Modern food blogger Yu Wan traveled through time and became the newly married daughter-in-law of the Lin family in Qinghe Village during the Zhou Dynasty. At the beginning, the family was destitute and the rice tank was at the bottom. Even her husband Lin Yan was so hungry that he saved the only meat bun for her. Faced with this mess, Yu Wan didn't cry or fuss. Instead, she stared at the embers in the stove and laughed out loud - as long as the stove fire didn't go out, life would be happy.
She has her own "eye for taste". Shriveled sweet potatoes can be fried with crispy caramel edges, and wilted wild onions can fill the house with fragrance. Even the "toad" stone frog, which is shunned by the villagers, can be turned into a signature dish that will make people lose their eyebrows in her hands. From the stove to the market, from setting up a stall to opening a shop, Yu Wan, with her silent husband who dotes on his wife, her hearty and protective mother-in-law, her clever brother-in-law and her beauty-loving sister-in-law, plays a bad hand.
There are no bloody fights between best relatives, no scheming house fights, only the liveliness of the family sitting around the table to eat sweet potato cakes, the gentle gaze of the husband secretly watching her cooking while chopping firewood, the words of the mother-in-law when she stuffed the saved copper coins to her, "It's too late, don't save it," and the cuteness of the sister-in-law holding up the candied haws and shouting, "My sister-in-law's cooking is sweeter than the candied haws."
This is a healing book written for all women who work hard in ordinary days. See how Yu Wan uses a spatula and a pair of skillful hands to turn firewood, rice, oil and salt into poetry, and boils the years of poverty into sweetness. In the world of fireworks, she and her loved ones share a tender feast of food and growth.
