Father's dinner

Text/Tu Zhaohui

Sometimes on holidays or just after I came home from work, my father would call and invite me and my brother's family to dinner with him. No, I received an invitation call from my father again today.

It took a few streets to walk for half an hour to reach my father's house, where my brother's family had already arrived.

When a knock was heard, the nine-year-old nephew and the three-year-old niece always competed to open the door. As soon as they opened the door and saw that it was me, both of them were very affectionate, clapping their small hands and shouting happily: "Grandma! Baby! ”。 Looking at Bai Jing's handsome and sensible nephew, I couldn't help but kiss him fiercely and praise: "Well, really good!" ”。 The little niece suddenly looked at me with a pair of big watery eyes and shouted in a childish voice: "Widow, and me, and me!" So I stretched my head sideways, and I quickly kissed her chubby, round little face and said, "Third sister is also good!" The two little guys left happily.

The smell of the food in the kitchen next door was so strong that I hurried over. At this time, my brother had washed the dishes and was cutting sausages, which dad had bought on the street. The cooked sausages are steaming on the cutting board, and the cut parts are neatly arranged on the plate piece by piece, shiny and evenly clear. I couldn't wait to grab a slice and put it in my mouth, wow! The meat is delicate, crisp and refreshing, and the distinct spicy taste has a slight sweetness, which melts from the mouth to the bottom of the heart, so it is not comfortable! Dad is very sharp, stir-fry is also a big axe, three times five divided by two fried a lot of dishes on the table.

Looking at the table full of my father's "masterpieces", my brother and I often turned our backs and secretly laughed. He has poor eyesight and is afraid that he has not been fried, so he often stir-frys the dishes black and mushy. He also did not know that stir-fry dishes should pay attention to the combination of color and shape. The cut meat is wide and thick, and the shape is very ugly, and each piece of meat— no, it is at least one or two pieces of meat that weigh at least one or two pieces of meat, which makes us daunted.

After everyone set up the dishes and spooned the two little ones, my father always asked us, "Do you drink?" Although my brother and I said no every time, each time he insisted on going to the storage room to scoop up a few glasses of wine and put them in front of us. This wine is brewed by himself, and there are many precious medicinal herbs in it, and he says that drinking alcohol in moderation is good for health. In order not to disappoint my father, we had to accompany my father to slowly taste the wine.

His father knew that the dishes he fried did not sell, and always smiled and apologized: "Oh, the stir-frying has been a little longer, next time I must pay attention." "He told us to eat more beef one moment, and then he told us to eat more chicken, saying that the meat was nutritious and that if we ate too much, we wouldn't gain weight." Seeing that we didn't have much action, he personally clipped a lot of piles in our bowls.

At some point, my father became no longer strict, his green hair became sparse and full of snowflakes, and his healthy pace became a little staggered. After his mother left, he lived in the form of a mother. The scene always made me feel sad, even a little nervous or nervous, and I don't know how long the days of eating with my father like this will be.

Father's fried dishes are ugly, but they do not affect our appetite at all. He likes to make meals according to our previous habits in the countryside, such as steaming steamed meat with red amaranth, boiling pumpkin with mung beans, boiling taro with bacon, porridge with crushed peanuts and rice, potatoes and rice, four seasons beans and rice, etc. There are almost no condiments in it, it looks like the soil is slaggy, but it is very sweet and refreshing to eat.

We ate and talked, tasting the strong flavor of our hometown in the lively atmosphere of the family, looking for the wisps of our childhood, and the fragrance poked straight into the heart, like the pure sweetness of first love. Feeling the water-like tenderness between relatives, the heart can't help but become wet and soft.

Outside the window, the rows of buildings are shrouded in a confusing winter rain, and at this moment, it seems that there is also an indescribable lingering feeling. It turns out that many of the pleasures of life can also be tasted in some of the daily small things around us.

Time slipped quietly from my fingertips, but I hoped that time would pass more slowly, slower, and let this plain happiness and peace flow slowly, flowing in every ordinary day.

About the author: Tu Zhaohui, pen name Cinderella. He is a member of Sichuan Poetry Society, Sichuan Science and Technology Journalism Society, and Guang'an Writers Association. He has published a collection of essays, "Ai Ye Piaoxiang", authored a novella "Moon and Moon Truancy", and nearly 10 articles have been selected as the core reading books of students' language literacy. "Dandelion" and "Sunflower" won the first and third prizes of the 2020 Guang'an Children's Song Competition, the third prize of the 2018 "Chinese Countryside" and "Qilu Literature" Annual Selection Works Competition, the third prize of the "Royal Cup" Poetry Competition in Linshui County, and the Excellence Award of the 2019 Yuechi County Hundred Poets Yong Peach Blossom Competition.