping. Zhong Nan once had two girlfriends, he was experienced, and he was the active party when he was happy with Qiu Xiang, and sometimes he would make some unusual moves, so ashamed that Qiu Xiang didn't dare to raise his head, and tonight the two of them unlocked a new posture, and now they are holding and whispering.

"Brother Zhong, why didn't you say my stomach was moving?" Although the two have been married for several months, Qiu Xiang still likes to call Zhong Nan "Brother Zhong", she pillowed on Zhong Nan's chest and asked lazily.

"Don't panic, giving birth to a child also has to be divided into hours, and you can only get pregnant if you have sex during ovulation." Zhong Nan replied.

"Ovulation?" Akika heard this word for the first time, so naturally she didn't understand, "When is the ovulation period?" ”

As a former intellectual youth, Zhong Nan felt the need to popularize scientific knowledge to his wife, "Generally speaking, the few days before your next menstrual event is the ovulation period, and only during this time can a fertilized egg be formed when you have intercourse, and the fertilized egg can be born after about nine months of normal development within *." ”

"Didn't you say that you were pregnant in October, why is it only nine months?" Qiu Xiang was very puzzled, how her father-in-law said it was different from what she understood.

Medically, the length of pregnancy is about 280 days, but it is calculated from the first day of the last menstrual leave. If you count from the formation of the fertilized egg, it will be subtracted more than ten days, so the time of the fetus in * is about nine months. Zhong Nan slowly instilled these correct knowledge into Qiu Xiang, looking at his wife's eyes that he didn't understand, he felt that there was still a long way to go in popular science work!

Qiu Xiang counted and counted with her fingers, and finally smiled, "Brother Zhong, according to what you said, today should be the ovulation period, let's work hard again, okay?" ”

For his wife's request, Zhong Nan naturally complied happily, so a pleasant ecstasy sounded in the bedroom again......