Chapter Eighteen: Chinese Banquet

  Arriving at the ranch, Liu Chao and Zhao Nan were both captivated by the cozy house. The dark red exterior walls were nestled among several giant cedar trees, with snow-white windows and a white corridor on the first floor.

  "Wow, you little guy has chosen a good house!" As soon as the car stopped, Liu Chao tapped on the roof of the car.

  Smiling complacently: "First, let's get everything settled in, you guys take a rest first, tonight we'll have a big Chinese feast".

  No sooner had he jumped off the car than old Thomas and his two men came forward with a "Welcome to Creekwater Ranch".

  "Let me introduce you. This is Thomas, Wayne and Nancy, and this is my friend Steven and his wife Angela."

  A few people shook hands with each other, and then Hui En helped Ju An carry all the luggage into the house.

  Then Thomas and his party bid farewell and went back to their own ranch business. Before leaving, Ju An told them not to cook dinner tonight and come over to eat together.

  The luggage was moved to the second floor, and Shixiong and others were arranged in the room on the right side of the house. As soon as I pushed the door open, I found that Old Thomas had already opened the window, and the bed sheets and everything else had been changed.

  Zhao Nan nodded and looked around: "This room is really nice, thank you, Ju An".

  "Don't be polite, Master has never been polite with me, as long as you're satisfied"

  "Right! Right! We can't show satisfaction, we have to give this kid room for improvement." Liu Chao nodded solemnly, but just as he finished speaking, he let out a "ouch" - Zhao Nan had elbowed him in the arm.

  "Shixiong is right, here it's just like our own home, feel free to do whatever you want." Ju An looked at Liu Chao rubbing his arm and said with a smile "Then you guys go ahead and rest, if there's anything missing, just call me."

  She casually closed the door, went downstairs to prepare lunch, a simple Western-style lunch, picked some tomatoes from the greenhouse, and then got a package of cabbage, cucumber, and carrot.

  Wash the vegetables and cut them into small dices, add salad dressing as a companion, super simple.

  Then turn on the gas, put the pot on it, melt some butter, then take out three pieces of marinated beef from the refrigerator, put them in the pot and fry for a few minutes, then flip over and fry for a few more minutes. When it's almost done, put it on a plate, pour tomato sauce over it, cut up some tomatoes and arrange them, and everything is ready.

  "Going upstairs and knocking on the door: 'Brother, sister-in-law, dinner is ready'".

  When Liu Chao and Zhao Nan came downstairs, the red wine had already been poured.

  "Wow! This western-style dish hasn't been made in months and it looks great!" Liu Chao sat down, praising.

  Liu Chao, who was sitting comfortably, looked at the foreign food and said: "Foreigners' dishes are too simple, just stir-frying, roasting, frying, nothing else. You can even make them by reading a book. Where's the complexity like our Chinese cuisine? The knife work alone takes years to master. Last time I had spaghetti, it was just noodles with tomato sauce poured on top, how hard can it be?"

  Liu Chao glanced at Ju An: "I'm telling you, kid, are you craving Chinese food now? You're full of complaints. When I first came to study abroad, I often ate instant noodles. A foreign girl even thought I was afraid to spend money and thought I was frugal. In fact, I think instant noodles taste better than Western food. Luckily, my brother found a Chinese person for me. If he had found a foreigner who didn't like Chinese food, I would have hung myself within a year."

  Zhao Nan chimed in, "You didn't see your senior brother's silly appearance back then. That girl had a crush on him and he was hiding and sneaking around all day like a spy. At that time, I even acted as his shield several times."

  "Wow, you're still as charming as ever! It seems that only those who have received an American education can appreciate your strengths. Does this mean that a loser in China becomes popular in the US?"

  "What's a diaosi?" Zhao Nan chimed in and asked.

  "Cough cough" Liu Chao almost choked on his red wine "Don't mention that anymore, let's eat, let's eat".

  Looking at Zhao Nan's curious expression: "Ask Shixiong tonight."

  After dinner, they tidied up a bit and then brought out the bean grass and Snowflake, saddled them up, and had Snowflake carry three chairs, fishing rods, and nets. As neither Shifu nor Zhao Nan knew how to ride horses, they had no choice but to let them take a four-wheeled motorcycle. Just as they were getting ready to leave, Zhao Nan took out his camera and snapped two photos of the bean grass. He said he was going to post them on his Twitter.

  Dug up a few earthworms under the big tree behind the house, put them in a small jar, and then rode a horse with Shifu and his wife to the pond.

  Arriving at the edge of the pond, Liu Chao hastily pulled out a fishing rod from Xuehua's back and began to prepare by himself.

  Zhao Nan was busy taking pictures everywhere, taking a burst of shots at the white-tailed deer drinking water by the pond, and then took a few more for Liu Chao and Ju An before setting up his chair.

  The busiest is the one who has settled down, first take off the net bag and small bucket from the horse's back. Then remove the saddle from the horse's back and let Snowflake and Bean Grass graze around.

  After finishing all this, Ju An found Liu Chao staring intently at the float, while Zhao Nan simply set up his fishing rod and placed it under his feet, still holding A Feng to take pictures everywhere, without knowing whether there was bait on the hook or not.

  In a slightly remote place between the two people, Ju An unfolded his chair and scattered some oats into the pond. He sat in a nest and then pulled out his fishing rod, took a small piece of earthworm, hooked it on the hook, and gently swung the rod. The hook fell into the nest.

  After crouching for a while, Liu Chao suddenly shouted: "Found it!"

  Then a half-foot long carp emerged from the water and fell in front of Liu Chao, smiling and taking out the fish hook, picking it up to let Zhao Nan take a photo before putting it into the small bucket in front of him.

  Ju An shook his head secretly, the carp had too many thorns, he didn't like it. Today, he mainly wanted to catch a big grass carp. With fewer thorns, there were three foreigners in the evening, they would eat fish and remove the thorns, who had the time to remove the thorns from the carp for them?

  After busy for more than two hours, Liu Chao gained the most, a total of four small carp and a catfish, leaving only some small fish that were not worth mentioning.

  Zhao Nan was distracted and didn't pay attention, looking around everywhere, his heart not on fishing.

  Ju An had caught a few Ahng and a Crucian carp, which he still threw back into the pond. Seeing that it was getting late, Ju An thought to himself whether he should go to the space to catch a big Qing fish to hang on the hook as a trick, otherwise they would only be able to eat a few Ahng for dinner.

  Just as he was pondering, Liu Chao's loud shout came: "Anzi, come quick, what a big fellow, so much strength!"

  He hastily put down his pole and ran over. He grasped the fishing rod, testing its strength: "Hmm, not small, quite powerful".

  Liu Chao held the fishing rod with one hand and controlled the reel with the other. When he felt the fish pulling strongly downwards, he would slightly loosen the line. When he felt the force on the rod easing up, he would slowly reel in the line, gradually wearing out the fish.

  After a stalemate of over ten minutes, the fish finally surfaced, and Liu Chao said with a smile: "Good guy, I estimate it's over 10 kilograms, enough big green fish for tonight".

  After slowly consuming several minutes, I finally pulled the fish ashore. It was indeed a big one, with an arm's length and weighing over ten kilograms.

  Took off the hook, buttoned up the fish gills, let Zhao Nan take a souvenir photo, and the group of people packed up and headed back home.

  Ju An and Zhao Nan cooked together, while Liu Chao rode a motorcycle and wandered around.

  Zhao Nan first rinsed the rice, cooked it, and then took charge of killing the fish. He put the fish on the cutting board, and with a few quick movements, he scaled the fish, cut open its belly, and with a light flick of his knife, the innards came out. He then rinsed the cleaned fish under the faucet, also washing off the fish roe and milt. The fish guts and scales were thrown into the trash bag. The fish was then chopped into four pieces, marinated in salt and ginger, and set aside to absorb the flavors.

  Zhao Nan looked at Ju An collecting the fish and praised: "I didn't expect you to be so skilled at this".

  "Nowadays in our country, it's no big deal for men to cook, but if women can't cook, that's a rare thing. If you can't even cook, you won't be able to get a girlfriend," said Ju An jokingly.

  "Liu Chao can only cook simple dishes like egg soup." Zhao Nan shrugged her shoulders. "Moreover, he is very picky about food, devouring the things he likes and not touching the things he doesn't like at all, especially mutton, which he despises for its strong smell."

  "After a few more months, the cattle and sheep here can be eaten. You come to taste it, they are all free-range sheep." Ju An said while washing vegetables and chatting with Zhao Nan.

  "That's great, I especially love eating mutton," Zhao Nan replied.

  Then, they started a fire to stir-fry dishes. Zhao Nan cooked a stir-fried beef tenderloin, braised eggplant, fish-flavored pork shreds and sour-spicy potato shreds, and then mixed a cold-dressed small yellow cucumber.

  Staying at home, I cooked a simple meal of boiled pork slices, stir-fried tomatoes with eggs, and braised fish. Finally, I made a simmered pork ribs calabaza soup.

  When Thomas and the others returned, all the dishes were ready except for the fish stewing in the pot and the pork ribs soup.

  Liu Chao said as soon as he entered the door: "It smells so good, wait for me to go get the wine", and ran to get the wine.

  Thomas chuckled and said: "It smells really delicious, I'm a bit impatient".

  All dishes were served well, and Liu Chao poured a small cup of white wine for each of the four men. The two women drank red wine instead.

  Liu Chaodu raised his wine glass and said: "Thank you for your hospitality, thank you." Then he lightly sipped a mouthful of wine.

  Old Thomas took a small sip and said "What strong liquor, almost like vodka".

  When it was time to eat, Ju An discovered that the three foreigners could actually use chopsticks, and the spoons prepared for them were hardly used.

  It wasn't until I asked that I found out there were Chinese restaurants in the city, and from time to time they would go eat some Chinese food. No wonder people say that as long as there are people, there will be Chinese restaurants, it's also a contribution to the prosperity of chopsticks culture.

  Nancy took a few bites of the dish and asked, "Why is it that the Chinese restaurants in Lewisburg and what you guys cook taste so different? I often eat takeout from my friend's place and feel like there's a big difference."

  "Nowadays Chinese restaurants' flavors are all adjusted and more suitable for Westerners, this is the real taste of Chinese food."

  Wayne pointed at the tomato scrambled eggs and asked "How is this made? I quite like it, can I learn to make it myself in the future?"

  "First beat the eggs, then put some olive oil in the pot, stir-fry until it's almost done, and then add the diced tomatoes."

  "What a complicated thing"

  It made Ju'an stunned, and he couldn't help but think of a German client from before. Every time he came to China, whenever they went out to eat, he would always order stir-fried tomatoes with eggs. Ju'an was very curious again and asked him why. The old man said seriously: "This dish is too complicated to make, such a complicated dish can be made so delicious, Chinese chefs are really amazing." It left Ju'an speechless.

  The meal was enjoyed by both host and guest.

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