I almost always buy vegetables from the same stall. Not that it offers the lowest price, or that it offers the most varieties, or that it offers the freshest vegetables (I'm happy with the varieties and the freshness, nonetheless), but because the stall owner - an early-middle-age auntie - often spontaneously offers customers cooking advices without being asked for. And sometimes you do find gems in her advices.
It was the eighth month of the lunar calendar, when traditionally the mooncake festival is celebrated by us Chinese. And the filling of the traditional mooncake is made of lotus seed paste (with lots of sugar added, of course). Therefore, the vegetable stall happened to have some fresh supplies of lotus seeds. "Try a pack of these," said the auntie, "these make some wickedly delicious sweet soup with sweet potatoes. I happen to have some nice sweet potatoes over there, too." What a wonderful salesperson she is. And I was persuaded.
And I must say, I did not regret it at all. The amount of fresh lotus seeds and sweet potatoes I bought was enough for a huge pot of the sweet soup (again, I used the thermos pot; wonderful invention, that), so, for the entire day that day, my wife and I ate almost nothing but this sweet soup. It was lunch, tea, dinner, supper, and the leftover, well, you will find out about the leftover in another post later. ;-)
If you happen to come across some fresh lotus seeds, don't think twice; just grab a pack and some sweet potatoes. You won't regret it. :-)
No comments:
Post a Comment