A bowl of sauce sauerkraut
text/Wang Ande
New Year's Eve, a bowl of sauce sauerkraut, four dishes, and a few black hot steamed buns are the New Year's Eve dinner for our family of six.
Do you believe it?
You have to believe it, and you have to believe it if you don’t believe it. This is a fact, something I have experienced and felt personally, and will never be forgotten for my life.
That year, during a special period, I was only six or seven years old, living in the countryside, a broken baby, stupid, and hadn't entered the school yet. My brother and sister are a few years older than me. They are in elementary school in the village and are students of the second and third grades.
In the winter, the school is on holiday, and the farmers who have been practicing "Earth" for a year have also been idle. After drinking Laba porridge, the sound of firecrackers came from my son. The year is coming, and I smell the strong New Year atmosphere. The Little New Year is here (the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month), and every household is going to sacrifice to the kitchen, place offerings, burn incense, kowtow, burn paper and set off firecrackers, pray that the Kitchen God will go to heaven to say more good things and bless the family and young. The adults began to be busy. Several men and women who liked to sing opera gathered in the classroom of the village school, chattering, rehearsing the Qin Opera drama "Three Drops of Blood" and the Meihu Opera " Liang Qiuyan ", etc., preparing to perform during the New Year.
Women are even more busy, taking new clothes, pinching wontons, making dumplings, cooking sauce, and steaming New Year's buns. The children are in the free wheat field. They are falling in the wheat field. They rolling iron rings and learning to ride bicycles. They look forward to the New Year's Day, wearing new clothes, eating wontons, gnawing bones, eating sauce, setting off firecrackers, and throwing bombs. They follow the adults to kiss each other. They are walking from village to village, calling their grandfather, calling their uncle and aunt, collecting a few cents of New Year's money.
"Who has the rotten copper and iron to exchange for foreign candy?" The peddler entered the village with a shaking drum. There were colorful small foreign candy in the frame. The popcorn uncle came, and the dark popcorn machine was supported under the big locust tree next to the old pond. The "bang" and "bang" sound attracted a group of children. They surrounded the peddler's burden and popcorn tightly, bought a few foreign candies, put them in their mouths, sweet on their faces, held a bowl of popcorn, swallowed them in their stomachs, and were happy in their hearts, showing off their poverty in front of their friends, feeling happy!
Dad works in the city and is too busy. Rarely go home. My mother-in-law (grandmother) talks about her son every day, thinking about her son crazy. My mother is a cultural person. She responded to the national call and was sent back to the countryside from Xi'an. She served as a woman cadre in the village, opened a kindergarten, and worked as a credit officer in the village. She is a "financial model" commended by the Provincial Agricultural Bank.
Today, the year is almost the same, my mother-in-law got up early, moved out the small orange, and sat in front of the door of the house, her sister combed her hair, and she was crying in her eyes, and she said, "Tomorrow is the first day of the Lunar New Year, why haven't my baby come back yet?" The sister advised her mother-in-law and said, "My father is too busy at work, maybe he will be back in a while." When her mother-in-law heard this, her charitable eyes smiled brightly.
In my mother-in-law's heart, she always cares about her son.
In the afternoon, snowflakes fell on the sky, and the snow came slowly, bit by bit, piece by piece, scattered and evenly. The snow like willow catkins, the snow like reeds, and the snow like fluffy seeds of dandelions, flying in the wind! Like beautiful pictures!
What a beautiful snow! Auspicious snow indicates a good harvest!
Night falls, Xiaoxue is still continuing, Dad is back, like a big snowman. I was so happy that I snuggled in my father's arms, searching for candy cubes in the bag he was carrying. The mother-in-law came over, held her son's hand, looked at her son carefully, and murmured repeatedly, "I've lost weight, my baby has lost weight, I'm looking so cold." My father was like a child, shouting "Mom, Mom" affectionately.
Mother-in-law's eyes were filled with tears. Her father took out a bag of snacks from her bag and said, "Mom, I bought you snacks." Her mother-in-law took the snacks, held them in her heart, and smiled happily.
"Dad is back, we have a New Year's Eve dinner." My sister jumped around happily, pestering her mother-in-law, and pasting window flowers and New Year pictures.
Dad came back and brought me a new schoolbag and bought a few villain books. Dad said, "After the New Year, I will be eight years old and it's time to go to school."
Dad bought a bunch of pork, which was more than two pounds. Mom took the meat and smiled happily. She walked into the kitchen, simmered the sauce and went to the New Year’s Eve dinner.
The snow is getting heavier and heavier. Dad brings firewood and stuffs it into the kang hole where his mother-in-law lives, burning a hot kang for her mother-in-law. My brother is a sensible and good boy. He sits on the hot kang to do his homework. I am naughty and starts to set off firecrackers in the yard.
Scale of firecrackers came from the village. My father brought a small table and placed it on the center of the mother-in-law's kang. On the table was a plate of peanuts and a plate of candy cubes.
We started sitting at night. On New Year's Eve, the whole family sat around the hot kang, not sleeping, waiting for the New Year to arrive soon. My mother-in-law sat in the upper seat, my father was next to my mother-in-law, and my brother and sister sat on top of me one by one.
The winter night is long, the kerosene lamp is bright, the heart is warm, eating peanuts and tasting the sweetness of foreign candy, the whole family is talking and laughing, it is very happy!
Mom is still busy. I was getting more and more excited.
I saw the meat bones rolling in the pot, I smelled the aroma of sauerkraut, and my saliva flowed down from the corner of my mouth.
While speaking, my mother brought four hot cold dishes and placed them on the small table. They are: fried peanuts, pork head meat with vermicelli, scrambled eggs, cold radish shredded . A bowl of sauerkraut meat is placed in the center, and a few steamed black steamed buns are the most enjoyable New Year’s Eve dinner. There are a few small bones mixed in the sauce bowl. I was quick-witted and rushed to bite my bones. The mother-in-law smiled and said, "Don't steal it, these flesh and bones are all yours." The flesh and blood are so fragrant. I chewed the flesh on the bones, but I still felt unsatisfied. I licked and licked the bones again and again, and tasted them again and again, and it was almost greasy. My father ate the fat meat for my mother-in-law, and my mother-in-law was happy, "It's still my child's intimacy with me."
One bowl of sauerkraut meat, four dishes of side dishes, original, rich in meat, tender and juicy, pure in taste, fragrant.
New Year's Eve, go home, reunion, window flowers, New Year's pictures, Spring Festival couplets, and firecrackers.
A New Year’s Eve dinner, family affection, treasured for my life in my young heart.
A New Year’s Eve dinner made me remember my mother, my parents, and my brothers and sisters.
(December 2, 2022)
(This article is the original first published by Shuiyuan Literature (ID: sywxwk), author: Wang Ande )
Author profile: Wang Ande, male, university culture, from Hancheng, Shaanxi, retired old policeman. Freelance writer, literary creator. I like the creation of medium-length novels and prose, a member of the Municipal Writers Association, a columnist of "Writer's Story", and president of Shaanxi Weinan Branch. The Silk Road Urban Culture Collection signed a contract writer... Since 2020, he has successively created and compiled seven travel notes, essays, novels, including "Live Things", "Lotus Holding Toon", "Red Leaves of the Earth Ridge", "Red Peppers Red", "New Year's Flavor", "Rural Stories", and "West Bank of the Yellow River". He has published more than 600 works of various types on online platforms such as Northwest Intercity Headlines, Writer's Stories, Writer's Home, Hancheng Literature, Viagra Collection, Blue Sky Classic Garden, Dream of Hope, and Silk Road Urban Culture Collection. He has participated in several essay contests and has won awards. I like literary exchanges and love literary creation!
