Chapter 6 (two)

The food at Lao Jin's house was okay at first, but gradually got worse.Zhongshu's eating habits are very conservative, he doesn't like to try foreign flavors, and he doesn't eat cheese at all.I have a small appetite.I save half of what he can eat.I don't think he's getting enough to eat.If it goes on like this, it won't last long.And it is very inconvenient for two people to live in the same room.I have never been a student who craves grades, but I cherish my time very much, and I like to study as much as Zhong Shu.When he came to have a guest, I had to sacrifice three or two hours of reading, trying my best to be a good wife, and I had to smell the smell of smoke and complain secretly.

I just came up with a plan to rent a furnished room, take care of my own food, and the board and lodging can be greatly improved. I have already received the market.Zhong Shu disagreed and advised me not to worry too much.He said that I don't know how to cook, and at least Lao Jin's food is ready-made.Our room is still spacious, so let's get by.I said, like the tea and rice in Lao Jin's house, I believe I can always learn it. I followed the advertisement in the newspaper and went looking for a house alone.I found a few places, all far away in the suburbs.Once when we were taking a "exploration" walk, I came across a rental advertisement in a high-end residential area, but it was gone when I looked again.I didn't give up, I went in alone, prepared a set of words of apology first, and boldly knocked on the door.The door was opened by the landlady, Ms. Darley, an old Irish girl.She didn't say if there was any house for rent, but she just looked at me, asked some questions, and then took me upstairs to see the house.

The house is on the second floor.One bedroom, one living room, heated by an electric stove.There is a large balcony in front of the two houses, which is the roof of the garage and overlooks a large lawn and garden.The kitchen is small and uses an electric stove.There is a set of ancient spiral water pipes in the bathroom. A small fire is lit, and the water in the pipe turns into hot water after several spirals and flows into a small bathtub.The house was carefully separated from the larger house, with an outdoor staircase leading down to the garden, and a small door for access.I asked about the conditions of the lease, and took Zhong Shutong to see the apartment the next day.

The location is good, close to the school and the library, and University Park is just across the street.I live in Lao Jin’s house, and the bathrooms and toilets are shared. Who likes shared ones?It is estimated that the rent, utilities and other expenses will add up to be more expensive than the rent of Lao Jin's house.It's not scary, as long as it doesn't exceed the budget, my budget is wide.Zhongshu was overjoyed when he saw the house. We signed a lease with Ms. Da Lei and immediately notified Lao Jin's family.We spent Christmas at Old Kim's and moved into a new house around New Years.

We start by ordering our daily fresh milk and bread at the grocery store.The milk is delivered to the door every morning and left outside the door.As soon as the bread was baked, it was delivered home by a boy who delivered bread, and it was lunch time.Eggs, tea, butter, sausages, ham and other cooked food, chicken, duck, fish, vegetables and fruits, all daily necessities are available in the store.We just have to go to the store and pick it up.There was a boy in the shop who made home deliveries; goods were delivered in wooden boxes to the door and left outside to retrieve the empty wooden box for the next delivery.We don't have to pay on the spot either, the shopkeeper writes down everything we order in a small ledger, and settles the bill every two weeks.We go to the library or go on an "adventure" in the evening, passing by the store, and ordering the groceries we need for our daily needs.After the store settled the bill and sent the account book, we paid the bill immediately and never defaulted.The owner treated us like regular customers.If we ordered an old product, he would say, "This is an old product, and I will send it to you when a new product arrives in a day or two." He will also notify us if there is something new.In Zhongshu’s poem written for me in 1959, he said, “Measure the materials and learn to be the master of the household”, which is nothing more than making a budget and ordering in the store.

I can't remember how we moved from the old Jin's house to the new house.I only remember that the new house has a row of exquisite wardrobes. I suspect that this room was originally the back room of a large bedroom.There are also many drawers in the new house.We moved around in the afternoon, and in the evening the two of us learned how to use the electric stove and electric kettle.A large pot of water boils in a short while.We borrowed the daily furniture Dale rented to us, including kitchen pots, knives, forks, cups, plates, etc., and ate dinner.Moving a small house, we were also busy all day, packing clothes and books until late at night.Zhong Shu was so tired that he fell asleep with his head down, and I was so tired that I couldn't fall asleep.

On the first morning when we moved into our new home, the "clumsy" Zhongshu showed his talents.I fell asleep late and refused to wake up in the morning.He made breakfast by himself, and brought it to my bed with a small bed dining table (like a slightly larger rice plate with short legs).Even in my deep sleep, I will jump up and enjoy it.He boiled "five-minute eggs", toasted bread, heated milk, and made strong and fragrant black tea; Good tea! And only a small glass of milk for the two of us); and butter, jam, honey.I have never had such a delicious breakfast! The days when we lived together—except when we were in a big family, except when there were maids to take care of three meals a day, except when Zhongshu was sick, Zhongshu always made this breakfast for me.A big cup of black tea with milk every morning has also become a hobby that he can't give up all his life.Later, the Indian "Lipton" (Lipton) tea was not available in China, so we used three kinds of high-quality black tea as a substitute: Dianhong for its fragrance, Huhong for its bitterness, and Qihong for its color .So far, I still have some unused three-in-one black tea leaves at home, and I see that they can still evoke the happiest days of the year.

I think of thirty years later, in the early spring of 1972, shortly after we returned to Beijing from the cadre school, Beijing began to use gas tanks instead of briquettes.I turned off the coal stove at night.When he got up early, Zhongshu served breakfast as usual, and his favorite lard rice cake, his face was full of color.I praised him for being able to bake rice cakes, but he didn't say anything, just pretending to be nonchalant.As I was eating, I suddenly said in surprise, "Who lit the fire for you?" (Because I usually seal the coal stove at night, and he opens the fire door in the morning, and the stove will flourish.) Zhongshu waited for me to ask Well, he said proudly: "I can strike a match!" This is the first time he strikes a match in his life, in order to make breakfast.

We moved into Dalei’s rented house, and now we have our own kitchen, so Zhongshu wanted to eat braised pork.Yu Dazhen, sister Dazhen and other male students are not good at cooking, but they seem to know better than us.They taught us to boil the meat, pour off the water, and add ginger, soy sauce and other condiments.Ginger and soy sauce are Chinese specialties, which are rare in Oxford, and the soy sauce is not fresh, salty and bitter.Our kitchen utensils are indeed "not enough". When we bought meat, we had to cut it into squares with large scissors, and then burn them according to the method they taught.The two stood by the electric stove, cooking vigorously—that is, turning on the electricity fully, and adding water when the soup was dry.I can't remember how that pot of stubborn stubborn meat was dissipated.Afterwards, I suddenly remembered that my mother used "slow fire" to make orange peel jam.Yes, based on our superficial scientific knowledge, we can also know that although the name of "Slow Fire" is literary, its power is stronger than that of strong fire.The next time we bought a bottle of sherry, used it as rice wine, and stewed the meat with a slow fire. The soup was no longer poured out, only the scum was skimmed off.The braised pork was actually well done, and Zhong Shu enjoyed it so much.

It is an adventure for us to move, and it is an adventure to take care of our own food. Eating braised pork is an adventure and success.From then on, one method is adopted, and ten thousand methods are adopted. Chicken, pork, and mutton are stewed with "slow fire" instead of braised in soy sauce.I cut the tender mutton into strands, and the two of them stood beside the electric stove and ate it, and then cooked the vegetables in the soup.I also remembered that I had seen how to fry vegetables in the kitchen, and I also learned how to fry.Vegetables are better fried than boiled. Once lentils were delivered from the store, we didn’t know what to buy, so we peeled them, thinking that the shells were too thick and the beans were too small.I suddenly realized that this is for eating shells, lentils, we stewed it and it was very successful.There is also bone-in bacon, which can be cooked with fresh meat, and the bacon tastes like ham.Cooked food includes foreign ham, which is not as fresh as Chinese ham.I always think that the pork head meat is "not on the table"; the pig head meat (Bath chap) in the store is cooked food, the bones have been removed, and it is pressed into a round pancake with an inch thickness. The mouth, nose and ears are all good. Eat, the back of the neck is too fat.And live shrimp.I said very expertly: "You have to cut off the whiskers and feet."I just made a cut, and the live shrimp twitched in my hand. I was so anxious that I dropped the scissors, dropped the shrimp, ran out of the kitchen, and walked back.Zhong Shu asked me what was wrong.I said: "Shrimp, when I cut it, it hurt so much, let's not eat it from now on!" Zhong Shu reasoned with me, saying that the shrimp wouldn't hurt like me, he still wanted to eat it, and he could cut it from now on. .

We are constantly inventing and experimenting, and we have gradually civilized from the cooking of primitive people and entered the stage of civilization. We played and learned to cook, very happy.Zhongshu was full and happy.He used thick ink to make me smile, and even during this period, it was also a manifestation of his happiness. I regard cooking lunch as my full-time job, and Zhongshu is only an assistant.I sometimes think it would be easier and happier if we didn't have to eat.But Zhongshu disagreed.He said he wanted to eat.Immortals cook white stones, and they will not be hungry for a long time after eating. It's so boring, he doesn't envy it.But he wrote a poem saying, "You are worried about the smoke and fire, and you want to find the fairy bigu prescription".The electric stove didn't emit smoke, and he didn't want to eat the grain either.He said in another poem that "a goose begs a four-legged turtle with double skirts", but we have never eaten geese or turtles.Zhong Shu laughed at me for being stubborn, saying that writing poetry is just writing poetry. Zhongshu told me several times, I will teach you how to compose poetry.I always said seriously: "I am not material for a poet." When I was a student, my poems in class papers were always well received, but they were really "just rhyming".I love reading poetry, both Chinese and Western poetry, and I also like to discuss poetry with him.We also often recite poems together.We found that if we forget a certain word at the same time, and we can't make up the left and right, that word must be the most inappropriate word in the whole poem; the appropriate word is sticky and cannot be forgotten. We were very happy during that time, as if we had created a world by ourselves. After we moved into our new house, I remember that on a snowy day, the former landlord, Lao Jin, rushed over and reported the big event in panic: "The king has passed away." The death of King George V of England happened in the early spring of 1936.We didn't expect the British people to be so loyal and loving to the royal family, and Lao Jin really felt like mourning his concubine.Not long after Edward VIII abdicated, Stuart, an English friend of Zhongshu's same college, hurriedly got an account and came to report the headline news.It also snowed that day, it was the winter of that year. Situ Ya is a frequent visitor to my house, and another frequent visitor is Xiang Da.Xiang Da murmured that he ate potatoes every day at Pastor Hughes' house, and he ate potatoes every now and then.We invited him to eat the dishonest meal at my house.He is not at ease with the home he lives in, and socializes the most. He often comes to talk about the right and wrong among Chinese students studying abroad, including the scolding Zhong Shu received.Because apart from having a little contact with the Yu sisters, we are very divorced from the masses. Situ was a classmate of the B.Litt degree in the same college. He and Zhongshu had two subjects that bothered him the most, one was Paleography and the other was Book Binding.The textbook taught how to fold and fold the entire large sheet of paper, and there were dotted lines on how to fold it.But no matter how they folded it, they couldn't fold it right.The two were so angry that they sued me, saying that the textbooks were unreasonable.I'm a woman, so it's easier to understand things like origami staples.I pointed out that they were reversed.The picture in the textbook is the reflection in the mirror.The two suddenly realized that they were right.They took me to study ancient literature together.I took out an ear pick and used the tip of the needle to read each character.For example, the character "a" was originally "α" and gradually changed.Their exam questions are actually not difficult, they only require correct word recognition, regardless of speed.Candidates only need to translate a few lines of words, without asking for quantity, but it is strictly required that there should be no mistakes, and a certain number of points will be deducted for a wrong word.Zhongshu was flustered, and he hurriedly translated without seeing the topic clearly, and translated the entire page of ancient documents.He lost all his marks and still owed an unknown amount of points, so he had to fail the exam again.But he doesn't have to worry, he will pass the make-up exam.So after the exam, he felt relieved. We made an agreement with Ms. Darley that we would come back after vacation and she would give us another apartment that was slightly bigger because another tenant was going to move out.We left our luggage at her house, packed lightly and went on vacation, to "explore" in London and Paris. This school year should be the most relaxed and happy year in my life, and it is also the year I study hardest. Apart from being homesick, it can be said to be carefree.Zhongshu doesn't feel homesick as much as I do.