My Husband, a Marshal: Conquering the Stars with My Culinary Arts-Chapter 633 - 213: Candied Chestnuts (Part 2)_3

Every ingredient has its own growth habits—spring, summer, autumn, winter. Whatever ingredients each season produces, Du Xixi and her team use them, even though Blue Star now has technology for greenhouse cultivation, which some aristocratic families like the Du Family seldom engage with.

The birth of chefs was indeed to impart a different soul to the ingredients, but for the sake of a certain purpose and changing the "soul" of the ingredients, forgive Du Xixi’s stubbornness, but she simply won’t do it.

The maturity period for chestnuts is typically from August to October each year. It’s almost January now, with a time difference of two months. No one knows what kind of high-tech methods the Cultural Relics Bureau used that allowed them to harvest these chestnuts, which shouldn’t appear until next year, so quickly.

With different philosophies, Du Xixi couldn’t quickly bluntly speak her mind, but it was almost visible with the naked eye how her gaze towards these chestnuts became displeased. Especially after picking up a few, 2569 clearly heard her whisper: "No wonder these look like poor ripened products. The shell is so hard, and the flesh inside isn’t full... tsk tsk tsk, look at this color, it’s completely the color from chemical ripening agents!"

"Madam..." 2569 thought Du Xixi’s displeasure toward these chestnuts was too obvious, yet she merely gave it a light glance, sighed gently, and said: "2569, you must remember, what us chefs should avoid isn’t being inflexible, but disrespecting and lacking reverence for the ingredients."

Du Xixi placed the chestnuts back into the bag. If these chestnuts had been properly harvested and sent over, she probably would have been excitedly thinking about making chestnut delicacies by now, but these poor-quality chestnuts before her made her less and less willing to cook the more she looked at them.

"I’ll write a simple method for cooking chestnuts in a while, and you help me send them back to the Food Department. Just say..." Du Xixi’s previously stern words twirled around her tongue a few times before she decided against straining the relationship with the Cultural Relics Bureau too much, "Just say I’m not feeling well today, let them figure out something themselves. It’s so cold this winter, and there’re not many ingredients to work with, so I am also lazy to do it myself."

would certainly relay Du Xixi’s words unchanged to the Cultural Relics Bureau. Du Xixi only hoped her implicit message would be understood by them; she wouldn’t stop the Bureau from doing such ripening experiments, but she didn’t want these artificially ripened ingredients in her view.

With the advancement of high-tech, such situations couldn’t be stopped, but Du Xixi had her obligations that wouldn’t change whether on Blue Star or in the Star Era.

"Clean fresh chestnuts and mix them with quartz sand, stir-fry until they crack open, then pour in syrup..."

The recipe for "Sugar-fried Chestnuts" hand-written by Du Xixi and those few bags of chestnuts were soon sent back to the Cultural Relics Bureau, delivered personally by 2569. The Bureau’s staff quickly came out to greet it because it was the first time they had received a "return" from Du Xixi.

"2569, what’s going on? Doesn’t Madam want to work with these chestnuts?" A man 2569 had met a few times adjusted his glasses, being the person from the Bureau assigned to liaise with Du Xixi. If Du Xixi showed any reluctance to cooperate, he could likely be criticized or even punished. The Bureau had plenty of personnel; if he were demoted, someone else would quickly fill his place.

He didn’t want to lose his job!

"Yes, indeed." 2569 dutifully began to convey Du Xixi’s words, "Madam isn’t feeling well today, so you’re to figure something out yourselves. Moreover, it’s very cold this winter, and there aren’t many good ingredients to work with, and Madam is too lazy to do it herself."

"This..." The few staff exchanged glances, unsure of the meaning behind Du Xixi’s words. Du Xixi had always had good relations with their Bureau; why the sudden message to figure things out due to feeling unwell?

"I’ve conveyed Madam’s words and hope you can understand her meaning." 2569, despite its cute appearance, wasn’t small and, though slightly smaller compared to the men present, its cold mechanical sound and expression drew their attention, "Winter has come, Madam might prefer cooking some radish soup to warm up her family."

indeed was considerate to these staff members before it; they had interacted for quite a while, but its reminder ended there. It nodded to them before sliding away on its wheels.

Being just finished with cleaning, it would be nine o’clock soon. Not only would the Cultural Relics Bureau’s staff working overtime finish up, but as a robot, it too had to "recharge" in the corner.

"Brother Zhang, what does 2569 mean? Does Madam only like radish soup recently? That can’t be..." A newly transferred staff member scratched his head, not having much interaction with 2569 and found its words strange: one moment about what Du Xixi means, the next about her liking to make radish soup; it’s truly bewildering.

Brother Zhang, the staff responsible for this, watched 2569’s retreating figure and had an inkling of a guess but refrained from speaking prematurely. Instead, he crouched down, intending to examine the bags of chestnuts.

Coincidentally, the first bag he opened was the one Du Xixi had already examined.