Second watch, requesting pink votes.

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On Lian Manman’s family dining table, cold dishes often replace dipping sauces. For example, smashed cucumber is best made without a steel knife, as it can harm the cucumber’s freshness. Using the back of a bamboo knife yields the best results. There are also thin strips of tender cucumber and dried tofu, seasoned to perfection, incredibly refreshing and appetizing.

When making cold dishes in summer, garlic paste is indispensable.

Lian Manman believes that adding garlic paste not only enhances the flavor, but also serves as a sterilizing agent. Speaking of garlic paste, one must mention another dish Lian Shouxin loves; that is steamed eggplant.

Select slender, tender eggplants. During meal preparation or cooking, place a steamer basket in the iron pot, lay the steamer cloth on it, then spread cleaned eggplants evenly over the cloth and steam them. To preserve the eggplant’s flavor during steaming, the stems must not be removed.

Eggplants steamed this way turn very pale in color. When torn open, you’ll see that the flesh inside has become soft and mushy. Dip the steamed eggplant in seasoned soy sauce, and it’s quite delicious.

However, Lian Manman doesn’t particularly enjoy this dish; she prefers garlic pickled eggplant. Similarly, wash the eggplants and steam them, but just until cooked without becoming mushy. Then, split the eggplants open, smear garlic paste and fine salt on the flesh, and place them layer by layer in a pickling jar to marinate in a cool place.

It doesn’t take long to marinate before it’s ready to eat. At breakfast, pairing soy milk from the tofu shop with oil-fried breadsticks and such pickled eggplant tastes the best. The oil-fried breadsticks are made by Lian’s themselves. Having hired a new helper who can fry breadsticks, Lian’s makes and sells them every couple of days, and sometimes also fries sweet rice cakes filled with bean paste, which sell well too. So, when someone buys breadsticks or fried rice cakes, Lian’s always offers a plate of homemade pickles, including eggplants. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

Actually, greasy foods pair perfectly with such crisp, pickled side dishes.

At this time, new potatoes are also ready.

Potatoes can be eaten in various ways. The simplest is washing them clean and cooking them in a pot until mushy, then peeling and mashing them into potato paste or dipping them in sauce directly. In Lian Manman’s family, harvested potatoes are first consumed from the smaller ones or those with imperfections, or those damaged during digging, while the larger and smooth-skinned potatoes are stored away.

These potatoes can be stored for more than half a year, lasting until next spring.

Aside from cooked potatoes, cold potato strips with extra vinegar are also popular, refreshing during the summer.

In this season, on the tables of Thirty Mile Camp’s tenant farmstead families, potatoes, green beans, and eggplants often take the spotlight in stews. Without even adding any meat, just adding a big spoonful of lard while stewing makes the dish aromatic. By adding some vermicelli, it becomes even tastier.

Kids growing up haven’t the faintest idea of a summer slump. This season’s melons and vegetables feed each of them robustly.

Yet Xiao Qi hasn’t gained weight, only visibly growing taller. Da Hua has long been a plump cat, and Da Pang and Second Fatty have shed their infantile scent, growing into two stout half-grown dogs, spending most of their days across the river guarding the fish pond.

When Lian Manman tries on last year’s suitably fitting clothes, her figure remains neither too thin nor too fat, but the cuffs are noticeably short, pants expose the ankles, and skirts are no longer long enough.

"Just like the crops in the fields, secretly sprouting and growing taller overnight," Lady Zhang laughs while altering clothes for several children.

This summer, in Lian Manman’s family’s estate, the Lotus Pond has become the most attractive view.

During summer mornings and evenings, Lian Manman enjoys walking around the Lotus Pond on the other riverbank, observing the tightly packed leaves or the blooming or budding lotus flowers. On clear moonlit nights, the Lotus Pond is at its most beautiful, with leaves and flowers gaining a daytime lacking ethereal beauty under the moonlight. A gentle fragrance from the lotus and mist from the pond wafts over, accompanied by frogs’ croaking, sweeping away the heat of the day. As Mr. Loo put it, "...cleansing the mind, allowing one to forget their worries..."

Not only do Lian Manman’s family members love the Lotus Pond.