Chapter 403 - Foodie (1/2)

Su Li did not continue to eat what Aunt Lee had prepared for breakfast. Instead, she followed Xiao Luo to the kitchen area. This time, she intended to carefully observe the way Xiao Luo prepared vegetable taro paste.

Aunt Lee was also watching from the side, keen to learn more about Xiao Luo’s recipe and how he cooked it.

“Daddy, what are you making?”

Su Xiaobei ran over and went on tiptoes. Her tiny hands were just high enough to grab the edge of the marble kitchen top as she looked at Xiao Luo excitedly with her enormous jewel-like eyes.

Xiao Luo smiled and patted her on the head, and he said, “You’ll know later. Be a good girl, go and stay over there with your mum.”

“Okay.”

Su Xiaobei was very obedient. She turned around and ran behind Su Li.

First, Xiao Luo placed some taro in a pot of water and left it to boil. Then, he started preparing the steamed eggs—he chopped a generous helping of cabbage, beat two eggs in a large bowl, added a little water and salt to taste, whisked them together with chopsticks, poured the lot into a casserole, and placed the dish in a steamer.

After the taro was cooked, he turned off the heat, drained out the boiling water, refilled the pot with cold water, and peeled the boiled taros with his hands.

“These taros are of fine quality. See, they soften up immediately after cooking, and their skin is easy to peel off as well. If you buy taros that are as hard as a stone, they will never become soft no matter how long you cook them, and it’ll affect the taste of this dish considerably,” Xiao Luo explained as he continued peeling away.

“Do you mean that we must use this kind of ‘easy-to-boil’ taro to make vegetable taro paste?” Su Li asked, her desire to learn evident in her body language.

Xiao Luo nodded, “Yeah. Only this kind of ‘easy-to-boil’ taro can be mashed into a paste and cooked with vegetables.”

“Got it.”

Su Li took a mental note of it.

Aunt Lee was the person responsible for purchasing ingredients, and she said, “Mr. Xiao, ‘easy-to-boil’ taros, and the ‘not-easy-to-boil’ taros are all mixed together when they are sold in the market. We have to pick them ourselves. Sometimes, it is challenging to pick taro that is easy to boil.”

“Those that are flatter in shape and the smaller ones are generally easier to cook, while the larger and full ones are usually harder to cook. They’ll remain hard no matter how you cook them. If you peel off the skin and eat it, you’ll feel as if something is stuck in your throat, which gives the dish a bad texture,” Xiao Luo said, pointing at his throat to stress his point.

“I see, so there’s even such knowledge as this. You’re really amazing, Mr. Xiao!” Aunt Lee responded, giving Xiao Luo a thumbs up and not at all stingy with her praise.

Xiao Luo was humble and said, “It’s just the experience I gathered through years of making this dish.”

“Way to go, Daddy!”

Su Xiaobei didn’t understand a word of it, but when she heard Aunt Lee complimenting Xiao Luo, she followed suit and cheered for him.

Xiao Luo smiled back at her and then continued preparing the vegetable taro paste.

This guy looks more and more pleasing!

Inwardly, Su Li was beginning to appreciate Xiao Luo. While she was paying full attention to how he was making of vegetable taro paste, at the same time, she was also having a good look at him. And, the more she looked, the more positive things she saw in him. She started noticing how handsome he actually was, neatly dressed and giving off a good impression of himself. For the first time, she didn’t feel disgusted about giving her body to such a man.

Out of the blue, she asked, “So, I heard that you did very well in your interview yesterday?”

“I guess.”

Xiao Luo glossed over it.

Su Li made a dry cough and said, “Qingyan said that you know several foreign languages. Is that true?”

Xiao Luo was taken aback; he nodded and replied, “Yup.”

Although she was mentally prepared for it, when Xiao Luo confirmed that he did, Su Li still felt astonished. It took her a lot of money, time, and effort to be proficient in two foreign languages; English and French. But Xiao Luo actually mastered three, and as he most probably spoke English as well, making it a total of four languages. A single person being able to master four foreign languages all at the same time was simply unimaginable, or at least, she had never encountered such a talent, aside from the man in front of her.