Chapter 158 National Cooking Competition

As Lei Xiangren passed by the entrance of the old house, he couldn't help but turn back to look at the tightly locked door even after walking far away.

Mrs Zhao understood his thoughts, sighed, and said while gnashing her teeth: "Boss, we were tricked by Ol 'Five back then. If he hadn't used a hundred silver taels to coax us, how would we have agreed to split up the family? "If there were no branch families, we would have already been eating and drinking spicy food in the capital."

Lei Xiangren thought the same as her, but felt that it was too embarrassing to be complained to by his wife, so he retorted, "Ol 'Five is still just a small official, how can he possibly have anything to gain from this?"

Pearl, who was standing behind them, was carrying two heavy hoes. She stole a glance at the calluses on her hands and let out a silent sigh.

"It's still better than us staying in the corner of the mountain!" Mrs Zhao curled her lips, "Our family is almost out of money. What should we do in the future?"

"What?" It's going to run out so soon? " Lei Xiangren glared at her, in disbelief.

Mrs Zhao placed her hands on her hips, her eyes wide, "How could I lie to you? "Ol 'Five had given it to us back then ??"

Lei Xiangren interrupted her, "We'll talk about it when we get back! "Let's see what kind of place this is."

The two of them quickly returned home.

"Zhu Er, shut the door!"

"Sigh."

Lei Xiangren turned around and looked at Zhu Er, his gaze falling on her perky butt, and he swallowed his saliva.

Mrs Zhao did not notice at all as she took out the key to open the door to the hall.

"Boss, go wash my face with a basin of water. I'll get the money box. "

"Go call yourself." Lei Xiangren regained his senses, remembered the proper business, ran into the room and took out a wooden box from the bottom of the chest. He took out the key that was hung around his neck and opened it, seeing that there was only two pieces of silver and twenty odd copper inside, he squinted his eyes and bellowed: "Smelly woman, what are you doing! Why aren't you coming in yet? "

"It's here, it's here." Mrs Zhao wiped the water off her face with a cloth and said unhappily, "What are you urging me for?"

"Where did you hide all that silver?" I don't believe that this is all that's left at home. " Lei Xiangren stared at her coldly and asked suspiciously.

Mrs Zhao was stu

ed, then slapped her thigh in grievance, and screamed at the top of her lungs: "You bastard! When did I hide the silver? How many times have you taken the money, do you not know? "Aiyo, I can't live this long anymore ??"

"Enough!" Lei Xiangren felt a headache from her quarreling, he started to count with his fingers. He and Madame Zhao had always been lazy, and before they split families, the two rarely found odd jobs, without saving any money. At most, they would take the chance to take some when Madam Du gave them money to buy more things for their families or to buy vegetables. He didn't have any money with him, he only had a few days to buy some snacks to eat. After splitting up the family, Lei Xiangzhi obtained one hundred and forty gold coins from selling the charcoal recipe. After removing the new house, buying furniture, digging wells, buying jewelry for Madame Zhao, buying longevity locks for Da Bao and Er Bao, adding a jade pendant, Da Bao and Er Bao studied hard, the whole family made clothes ??

Lei Xiangren became more and more shocked, his body stiffened and his eyes widened. If things continued like this, their family would only have two taels of silver left! This was no less than a bolt out of the blue for him, who had developed the bad habit of spending money lavishly, and for the Zhao family, who loved face.

Mrs Zhao was still having fantasies, that he, the murderer, might have hidden a portion of the money and then repaid the debt. Seeing that he did not seem to be pretending, she became nervous and asked anxiously: "Boss, how about it? Is our family really out of money? "

Lei Xiangren's face was filled with gloom as he said in a low voice, "All that's left is the money box."

Mrs Zhao panicked, "You, you didn't hide the money? "Then, what should we do in the future?" When she thought that she would have to be as frugal as she had been a long time ago, and that those coarse village women would look at her contemptuously, she felt as if she had thorns all over her body.

Lei Xiangren was speechless.

Mrs Zhao cried, "How did I end up with such a useless thing like you? "If I had known earlier, I would not have sold the recipe for the burning charcoal. Perhaps we would have secretly sold it ??"

An idea came to Lei Xiangren's mind, and he laughed sinisterly.

Mrs Zhao wiped her tears away with a handkerchief and said with hatred: "You can still laugh?"

Lei Xiangren picked up the teapot on the table and leisurely poured himself a cup of tea. His triangular eyes shone with a cu

ing light, "We had already lost out on that charcoal cooking recipe back then ?? ?? if we went somewhere further to sell it, we wouldn't be able to earn money?"

Mrs Zhao was happy at first, but soon revealed worry on her face, "Can it be done? I remember that Ol 'Five told me to press my fingerprint on that book, saying that I can't sell it to anyone else if I sell it to an entire family. "

"A coward like a mouse won't be able to accomplish anything big." Lei Xiangren looked at her, and said disapprovingly, "We will sell it further. As long as you don't tell me and I don't tell you, who would know? Furthermore, both our Fifth Brother and brother-in-law are officials right now. Even the County Magistrate came over to congratulate them. If they were to be discovered, what is there to be afraid of? "

Mrs Zhao was confused by the money that was about to be given to her. She nodded and happily said, "Yes, yes, it's her husband who has thought this through!"

No matter how hard Lei Xiangren and the Zhao Clan tried to kill themselves, they couldn't.

After Qin Mian finished preparing the cake shop, he started to prepare for the culinary arts competition.

Strictly speaking, just in terms of culinary skills alone, Qin Mian couldn't even compare to other "professional" chefs. But he has several obvious advantages over other cooks: first, his dishes will be more exotic than others; second, his seasonings will be better than others; third, he will have a Spirit Spring Water; fourth, his ingredients will be available in the open space; and fifth, his sense of smell and taste will be sharper than ever since he started practicing; and, in the use of spice, he will be more refined than others. Therefore, he was full of confidence in this competition.

However, what he needed to prepare was still to make sure that all participants and judges would be amazed by the dishes he cooked.

He spent five days observing the four chefs on Shuangzhuan Restaurant to ensure that he could at least leave a slight impression of himself as a "chef".

Then, he spent the whole day setting down the contestants' menu. He practiced repeatedly to ensure that he was proficient and fluent in cooking movements and steps ??

In the blink of an eye, it was already mid-June.

More and more outsiders were arriving to attend Flowing Water Town. They had all heard that Shuangzhuan Restaurant was about to host the National Culinary Competition to watch the show. Flowing Water Town's small i

s were all full, and even the houses were rented out. The owners of the shops in the town were almost mad with joy. Some of the smaller shops were already satisfied with just a few dozen coins a day. Now, their profits were at least two hundred gold coins a day, which was five or six times more than before.

Famous chefs from all over the nation's restaurants began to arrive at Shuangzhuan Restaurant.

From the 17th of June, Shuangzhuan Restaurant stopped operating outside the city, and was only used to receive participants.

June 19th, registration deadline.

Manager Sun looked at the registration list and was speechless. There were a total of seventy-nine restaurants, some from the Western Mountain Manor, some from the Eastern Mountain Manor, some from the Northern River Manor, and some from the Southern Lake Manor ?? There were even some from the capital. One could imagine just how sensational the culinary competition had been.

Qin Mian was very clear that the main reason why most of the restaurants were willing to compete was because of the seasoning formula. However, it didn't matter why these people were participating. What mattered was that they were here, and they would spare no effort to prepare the prescription during the competition. That was enough.

On the morning of June 20th, the people in charge of the restaurants sat together and discussed the rules of the competition.

Qin Mian directly gave the competition rules that Lei Tia had written in advance and had people copy a hundred copies of them to Manager Sun, telling him to send one to each person in charge.

As the people in charge looked at the calm and composed blue-clothed youth, they felt a faint unease in their hearts. They took a closer look at the rules of the competition.

Someone a

ounced, "All participants must show enough chips. If they can't get into the top five, the chips will belong to the top five restaurants. For example, if one's Shuangzhuan Restaurant wasn't able to get into the top five, the top five restaurants could all receive thirteen incense and eighteen fresh secret recipes. If gold and silver were used as chips, each restaurant would have a chip of 600 taels of silver ?? The competition consisted of three parts. First, to distinguish the seasonings in a particular dish; secondly, to make a vegetarian dish; and thirdly, to make a meat dish ?? In order to prevent others from tampering, food and kitchen utensils are prepared themselves... "The assessment of the dishes will be carried out through secret selection in order to achieve fairness and fairness ??"

After the two pages were read out, everyone couldn't help but want to wipe off their sweat. Such detailed rules, almost no loopholes to drill through! Inexplicably, they all thought that these rules were made by Little Boss of Shuangzhuan Restaurant. The man with the cold face may look scary, but he didn't seem like someone who had such meticulous thoughts.

Qin Mian laughed lightly: "If any of you have any requests, you can add them, or make them up to me if you have any."

Zheng Xiangui said, "If gold and silver are used as bargaining chips, how are the top five to be distributed? Equally divided? "

"Of course not." Qin Mian said, "Divide all the gold and silver into fifteen equal portions, the first place gets five, the second place gets four, the third place gets three, the fourth place gets two, and the fifth place gets one. Of course, if everyone feels that it is unfair for the top five to receive the complete thirteen incense sticks and eighteen fresh secret formulas if my Shuangzhuan Restaurant loses, I can modify the secret formulas. The first place will receive the complete secret formulas, and the second place will receive fewer ?? "

Before he could finish his words, someone stopped him with a wave of his hand.

"No, no, let's do it according to the original rules. If your i

unluckily falls outside the top five, the top five can all obtain complete manuals. "

The rest of the people chimed in. They did not take the new and emerging Shuangzhuan Restaurant seriously, but there was no lack of old name in the other restaurants, no one dared to say that they would definitely get first place, and it would be better for the five of them to share.

Another person objected, "Cooking includes not only the standard of cooking, but also the requirements of cutting techniques. Should a cutting technique be added to the content of the competition? "

Many people echoed his words.

But Qin Mian shook his head, "No matter how nice the vegetables look cut or if they taste wrong, they will still be hard to eat. Therefore, I don't think it is necessary. If you insist on adding this item, my Shuangzhuan Restaurant can only regretfully forfeit. "

Everyone's mouth twitched. Didn't this mean that it was forbidden to increase the number of knife skills?

There was no way for them to compromise on this point.

Jin Changan, who came from the Beijing Restaurant, stood up and said, "I would like to introduce three people to the competition."

Everyone had long noticed the three elders sitting behind him.

Jin Changan cupped his hands towards an old man in his fifties, "This is Elder Liu who has been a chef for more than ten years. His name is Yun Wei. I presume everyone has heard of it. "

As his voice fell, many people revealed looks of surprise and joy. In the business of the restaurant, almost no one had ever heard of the Elder Liu before. No one suspected that someone was impersonating him. After all, one had to have a convincing ability to judge a person's performance before making a fool of himself.

Everyone stood up and saluted.

Elder Liu chuckled, he was cordial and cordial as he raised his hand: "There is no need to be so courteous, everyone. When I heard the news, I happened to be in Beijing, so I came with Boss Jin to join in the fun. If all of you trust this old man, this old man will judge you against my face. "

Everyone said they trusted him, and looked towards Qin Mian, afraid that he would once again "pester and pester" them.

Qin Mian cupped his hands and said: "It is our fortune to have the Elder Liu overseeing this matter. I hope that Elder Liu will give this brat a chance to welcome you. "

"Sure, sure." Liu Yun smiled.

Jin Changan introduced the other two elders. One was Old Gu and the other was Elder Wen, both good friends of Elder Liu. Both of them were once famous chefs, but they had already retired now.

After everyone discussed a few more details, the rules were finally decided. They made a copy and posted it on the wall.

The afternoon of the 20th and the 21st were reserved for the contestants to familiarize themselves with the competition grounds and to order ingredients.