Dawang and Sanwang were especially interested. For them, holding a huge chicken drumstick in each hand or tearing up a big piece of meat like a barbarian was simply a day that was Godlike to them.
Erwang grilled some meat skewers with his left hand while making pancakes with his right hand, “Father, I’ll make them for you. You and mother can go indoors to eat.”
Han Qingsong then handed it over to him, asking him not to make it mushy and refrain from flipping the meat too many times.
Erwang smiled and said, “From watching our mother cook, I know what to do.”
Lin Lan felt a little regretful, “Too bad there is no cumin. It would taste better with some cumin.”
The children didn’t know what cumin was, so they asked about it one after another.
Lin Lan said, “It’s on the radio, don’t you know? The herdsmen in Inner Mongolia always add cumin to their barbecue.”
Sanwang anxiously asked her what it smelled like.
Just as Lin Lan was about to describe it, she immediately said, “I don’t know, I haven’t eaten it, but from what was said, it seems that cumin and lamb are a perfect match!”
The children immediately remembered the fact and started thinking about eating a barbecue with cumin in the future. The mysterious term cumin was then added into the vocabulary of their family for a while.
It took more than 3 hours to eat and the barbecue.
What they didn’t know was that because of Lin Lan’s thoughtfulness, the door to their home was closed earlier, which blocked the vision of the curious villagers.
A group of people ‘passed by’ outside their door and their drool almost dropped to the ground when they smelled the enticing aroma of meat.
At first, it was children who couldn’t help smelling the scent, but soon after the adults couldn’t help it either as they all fervently guessed what Director Han’s family were eating today.
However, since the door was closed, they didn’t dare to knock on it as they were all afraid of Han Qingsong.
Some of the daring teens went to get a ladder and placed it against the wall to have a look. It was amazing to see that Lin Lan’s family was eating meat with fire outside!
To them, it was a novel way of eating as they have never seen it before.
There are those who have little knowledge of the method, but there were also some who have never eaten such a luxurious meal before and were a little jealous, so they couldn’t help but say something out of envy, “That gluttonous woman is really lazy and greedy— she doesn’t even bother to cook the pot and instead, just cooks with fire. Just like that, the amount of firewood wasted was crazy.”
All the firewood in the winter had to be burned on the kang to keep the family warm. Only lazy women who lived a good life would be able to do this.
And even if there was meat at home, who wouldn’t eat them little by little to ration them, wishing for it to last a year? Who on earth would eat them all in one meal?
So Lin Lan’s hat(4), which was branded as lazy and greedy, was practically upgraded to an iron hat.
(T/N: A ‘hat’ in Chinese terms can be used to describe one’s personality, like how she was only known as lazy and greedy. Iron hat is another separate term used to describe the ancient officials who inherited their rank instead of gaining it through their own merit. Using it on her says that she only managed to gain her current status through marriage with Han Qingsong)