Volume 1: Reborn in the 1980s, selling lunch boxes with my mother Chapter 89 Raising a granddaughter requires her to be plump and white
Grandpa He and Grandma He are old and really can't chew hard things, so Jiang Tian blanchs the pig's trotters and stews them, and saves them to make pig's trotter noodles for the two elders in the evening.
The black carp that Hu Qiongfang bought was really big, almost as long as her arm. Jiang Tian thought that the two elders might not have eaten pickled fish, so she used the big black carp to make a big pot of pickled fish.
On the way here, she also bought two pounds of pork belly in the town, and now all of it has been made into braised pork. If you can't finish this dish, you can hang it in the well and heat it up tomorrow, or buy a piece of old tofu, cut it into pieces and stew it in the well. The braised pork will be soft and tender, just right for the elderly.
Most of the fried dough sticks and steamed buns she bought were kept for the parents to heat up for breakfast tomorrow. Jiang Tian took a fried dough stick and made a bowl of fried dough stick and egg custard.
I broke off two more fried flower rolls and made a plate of flower rolls and stewed gourd.
At first glance, these two dishes look like some dark cuisine from a university cafeteria.
In fact, it is also a very classic dark dish on the construction site.
In Jiang Tian's previous life, the construction site where she worked provided three meals a day. In the morning, they provided steamed buns, steamed dough sticks, and flower rolls. Sometimes they inevitably made too much and couldn't finish it, but that couldn't be wasted.
Fried dough sticks can be used to stew egg custard, which tastes greasy and is loved by workers.
It can also be cut into pieces and stir-fried with loofah and gourd. After being fried until soft, the fried dough sticks are full of the sweetness of the loofah and gourd, which makes even the workers who don’t like vegetables love this dish.
The fried flower rolls had a crispy crust, and the elderly really couldn't bite them, so Jiang Tian broke them into small pieces, peeled and sliced a gourd, and fried them together with the fried flower rolls. The gourd was oily and the flower rolls were soft, which was just right for the elderly to eat.
Seeing how skillfully she cooked, Grandpa He pursed his lips.
Grandma He has always been strong-willed, but at this moment she couldn't help but turn her head away and wipe the corners of her eyes with her sleeve.
It must have splashed into my eyes accidentally when I was cutting onions just now.
By the way, how can this girl cook so well? She must have suffered a lot in the Jiang family, right?
If this was their granddaughter, the old couple would rather beg for food than let the child suffer!
Grandpa He had been quarreling with his wife before and didn't want Grandma He to go to the Hu family to help, but now he took the initiative to ask Jiang Tian if the shop was busy.
"If you are too busy, ask your grandma to come over and help you wash the vegetables and dishes. Look how thin you are. Your arms are almost like sticks."
Jiang Tian stared at her own slender arms, quite speechless.
I thought to myself, Grandpa, you are wrong. In China more than a decade from now, I wonder how many girls will be so hungry that they will see stars and spend tens of thousands of dollars on gym memberships, just to have arms and legs as slender as mine.
It’s a pity that the old man cannot appreciate the “white, young and thin” aesthetic of more than ten years later. In his opinion, raising a child means raising him to be white and plump, only then will he feel a sense of accomplishment .
Before Jiang Tian had the time to refuse, she heard Grandma He had made arrangements for her.
"I heard that your vegetable garden is running out of vegetables, so you've been looking for people to buy vegetables for you these days?"
"Well, go home tonight and tell your mom not to buy vegetables tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. There are only the old man and I, and there are more vegetables in our garden than we can eat. I'll pick a few sacks tomorrow morning and have someone bring them to me."
Jiang Tian wanted to refuse at first, but then she thought that Grandma He was not very old. She was said to be about the same age as her grandmother, but she looked much older than Grandma Hu. Jiang Tian had heard people say before that the purpose of life is to live with vigor and vitality. If there is no hope and life is meaningless, then one will age quickly.
Perhaps, finding something for Grandma He and Grandpa He to do would give them a little hope in their lives and make them happy?
Thinking about the need to buy a lot of vegetables when opening a shop at home in the future, Jiang Tian suddenly had an idea.
"Grandpa, how many acres of land do we have now?"
"Two and a half acres of rice fields, three acres of dry land, and more than one acre of vegetable garden, what's wrong with that?"
Jiang Tian chuckled: "Grandpa, this is what I think. You have heard that my family is now selling lunch boxes at a stall. The vegetables we grow at home are not enough, so we have to spend money to find outsiders to sell vegetables."
"It's all spent money anyway, it's better to let our family make money than to let outsiders make money."
"You and grandma are old, and growing rice and wheat is too hard. Why don't you just use our land to grow vegetables?"
"You don't know, there are many small restaurants opening along the provincial roads, and there are also many stalls selling boxed lunches. In the future, these vegetables will definitely sell better than grains. Moreover, fruits and vegetables mature quickly and have high yields. Maybe they can make more money than growing grains."
Old Master He subconsciously wanted to refuse: "Your grandmother and I are old, and we still have government subsidies. We can grow some food and vegetables ourselves to have enough to eat. We are so old, why would we start a business?"
Since their son’s death, the old couple has completely lost their motivation in life.
For them, if they lose their children, no matter how much money they earn, who will they leave it to?
"Give me flowers!" Jiang Tian's eyes widened immediately, as if she had suffered some psychological trauma. She looked at Grandpa He in disbelief, "Grandpa! Look, I'm already in the first grade this year, and I can expect to have a son-in-law in a few years."
"I've thought it through. I have my brother at home, so it's not my turn to worry about the Jiang family's incense."
"I plan to marry a live-in son-in-law in the future. When we have two children, no matter whether it's a boy or a girl, they both have to have the surname He. They have to have the same surname as Xiang Jun's father to continue his family line."
"Grandpa, think about it. We have to raise two children in the future. We need to take care of their food, clothing, shoes and socks, and send them to school. Everything needs money! By the way, do we have any savings now?"
With just one sentence, the couple who asked the question fell silent.
The old couple have been busy with their sorrow these years, so how can they have the time to save money?
Thinking of this, Grandpa He was no longer depressed, and Grandma He straightened her back instantly.
Right! They can't just sit back and relax. They adopted someone else's daughter. The daughter is very sensible and took the initiative to propose to marry a son-in-law to continue the He family's bloodline and provide a successor for their son. How can they, the old couple, throw the burden of supporting the family onto their granddaughter alone?
Old Man He glanced at the empty cowshed next door and said to himself, "I have to buy a calf this year, otherwise I won't have any farmland to cultivate next year."
Grandma He also started to think silently.
We have to raise two more pigs at home. Anyway, we will grow vegetables at home in the future. The good vegetables can be saved for my granddaughter's lunch boxes, and the old vegetable stems can be chopped up to feed the pigs. At the end of the year, the vegetables can be sold for money, and the two pigs can also be sold for money.
Oh, right! We need to raise some more chickens. Both the eggs and the chickens can be sold for money. When my granddaughter gets married and has children, the hens and eggs will be indispensable for her confinement.
The eldest granddaughter said that she would give birth to two children for the He family in the future, hehe~
