Wang Cuilan was used to tough challenges from her years marching and fighting in the army, but Chen Xueniang, who grew up in a brothel and lived in the city after the liberation, was rather curious about everything in the Lu Family’s home. After having a drink of water, she wandered with Feng Qingxue to the family’s preserved land.
Spring leeks were sprouting early. Feng Qingxue cut them and put them in a basket.
"We can have leek dumplings for lunch, and we can take the rest back to the city. Sister Chen, you can also take some." Feng Qingxue suggested.
Chen Xueniang thanked her and then pointed to the rows of mounds covered with straw mats on the ground, asking, "What is buried underneath?"
Feng Qingxue glanced back and said: "Potatoes. The yield of potatoes is high; they can ward off hunger. Many families plant a majority of their land with potatoes at this time."
"Eh, why are there whole garlic bulbs planted in your ground?" Chen Xueniang noticed the garlic sprouts that Feng Qingxue was uprooting.
Compared to the nearby fat and tall garlic sprouts, Feng Qingxue’s garlic sprouts seemed quite thin and long.
"We planted whole garlic bulbs intending to eat them around this time. The sprouts they produce are smaller. Bulbs planted last year have already grown too old to eat, but we can see if the garlic scapes have sprouted." Feng Qingxue explained.
The garlic scapes had indeed sprouted, but there weren’t many, only about twenty or thirty sporadically scattered.
Feng Qingxue pulled them out one by one, and picked a handful of lettuce leaves before saying, "Sister Chen, let’s go!"
The three women busied themselves with cleaning the vegetables and kneading the dough.
Feng Qingxue shook off the water from the cleaned leeks as much as possible, she then chopped them and sautéed them with scrambled eggs. As she mixed the leek filling, she said, "Leeks should be cleaned and dried for a day before using, if we’re making dumplings now, it will definitely be too watery."
Even with the extra water, everyone praised the leek dumplings she made.
Nobody touched the sautéed garlic scapes and lettuce leaves on the table, they were too busy eating the dumplings.
"Sister, aren’t you going to send some to Uncle Lu and the others?"
Feng Qingxue patted her sister’s head, "Silly girl, everyone works the same and eats together. Everyone will gossip if we send dumplings now. We’ll save some for them in the cabinet to eat when they come back home. However, we can send one to cousin."
Wang Jiao must have found an excuse to stay home and not work by taking care of Goudan.
Speaking of her, she had just arrived, calling from outside the door. She knew that Feng Qingxue would return once a week, and each time she would bring her something tasty as compensation for not being able to take her to the state-run restaurant.
Lu Tianjun opened the door. Wang Jiao walked in carrying Goudan, who was as dark as a crow, and Feng Qingxue almost didn’t recognize her.
Feng Qingxue exclaimed: "Cousin, you’ve lost a lot of weight!"
Although she hadn’t entirely regained her figure from before her marriage, her graceful curves were evident, quite slender, weighing only around a hundred pounds, she was also wearing her old clothes from before her marriage and looked stunning.
"Of course I lost weight; there’s no meat to eat! It’s only in the spring that baby pigs are raised, we can’t buy grown pigs in the city, Yuejin slaughters a pig once in a few days, and they always run out. Each month we can only get a quarter of a kilogram of meat, which isn’t even enough to fill our teeth. The leaders are watching, so I can’t get any offcuts." Wang Jiao glanced at the guests in the room, noticing the leek dumplings, she automatically swallowed her saliva, and accused, "Xiaoxue, you hid good food from me. That’s terrible. I’ve been working at home and looking after Goudan, just like you said!"
"Cousin, don’t blame my sister. She asked me to bring you a leek dumpling just now!" Feng Qingyun chimed in.
Upon hearing this, Wang Jiao immediately smiled, and quickly apologized to Feng Qingxue. "I’m sorry, Xiaoxue, I didn’t mean to blame you. You really are the nicest person, even remembering me when making leek dumplings!"