My dad is now lying in the hospital, unable to open his eyes or speak. Even if there was something to tell me, I couldn't open my mouth. I am now on a mission, and the lives of myself, my father, and Liang Yuan are closely linked to the old Tang chicken noodles.

I asked Liang Yuan what he thought of the dishes I cooked, Liang Yuan thought about it for a while, and only said two words:

"It's okay!"

In my cognition, the word "okay" is synonymous with "not delicious".

However, no matter how "delicious" it is, this store has to be opened. In order to make these two dishes, I bought the best finished seasoning, which is several times more expensive than making it at home.

When the cost is high, the less money you make.

Raising the price is the next policy, and the taste is not as good as before, and the price is rashly raised, and the loss of customers is certain.

In the catering industry, it is a long-term solution to be a regular customer, and to maintain good customers. Moreover, people's appetite is the most difficult to satisfy, and it is also the most sensitive, and the slightest dissatisfaction may offend the diner.

Or pay for a chef?

Nowadays, it costs about 3,000 to hire a dishwasher casually, and to hire a good cook, the price is estimated to be tens of thousands, and my chicken noodle shop only makes a few dollars a month.

Hire a cook, it is estimated that at this stage, the small monthly profit of the small shop is not enough to pay him a salary.

Every day, who is working hard and who is busy.

I told Liang Yuan about my thoughts, and he squinted his eyes and thought: "Tang Xiaofan, your store has been closed for many days, and if it doesn't open for business, the customers should all leave (harmony)." ”

I sighed: "I know what you said, but the taste is too different from before." I'm afraid that the guests won't recognize it. ”

"Didn't you just go to the mall and buy condiments?"

I hung my head: "It's the taste of those condiments, the red oil bean paste is okay, but the kimchi is really not good." ”

"Can't you settle?"

I smiled bitterly: "I can compromise, you can compromise, but the guest can't compromise." If they have a little bit of an appetite, they will go to other homes, and the money is in the hands of others, and it is their freedom to spend where they want. ”

Liang Yuan nodded straight at my words.

I looked at him: "Didn't you be complacent before?" He also said that he was a business wizard, and now he has a problem, how do you think about how to solve it? ”

Liang Yuan scratched his head: "I'm in charge of managing the company, major policies or something, I really can't do this technology." ”

I sneered inwardly.

What is a "major policy", to put it bluntly, it is "fake, big, and empty".

Without poking him, I continued to bury my head in eating.

At four o'clock this afternoon, I still have to visit my dad in the hospital. Although he can't speak, he must still have basic consciousness or something. I spend a little time with him every day, and he should be in a better mood.

Maybe I woke up suddenly, thank goodness.

With my dad here, everything is much easier, and even though the seasonings are gone, my dad is a man with a way, and he should come up with other ideas.

Now the burden falls on me, and I can only "carry" in one word!

After eating, Liang Yuan planned how to renovate the shop in the store. The things he proposed, which were to tear down walls and stoves at every turn, were all things that cost money.

Catering is a thing that is easy to do, easy to do, difficult to do, and indeed difficult.

Taste is key.

Those luxuriously decorated restaurants also have deserted business, and some street stalls with dirty and messy environments are full of diners waiting in line for seats.

In this society now, people are not stupid, I spend money, you have to satisfy my stomach.

No matter how good the things are made with empty heads and brains, the key things are not up to par, and in the end, the bamboo basket is empty.

Of course, a restaurant that can satisfy the taste and have a comfortable environment is definitely the best choice for diners. But the problem is, I don't have the money to mess around with his plan at the moment.

I found that the most profitable industry in the world is hospitals.

It's full of people day or night.

Everyone has to eat, but there is no money to eat at home; Everyone gets sick too, and staying at home when you're sick doesn't get better. The beds in the intensive care unit are very full, and the cost is more than 10,000 a day.

Tsundere very much.

When I came out of the hospital, I glanced at the sky, and it was still a scorching sun. As I walked along the road, I smelled a sour fresh scent.

In our local dialect, this taste is quite "Bashi"!

There was a small alley next to me, and the smell came out of it, and after walking about twenty or thirty meters inside, I saw a stall selling cold vegetables.

This stall is not too big, and the first floor of the residential house has a broken window and a shop is a shop.

An old lady, who looked to be in her sixties, wore a dark blue cotton silk shirt and trousers, and was mixing and mixing chicken feet in front of a large basin.

The fresh and sour smell came from the big pot of things in front of her.

I recognized the mother-in-law at a glance, she was the neighbor who had lived together in the previous building - Grandma Hu.

Speaking of this Grandma Hu, she is also a poor person.

She was not originally a local, but I heard my father say that when Grandma Hu was seventeen or eighteen years old, her hometown was hit by a famine, and almost all the family starved to death, and she was the only one who fled.

When she first arrived, she collapsed unconscious on the side of the road with hunger.

Later, a cook surnamed Zheng passed by the roadside and saw that she was pitiful, so he saved her with a bowl of fried crucian carp balls. This Chef Zheng is in his forties, and his wife left him a son and a daughter after she died of illness a few years ago.

In order to repay Chef Zheng's life-saving kindness, Grandma Hu married him.

Chef Zheng was originally a cold dish chef in a state-run hotel, but after the state-owned hotel was restructured, he was laid off and opened a small cold dish shop. This small shop has been open for decades.

A few years ago, Chef Zheng was not in good health, and the stall was handed over to Grandma Hu.

Speaking of which, this chef Zheng's craftsmanship is really good, he deserves to have worked in a state-run restaurant, and the taste of the cold dishes he makes is really a must, especially the pickled pepper and phoenix feet, the unique fragrance, before he has even eaten, he makes Ran salivate.

And at this moment, Grandma Hu stirred with a big spoon and kept stirring, it was the pickled pepper phoenix feet.

Every time I stir it, the umami of the phoenix feet squirts out.

This made the customers who were waiting to buy keep swallowing. In that big pot, the red ones are raw onion slices, the yellow ones are lemons, and the green ones are cucumber strips......

The milky white chicken feet are soaked in the soup, and the skin color is reflective, like white jade.

The thin pieces that can be seen through the light soaked in the chicken feet are pig skins. This was my favorite snack when I was a kid.

After my mom left, I was often home alone.

Grandma Hu doesn't have any children of her own, and Chef Zheng's two children have moved out, and she usually talks to me when she is lonely at home alone.

The family conditions are not good, and girls are hungry when they are young.

Chef Zheng works in a restaurant and usually sneaks some meat leftovers back. For example, rabbit ears, pig hearts, pig lungs and the like.

The rabbit ears are marinated, scooped up and dipped in chili noodles to eat, and the taste is unique. The pork heart is cold salad, sour and spicy, and the pig lungs are boiled and drunk with grapefruit peel, which moistens the lungs and relieves the heat.

In such an era when material resources were still relatively scarce, Grandma Hu also lived a good life.

Grandma Hu, who has no children and no daughters, will give me those things to eat, and my favorite food is the pickled pepper pork skin.

The pork skin is eaten in the mouth, and the Q bomb is chewy. At that time, the pork skin was not valuable, and Grandma Hu processed these leftovers, soaked them in the sour water prepared by Chef Zheng, and ate a bite, which was simply a delicacy in the world.

Later, Chef Zheng was laid off, and the husband and wife went outside to open a small stall to sell cold dishes.

Later, my dad started doing the "ghost diet" and we moved out. Since then, I haven't eaten Grandma Hu's cold dishes.

I called Grandma Hu, and she smiled at me when she saw that it was me and asked me to wait. I nodded, and stood quietly aside, watching the dazzling food, so hungry that the roundworms in my stomach were about to run out.

Every time a pickled pepper series is sold, Grandma Hu will add: "After eating the vegetables, the remaining soup can also be used to make noodles, but it is fresh." ”

Looking at the few pickled pepper vegetables left in the pot, Grandma Hu waved her hand at the guests below: "The pickled pepper vegetables are gone, buy the others." ”

The guest pointed to the pork skin and chicken feet left in the large basin: "Isn't there still here?" Why didn't it sell out? ”

Grandma Hu just smiled and didn't speak.

After selling this round of cold dishes, Grandma Hu beckoned me over, and she wrapped the remaining pork skin and chicken feet in the pot for me, and when she handed them to me, she said:

"Xiaofan, you remember, don't throw away this sour water, let your dad make you some noodles to eat."

The sour water of pickled pepper vegetables is indeed very distinctive.

At that time, my dad saw that I loved to eat pork rind and tried to make it for me.

The sour water is marinated in kimchi water with lemon, raw onions, peppercorns, and the like. Lemon onions and the like, in fact, there is not much difference, the most important thing is kimchi water.

This kimchi water, which looks similar, is actually a thousand flavors.

In our place, almost every family has a kimchi jar in their home, and the method of making brine is slightly different, and the taste is very different.

Chef Zheng is in the catering industry, so he naturally has his exclusive secret recipe.

I got closer and smelled the sour kimchi water, my mind flashed, so I looked at Grandma Hu: "Grandma, your kimchi water is so fragrant." ”

"Of course." Grandma Hu's face was full of pride; "This old altar mother water was brought back by Lao Zheng from the state-run hotel, and he has been taking care of it every day for more than 30 years, and he is not sloppy at all, can it taste bad?"

I laughed twice, picked up a chicken paw and nibbled on it.

It's still the taste of the year.

The chicken skin is crispy and full of Q bombs.

The sour aroma of lemon and the stimulation of onions are fused together, the sour water of the old altar has almost soaked into the chicken bones, and the peppercorns and ingredients exude the right fragrance.

This thing is indeed a very good market snack.

No wonder after so many years, even if it is windy and rainy, diners still have long queues to buy and don't mind.

During the chat, Grandma Hu asked about my father's current situation, and when she learned that my father was lying in the hospital, she sighed: "This person is really not old, and he is useless when he is old. ”

I whispered, "Grandma, my dad is only fifty years old. ”

"People, you really have to accept your fate." Grandma Hu wiped the red oil on the table with a rag; "Some people are gone at a young age, and some people live to be in their nineties and are still traveling and playing."

I nodded, agreeing.

Spit out a mouthful of chicken bones, I asked Grandma Hu if she could give some kimchi water, she asked me what I wanted to do with this, I said that the kimchi jar in my store was broken, and the old salt water of more than ten years was gone, and I wanted to take some back as mother water.

In addition to the salty taste, the new brine lacks the taste of fresh fragrance, and the dishes soaked are not as crisp as the old brine water. Therefore, it is necessary to use old brine as mother water, just like you need good yeast to make yogurt.

Chef Zheng's old salt water is the mother water taken from the state-run hotel, and with his own careful cultivation, the old salt water in that jar should be very good.

Grandma Hu didn't answer me immediately, and after listening to my words, she paused for a moment.

I don't know what Grandma Hu is thinking, in our place, it is actually a normal thing to find someone to ask for kimchi mother water to pickle kimchi.

Is it because I'm afraid that I'll do it and make pickled pepper phoenix feet and rob her business?

The pickled pepper dish looks simple, but there are a lot of tricks in it, and even if I get the mother water, I can't make it taste like her.

So, she didn't have to worry about it.

Grandma Hu suddenly raised her eyes and looked at me: "Tang Xiaofan, do you really want to go back with me?" ”

Looking at the deep eyes, the scorching sun was in the sky, and I actually shivered.