A Guide to Running a High School Cafeteria: Gourmet

The blurb for my next book, A Little School-Gate Lunch Shop, is at the end. I also have a food novel coming soon, Raising Kids at a State-Run Restaurant in the Seventies.

--

[The Management System is at your service. Please choose the store you would like to run.]

[We have detected a cafeteria registered under your name. Automatic binding complete.]

[Beep! Beep!! Beep!!! Warning, warning, warning! Player data exceeds limits. System capacity insufficient. System is, ]

Zhou Erxing had just returned home to take over the family cafeteria, passed down through generations. The moment she stepped onto the school grounds, she heard a voice.

Then she acquired a broken System that had become a cafeteria management system.

Zhou Erxing flatly denied the System's complaints.

"You bound me without even asking how good a cook I am."

[...]

[Harsh words can make even a System feel cold in the height of summer.]

"System, why is your interface missing parts?"

[It blew up.]

*

Yun City No. 1 High School was the best high school in Yun City, and even in the surrounding cities, always dominating school competitions. But there was one exception:

The cafeteria at Yun City No. 1 High School gathered the worst of every cafeteria dish. Every student who walked in had to ponder life's deepest questions first: Why do people have to eat?

"Every meal is an interrogation of life, a stain on the soul, the cruelest punishment. Every time I come to the cafeteria, my taste buds feel like they're dancing on the edge of a knife."

--A tearful composition by an anonymous student who scored 75 in Chinese.

Boarding students returned to school with bags upon bags of food, while the day students had all become food delivery drivers.

Figuring out how to plan meals and make sure their taste buds wouldn't sound the alarm every day at school had become a secret skill passed down through generations at Yun City No. 1 High.

At the start of the semester, the owner of Cafeteria Three, the school's most notorious for bad food, was replaced.

The new freshmen, who had yet to suffer through cafeteria food, were delighted.

In the morning: three-dice steamed buns, steamed rolls with minced pork, baked flatbread stuffed with vegetables, wontons with shredded chicken...

For lunch: sweet-and-sour ribs, pork braised with fermented tofu, beef brisket with tomatoes, spicy and sour fish head...

And dinner was just as good: fried ribs with rice and vegetables, Qishan minced pork noodles, lamb paomo...

Every student was looking forward to Cafeteria Three.

What delicious food would it have today?

Motivation to study: way up!

Cafeteria Three quickly became No. 1 in the hearts of the students, the most popular cafeteria by far!

Zhou Erxing also became the most popular person on campus.

The students loved her, and so did the teachers.

And thus a world where every other school suffered was born.

Other schools: We were all competing to be the worst. Why has No. 1 High secretly started raising the bar?!

At the schools' comprehensive quality evaluation, the other schools' chefs looked at Zhou Erxing in fear and trepidation. Why would a chef this good come to work in a high school cafeteria?!

After all these years, No. 1 High could finally hold its head high when it came to its cafeteria.

Later, Zhou Erxing opened a serving window at Cafeteria Three for the public, and it became Yun City's most unique attraction. They even had to impose purchase limits.

*

At the end of the week, the parents of No. 1 High students prepared a huge spread at home, waiting for their children to return and devour it all.

"Son, why aren't you eating? Look how much weight you've lost after a week at school, "

"Who hit you?!"

The parent hadn't even taken a good look at the child. Now they looked up and saw their own kid's face had swollen to twice its size!

"No, um, the new cafeteria at school is just too good, so I ate a little too much."

After attending a competition, Zhou Erxing returned to No. 1 High. Even though it was the school holiday, banners were strung up all over the campus, and a huge crowd had gathered at the cafeteria's public serving window.

Before she could feel embarrassed, Shen Dongyuan had already started taking commemorative photos.

--

A Little School-Gate Lunch Shop

Wei Zhouchen, a terminally shy person, had finally saved enough "buyout money" in the big city.

She returned to her hometown with a little calico cat as quiet as she was.

She wanted to lie flat and live a peaceful life, but before she could even figure out why water had suddenly started flowing from her fingertips, the human beagle in her family had already gotten a bunch of kids throwing tantrums in front of their parents with her candied cherry tomatoes and focaccia topped with oil-preserved cherry tomatoes.

One day, Wei Zhouchen was examining the unusually plump cherry tomatoes and especially vigorous cucumbers in the backyard, which had grown after she added spiritual spring water.

Then a group of parents blocked her in at home.

Caught off guard, she could only lower her head and silently repeat: You can't see me, you can't see me!

Then she heard someone ask, "Do you take children?"

Huh? What?! Wei Zhouchen was so bewildered that her social anxiety didn't even have time to kick in.

"Chenchen, I've watched you grow up. You've been home for a while now. Why not find a job and shut those annoying people up... You could open a little lunch shop."

Thinking of her own child, who was still throwing tantrums, the neighbor steeled herself and tried to talk her into it.

And Wei Zhouchen agreed, completely confused.

Only after returning to her room did Wei Zhouchen realize what she had agreed to. She was going to open a little lunch shop?

But she really didn't want to deal with people (/｡\)

She wanted to take it back, but then she saw the expectant looks of the little show-off at home, and the group of children peeking around the doorway.

Fine, I'll open it. I only have to cook at the lunch shop, right? ⊙_⊙

*

Ever since Chenchen's Little Lunch Shop opened

When teachers ran late, elementary school students' eyes brimmed with tears.

Middle schoolers developed lightning-fast legs just to get to their meals!

Homeroom teachers never had to worry about finding the right students for the sports meet again.

There was no need for tryouts. If anyone in the class ate at Chenchen's Little Lunch Shop, they were the right choice!

The teachers also stopped caring about the north gate, no matter how much closer it was to home!

When mealtime came, the aroma from the little lunch shop was simply too tempting.

They were genuinely afraid they wouldn't be able to stop themselves from walking right into Chenchen's Little Lunch Shop!

Oil-braised prawns, red-braised ribs, pork with rock sugar, water chestnut cake, fresh peaches with mint, honey-glazed gourds...

No one knew how the little lunch shop made its food. The aroma carried so far that even the parents coming to pick up their children could smell it.

And those who had once mocked Wei Zhouchen for returning to her hometown smelled the delicious food from the shop.

They grew pensive, regretful, and hungry.

Wei Zhouchen, however, sternly turned away the parents who once again crowded around, hoping to enroll their children in the lunch shop.

*

After Wei Zhouchen came home, the vegetables in the backyard garden kept multiplying. The cucumbers, green beans, tomatoes, and other crops that should have been pulled up were instead growing more vigorously than ever.

The pond out front was filled with lotus flowers, and the lotus roots were plump and white. Not only did the children at the lunch shop love them, but the parents who came to pick them up fought to buy them too.

And that was without even mentioning the fish and shrimp in the pond, dried fruit from her own orchard, tender corn, peanuts and edamame, watermelons that split open with the lightest touch, intensely fragrant strawberries, steamed buns made with sweet potato leaves, and fried meatballs made with freshly pressed rapeseed oil...

She could eat whatever she wanted, and Wei Zhouchen thought it was wonderful to be home!

A relaxed, everyday story, finding joy in life's little comforts

Theme: Eat well and grow up well