I Have a Countryside Gourmet Restaurant

Li You said, "Definitely not for sale. Uncle Jialiang, go ahead and pick some now. Let’s do about three hundred pounds."

"Yes, yes, of course! I’ll go pick them right now. Xiaoyou, I have to thank you again for this!"

"Uncle Jialiang, you’re being too polite."

"Hahaha! Alright, alright. I won’t stand on ceremony, then."

After hanging up, Li You said to his guests, "He’s going to pick them now and will deliver them a bit later. Oh, right, many of you have met him. It’s Uncle Jialiang, the man who delivered the stone mill last Saturday. Liu Jialiang."

Wei Ping, Liu Xu, Xiao Yue, Zhang Rui’Er, and many others nodded.

They all remembered Liu Jialiang.

In fact, when they heard Li You call him "Uncle Jialiang" on the phone, they had already figured out it was the man who delivered the stone mill last Saturday.

Xiao Yue said, "So Uncle Jialiang has plum trees, too. But Boss, is three hundred pounds enough? Won’t that be a little short?"

Li You asked, "Is it too little?"

Xiao Yue nodded. "I think so. I was planning on buying ten pounds or so myself, and with everyone else here..."

Zhang Rui’Er said, "I was planning on buying about ten pounds, too."

"I’ll get six or seven pounds."

"I need at least twenty pounds. I have a big family, and everyone loves them. Twenty pounds won’t even last a few days."

"I want seven or eight pounds."

"..."

The guests all started calling out how many pounds they wanted to buy.

Li You did a quick mental calculation. Three hundred pounds was definitely not enough.

They would need at least 600 pounds.

To pick 600 pounds, Liu Jialiang’s entire family would have to pitch in.

’But this is a good thing,’ he thought. ’I’m sure his family will be thrilled.’

Li You called Liu Jialiang again and told him 300 pounds wasn’t enough; they needed 600.

Over the phone, Liu Jialiang was even more excited, repeatedly assuring him it was no problem and that he would bring them over as soon as he could.

’With the plums settled, it’s time to start making the tofu.’

Seeing how eager everyone was to get started, Li You decided not to delay any longer.

When Li You announced it was time to start making tofu, all the guests cheered in agreement, their faces full of anticipation.

"Boss, what’s the next step?" many people asked.

Everyone was familiar with tofu—they ate it all the time—but very few actually knew the specific process of how it was made.

The vast majority of people present had no idea.

Li You announced, "Time to strain the soy milk."

He was making gypsum tofu again, which meant following the method of straining first and boiling second.

He explained the difference to the guests. "Generally, for brine tofu, you boil the soy milk first and then strain it. That’s better for removing water, since brine tofu is firm and doesn’t need as much moisture. But for gypsum tofu—which is a soft tofu—you have to strain first, then boil. It needs a higher moisture content, and this method helps it retain that water well."

The guests all nodded along, feeling they had learned something new.

The method for straining was, of course, the hanging bag method.

Li You brought out his homemade hanging-bag contraption, which drew curious looks from all the guests.

Many people took out their phones again to take pictures and record videos.

At the same time, many people, including Liu Xu, posted the photos and videos they took to the "Gourmet Food in the Wild" WeChat group.

Earlier that morning, while they were grinding the soybeans with the stone mill, it had been announced in the group that they would be making tofu in the afternoon.

The group members who couldn’t make it had all been saying they wanted to see the tofu-making process too, asking those on-site to record long videos for them.

Now that the tofu making had begun, those present certainly weren’t going to miss the chance to show off in the group chat.

"Hahaha! Tofu-making has officially begun! Everyone who wanted to see the process, get in here! Now or never, folks."

"We’re about to start straining! We’re filtering the soy milk we ground with the stone mill this morning to get the okara out. See this contraption? It’s the Boss’s amazing homemade straining device, the ’hanging bag.’ Bet you’ve never seen one of these before, right?"

"The straining is about to begin. I’m getting ready to give it a try myself. This looks like it’s going to be fun."

"Getting to participate in the entire tofu-making process in person! This is a truly rare opportunity, you know."

"..."

The group chat was buzzing, and back at the farm, the straining officially began.

Li You didn’t do the work himself, only gave directions from the side.

This time, he planned to let his guests have all the fun of doing the work.

Liu Xu was the first to take charge of pushing and pulling the hanging bag.

Liu Xu was thrilled, saying repeatedly how much fun it was to push and pull the contraption.

After Liu Xu’s turn, Wei Ping stepped up with his two children.

The three of them—father and sons—pushed, pulled, and swung the bag together, creating a heartwarming scene.

Many people raised their phones again to capture the beautiful moment.

And of course, someone posted a video of it to the "Gourmet Food in the Wild" group.

The members who couldn’t come started popping up in the chat.

"What a heartwarming scene! Such a happy father!"

"The two little kids look so happy, too. This will be a wonderful childhood memory for them."

"The Boss organizing a tofu-making event like this is really meaningful!"

"Even little kids have gotten to make tofu by hand, and I still haven’t. Sigh! Another entry in the ’I’m not even as capable as a child’ series!"

"..."

The group chat grew even livelier, and the crowd on site became even more excited.

After Wei Ping and his sons, Xiao Yue, Zhang Rui’Er, and the other women all took a turn.

Everyone was happy and excited.

With everyone taking turns pushing and pulling in a continuous relay, more and more soy milk was strained.

Finally, all the soy milk had been strained. The result was two buckets of pure soy milk and a large pile of okara.

’Liu Jialiang will be here later. It’ll be perfect; I can have him take the okara back to feed his pigs.’

"Boss, what’s next? What do we do now?"

"Boss, can we drink this soy milk yet?"

The guests asked one after another.

Li You shook his head. "You can’t drink it yet. It has to be cooked first. So, our next step is to boil the soy milk."

’Boil the soy milk? Cook it?’

The guests nodded. That part was easy enough to understand.

’But where would they boil it? In the kitchen?’

Of course not in the kitchen.

To make sure everyone could participate, Li You had decided to boil it outside.

As it happened, the temporary stove he had built last time for this very purpose was still there.

Li You knew he would use it again, so he had never dismantled it.

Li You pointed toward the stove and said, "Do you see that over there? That’s right, it’s a stove. I built it to boil the soy milk the last time I made tofu. We’ll be using it again this time."

His words sent a wave of inexplicable excitement through the crowd.

Making a fire and boiling the soy milk outside was obviously far more interesting than doing it in a kitchen.

Everyone had, of course, already noticed the temporary stove and recognized what it was.

Its shape was unmistakable, and there were even traces of soot inside from a previous fire.

They had originally assumed Li You had a cookout there on a whim one day. It turned out it was specially built for boiling soy milk.

’Then again, having a cookout there would be pretty great, too.’

’Maybe we should talk to the Boss about setting one up sometime.’

Li You returned to the kitchen and brought out a large wok, which fit perfectly on the stove.

’Time to start boiling the soy milk.’

"Liu Xu, let’s go," Li You said. "We’ll get some firewood from behind the shop."

"Alright, alright," Liu Xu eagerly agreed.

"We’ll help too," a few other guys nearby offered.

Li You nodded, and the group headed behind the shop together.

...