Chapter 603 A Fancy New Year's Eve Dinner

With so many people, what should we eat to fill us up without making us look poor?

Today I'm making dumplings with pickled cabbage, pork, and oil filling, plus shrimp dumplings that the kids love.

Dumplings are the staple food, and they are served with the classic dish of pork stew with vermicelli and cornbread.

My fourth sister also brought dried mushrooms, which we used to stew chicken; the taste was incredibly delicious.

There were no cold dishes today, but she prepared various seasonal vegetables and tofu skin as dipping sauces.

To elevate the dipping sauce, we also prepared egg sauce and various pickled vegetables.

To cater to the children's tastes, they specially asked Chef Tang Cuixiang to make some stir-fries.

Dishes for children include sweet and sour pork, sweet and sour pork ribs, crab roe tofu, stir-fried potatoes, eggplant, and green peppers, and candied sweet potatoes.

Lightly seasoned dishes include steamed prawns, stir-fried cabbage with vinegar, cold lotus root salad, and stir-fried yam with wood ear mushrooms.

There were also Korean seaweed soup, Japanese salmon sashimi, American fruit salad, Russian caviar, Thai tom yum soup, French foie gras, Bacon, German sausage, Indian curry, etc., prepared for everyone. Each table was given a small portion to try, not much, just to enjoy something new.

The children were incredibly excited to see the table full of food, especially since they had never seen many of these dishes before.

Fifth Sister raised her children in the South, and she thought they wouldn't be used to Northern cuisine, but it turns out they've been eating Northern food since they were little.

They have a northern palate, and find southern cuisine too refined; it tastes good, but it's not good value for money.

Zhou Yue was surprised that Xiao Jiu had prepared so many ingredients in such a short time, but she still gave him face.

His gratitude towards his wife was beyond words, and he felt that his money had indeed been well spent.

Even if we gave it to him, he might not be able to procure so many ingredients.

This is comparable to a state banquet!

At least in his entire life, the best New Year's Eve dinner he's ever had is of this caliber.

They could tolerate most of the dishes, but curry and sashimi were the only ones that the children disliked and the adults frowned at.

Even Zhou Yue and Xiao Jiu, who had lived in Japan for many years, didn't really like it, but it was better than what they had, and they could still eat it.

"So this is salmon. I'd only ever heard of it before."

Li Chunqing and Anar tried a bite out of curiosity, but refused to eat it again.

The Tang sisters looked at Xiao Jiu and Cui Hong as if confirming something, and the two sisters nodded calmly.

"Haven't we eaten this color of fish before? Quite a few times, haven't we? Don't you remember?"

After Zhao Lingli and Tao Changyi took a bite, they looked at Xiaojiu and Cuihua and saw that their eyes were somewhat evasive, and they immediately understood.

"Where? I got it wrong, I got it wrong. This is salmon, it's really expensive."

And that caviar...it tasted too fishy and salty, not good at all.

"Mom, this is salmon caviar. The roe is large and translucent with a bright pink color. It's not very expensive."

Good caviar has a soft, round appearance, is fresh and plump, and has a blackish-gray or brownish juice.

It has a faint ocean flavor when you taste it, but the aftertaste is mellow and sweet, and it shouldn't be too salty.

The better the caviar, the less salt is added, leaving a subtle, fresh, fishy taste on the palate.

You can feel the extremely delicious juice bursting in your mouth. It's not very salty, but the aftertaste is slightly sweet, leaving a lingering and unforgettable flavor.

When we have the chance, we'll let everyone try it again.

It wasn't that she was unwilling to select the best items for her family to enjoy; it was simply that there were too many things piled up, making it too troublesome to organize.

Only as these things are consumed can high-quality caviar be found.

The meal lasted from noon until the afternoon, and was reheated twice in between, until 8 p.m.

It's like a meal, half a day of work, and most of the day spent eating. Everyone sits in the house chatting or playing cards, having a great time.

During this time, Xiao Jiu and Zhou Yue shared the parts of their experiences abroad that they could talk about over the years.

Everyone drank some alcohol, and there were many different kinds of alcohol, including those from various countries, but none of them were as potent as vodka and spirits.

Xiao Jiu, slightly tipsy from the fact that she was getting married the next day, was helped to the kang (a heated brick bed) to rest.

Others, including the children, helped to sort out the leftover food, and clean and put away the pots, pans, tables, chairs and benches.

None of the leftovers were left; they were all put into a bucket. There wasn't much, just a lot of soup and liquid.

Along with food scraps and various dried yellow vegetable leaves from cooking, he quietly instructed Xiao Jiu to store them in his spatial storage and feed them to the four wolf cubs.

Today it's the little sister, Heiwu's, turn to guard outside. They've all gotten used to this rotating shift system.

Fortunately, Zhou Yue was busy and didn't realize that there were five dogs guarding the gate.

It's cold, and it doesn't want to move, so it stays in its nest and doesn't come out.

On New Year's Eve, all the men took their children out to set off firecrackers. Zhou Yue bought five large boxes and went on a spending spree.

After cleaning up, the women sat on the kang (a heated brick bed) and chatted, mostly about Tang Cuilan's marriage.

While comforting her, the sisters also offered suggestions, including secretly giving Cuilan money, but she refused them all.

"No need, I earned a few hundred yuan from selling my job, which is enough for my mother and me to get by for a while."

Her meaning was clear: once she had spent most of her money, she should have found a job.

But everyone insisted on giving it to her, saying, "You need money to cover expenses at work, so take it. We're family."

Looking at her seven older sisters, all of them were doing better than her. They might not care, but Cuilan did, and she silently made a note of it.

Once she recovers from this, she'll find a way to pay the money back.

Even though they are sisters by blood, they have all started their own families now, so she can't very well ask them for money anymore.

When Cao Amei was mentioned, Cuihua pouted.

"I don't know if it was the Cao family who tipped her off, but her three sons actually came looking for her."

Xiao Jiu's eyes widened. "Three sons? Good heavens, weren't there only two?"

"She had a son with her first husband, then ran away. She was sold a second time and had two more sons."

"Then what did she do?" Tang Cuihua shook her head. "She's old now, and her uterus prolapsed to the point that she had to have surgery to remove it."

“When her sons came looking for her, she was still quite lucid. She ignored them, called the police directly, and they took her away.”

Tang Cuifeng chimed in from the side: "She told the police that she had been trafficked twice, and that these children all carried the genes of robbers."

She won't raise them, let alone take care of them. She's already quite old and has no one to take care of her, so where would she get the money to help them?

"Either leave, or sue them. She even asked her brother-in-law to find someone to help her scare these poor, mountain-dwelling fools who know nothing."

"It's fortunate that these people who came to freeload didn't expect to get anything from her at all; they were just after us."

My brother-in-law acted swiftly, having them beaten up and thrown into the car on their way home, which stopped them from bothering us.

Tang Cuihua reassured her sisters, "Don't worry, these scoundrels are easy to deal with. It's just that the Cao family really can't stand to see us doing well!"