I'm the Culinary God

"Yan Bao, what kind of big move are you secretly brewing?"

Shen Jiayue was a bit curious. Her cousin hadn’t said a word, yet she was actually planning to take down the TV station’s "Taste of the World." If that really happened, wouldn’t Joyful Media’s fans shoot up like crazy?

Chen Yan said in a mysterious tone:

"Kids shouldn’t be nosy. Let’s go, let’s go. Lele, don’t lead the little kid astray."

Geng Lele laughed out loud:

"How is that possible? This is how we at Tsinghua University encourage young students."

Chen Yan opened her mouth, suddenly at a loss for words.

If she’d worked a bit harder back then and gotten into Tsinghua, how would this girl be roasting her now?

Sigh! The hardship you don’t endure in high school will come back to you in another form sooner or later...

Seeing that Tongtong really clicked with Geng Lele, and was also getting along very happily with Dundun, Old Yu stood up and headed over to the marinated foods section. He bought some marinated dishes for dinner, and while he was at it, packed two roast chickens for his daughter.

While packing, Xu Xinhua greeted him with a smile:

"Your granddaughter is really well-behaved, unlike my kid back home. When he was little, he knew how to ask for food and to play with a phone. Apart from snacks and the phone, he wasn’t interested in anything else."

"Oh, you don’t know how naughty our Tongtong is. She’s greedy as hell too. Last week she kept pestering me for black sesame paste. This week I made it for her, and she’s already eyeing other things to eat."

For adults, the best conversation topic is kids.

Even though Xu Xinhua complained about his child back home, he couldn’t hide the longing on his face.

Old Yu was in the same boat. Even while talking, he couldn’t help glancing back at his granddaughter... Huh? Where did my granddaughter go?

He stopped chatting right away, and didn’t even bother to take the packed marinated dishes. He went straight over to the service counter, only to find Dundun there, leisurely playing with a little feather mouse toy.

This this this this this...

What’s going on?

She disappeared in the blink of an eye?

Just then, Shu Yun finished eating and came downstairs in her high heels. Old Yu hurriedly asked:

"Yun girl, have you seen my Tongtong?"

"She’s upstairs eating roasted sweet potato. She and Lele just took the elevator up. She was just saying hi to the boss’s family, saying she never gets to eat sweet potatoes at home because Hui-jie ’abuses’ her..."

Old Yu’s face went dark. This little brat nearly scared him to death.

They’d agreed she wouldn’t eat anything else, and look how long that lasted—she’d slipped upstairs to scrounge for food the moment he took his eyes off her. She was getting bolder and bolder.

He hurried upstairs and saw his granddaughter holding a small spoon, scooping at a roasted honey sweet potato on the plate.

Maybe she was eating too quickly, because her mouth, face, nose, and clothes were all smeared with sweet potato mash.

Old Yu, half exasperated and half amused, took some tissues and wiped the little girl clean:

"Turn your back for one second and you run off to eat again. Aren’t you afraid of ruining your teeth?"

"As long as you don’t tell my mom, my teeth won’t go bad."

Chen Meijuan said with a smile:

"What an adorable little girl. I hope Xiao Xu and Yueyue’s child will be this cute in the future. I’ll carry the baby around every day."

Han Shuzhen had long been dreaming of taking her future grandson or granddaughter everywhere to play. She smiled:

"I’ll handle it when the time comes. When Yueyue was little, I was too busy and didn’t really look after her. Because of that she’s never been that close to me... When she and Xiao Xu have a child, I’ll retire and focus on taking care of the baby, to make up for what I missed."

The wedding ceremony hadn’t even been held yet, and there wasn’t even a shadow of a child, but the grandma and the maternal grandma were already fighting over who would get to take care of the baby.

It was a full-on display of the traditional Chinese "grandparent-grandchild bond."

Shen Guofu, full and satisfied, was cradling a cup of hot tea and chatting with Xie Baomin, Dai Jianli, and Geng Lishan.

"I really didn’t expect Xiao Xu to make pig’s head taste this good. Honestly, I still feel like I didn’t get enough. If we could have another half a pig’s head, that’d be perfect."

For someone who’d been eating fitness meals every day recently, a rare pork feast like this left him feeling like he just couldn’t get enough.

Especially with steamed buns—those buns got a lot tastier with it.

Xie Baomin said with a laugh:

"That’s easy. Next time we’ll just make more, or we can directly buy those boneless pig face cuts. Once they’re braised together in one pot, the flavor’s not that different."

Dai Jianli chimed in with his own suggestion:

"Worst comes to worst, we just go straight for Crystal Sugar pork knuckles. The taste is pretty much in the same ballpark anyway."

Geng Lishan shook his head:

"Knuckles are good, but the texture still isn’t the same as pig’s head. I think if we use this method on pig tails, the flavor might be even better."

Compared to knuckles, pig tails have pork skin and crunchy cartilage, and because the base of the tail is always moving, the meat there is a mix of fat and lean. There isn’t as much meat overall as on a pig’s head, and it’s not distributed as evenly, but the upside is you don’t have to do any Bone Removal.

Just torch the pork skin once with a blowtorch, clean it well, and then toss it straight into the pot to braise.

Once it’s done, everyone gets a big bowl, eating the skin and meat together.

When Shen Guofu heard this, he decided he’d buy twenty or thirty jin of pig tails later, braise them all in one pot, then sit down to a glorious feast to pay homage to the weight he’d lost.

Five in the afternoon.

Taking advantage of the daylight, Geng Lishan planned to stroll home. Dai Jianli and Xie Baomin were also getting ready to say their goodbyes and head back.

They’d spent the whole day in the shop watching. Now that their junior had already mastered the method for Braised Whole Pig’s Head, there was nothing to worry about.

They’d go back and arrange work for the next two days, then spend the weekend visiting a few shops to gather material for New Year’s Day and the Spring Festival, so they wouldn’t be too busy to shoot store-review videos when things got hectic.