A Farmer's Dinner

Saturday noon we joined our landlord and her husband, for a "farmer's dinner," country cuisine popular with city-folks who yearn for a simpler time. A Farmer's Dinner features simple foods, locally grown, and set in the mountains away from the hub bub of town.

Despite the fact our landlords are incredibly wealthy by any country's standards, we dined at a restaurant/mountain hostel on scrambled "mountain eggs," local river fish (whole fish... teeth, scales... eyes still looking up at us), deep fried bug larva, boiled potatoes, and fresh chicken that probably had spent the morning pecking about the Laoshan mountain area. It was done "chainsaw chicken style" (whole chicken chopped up with a meat clever). I had to search a while for a body part the kids would be willing to eat.

"You're kids aren't hungry?" They kept asking. "What would they like to eat?"

"Rice." We replied.

Three steaming bowls of rice, several warm Cokes for the kids, two premium bottles of imported red wine, and a few Tsingtao pijius later, our meal was complete. We made our way to their mountain villa. They apologized profusely for not preparing a meal at their home. They had been so busy, he had had meetings. But we should come anytime. They would just give us the keys if we wanted their place for the weekend.

The place ended up being an absolutely beautiful home done in the style Chinese have a penchant for... the "European villa". Surrounding the three story home, perched on the side of the beautiful Laoshan mountains, were little plots of land, planted in neat rows with bai cai(a Chinese cabbage), tomato plants, and radishes. "Good water.... Good air" he kept saying.

No kidding we agreed! And the view wasn't bad either. The kids frolicked inside their three story-six bedroom weekend home. The adults cozied up on the Ming style furniture made of some heavy African wood that had set them back around $15k USD! We drank expensive tea grown exclusively in Southern Fujian province. Then we switched to local Laoshan green, Mr. Johnson's favorite. They made sure to let us know everything was only the best.

When the kids floated in, the landlord's husband peeled apples for them with sharp knife and sliced off sections into their open palms. They broke open a pomegranate and offered freshly plucked tomatoes. "Good air.... Good water," became the anthem of the afternoon.

We smirked as we thought of the single bottle of Chilean red we had bequeathed them along with three baseball caps sporting Mr. Johnson's company logo, because... when it was time to go they presented the girlies with three traditional dragon kites and with us with four bottles of imported Spanish wine. We learned their mountain villa featured a 6000 bottle wine cellar!

As we drove back into the city, away from the good water and good air, Mr Johnson lamented that we had not spent much of our nearly four years in the mountains. “Today was great,” he said, after we stopped to take pictures of the craggy mountain faces and the smooth stones of a nearly dry mountain stream... rounded over many years by spring rains. And it had been great. The kids had worn themselves out. They had had fun. They talked about the retired military dog that they met at the farmer’s dinner, about the generosity of our Chinese landlord, about being guests in their home.

They didn’t mention the bugs or other funny food… the treacherous mountain road… the extra attention they had received everywhere we had been. Four years ago our take on the Farmer's Dinner would have been different. It takes some time to ease into those kinds of situations. Time to xi guan (become used to) the events of days like Saturday. We promised ourselves, though, we would have to come back.