Su Ran had no idea what was going through Su Han’s mind right now so she force-filtered out the dubious look on her son’s face. Taking over the notebook and pen from Su Han, she earnestly jotted down all the ingredients mentioned in the recipe.
50 gram of flour, 20 gram of butter, 4 eggs, and evaporated milk…
The next day, recalling how some woman had mentioned about learning how to cook the night before, Su Han was a little bit worried when he left the house.
After he had repeatedly made sure that all there was nothing else in their house other than eggs, steamed buns, and dried noodles in the refrigerator and only salt and sugar inside the cabinet, he finally left with some apprehension.
What Su Han didn’t know was that the minutes he was gone, Su Ran, too, left immediately with her two shopping bags that she got from Grandma Dai Bao who told her she had stood in line in front of the pharmacy to get.
There was a reasonably-sized supermarket not too far from where they lived. Su Ran had purchased noodles and steamed buns from them before; as such, she was somewhat familiar with this place.
Su Ran walked inside as though she had been here all the time along with the ingredient list that she had created the day before.
Nevertheless, she was utterly dumbfounded the very next second.
Margarine? Butter? Or nonfat butter?
How are there so many different types of butters? Then there are salted and non-salted kinds?
Why wasn’t it specified in the recipe? Which kind should she get?
And then there were flours. She knew of low and high gluten flours. Just what were wheat flour, all-purpose flour, and self-rising flour?
Then there were sugars. She knew of brown and cane sugar. What were the difference between soft sugar and granulated sugar? They looked to be the same as each other.
Su Ran suffered from analysis paralysis standing in front of the supermarket shelves.
“Miss?”
“Hmm?” Su Ran recollected herself when the supermarket employee called out to her.
“Is there anything that I can help you with?”
“Ugh, yeah, I want to make a birthday cake…”
“A birthday cake?” The employee was a little surprised when she heard that.
“A birthday cake is not easy to make and required quite a bit of ingredients. You can always order a custom one.”
“Yeah, I know. But it’s my son’s birthday so I’d like to make him one myself,” said Su Ran with a smile.
Hearing that, the employee smiled as well.
“Oh, I see. Your son is so lucky.”
Su Ran: Maybe.
***
The next morning.
“Eh, son? Don’t you need to go to school today?” asked Su Ran in surprise when she saw Su Han dilly-dallying at home for the first time ever.
“Yeah, I’m about to.”
“You should head out soon if you don’t want to be late.” Su Ran prompted him.
“I know.” Su Han frowned a little and said in a dull voice. It was obvious that there was something else that he wanted to say.
“Um, are you busy today?” asked Su Han softly after a slight hesitation.
“Hmm? Am I busy? Sort of,” said Su Ran leisurely. She had a lot to get done today but she would first wait until her son had left.
“What do you have to do?”
“Emmm… nothing much. Fill out a questionnaire for the district and helped Aunty Zhang upstairs to ask her granddaughter to vote, and help Grandma Dai Bao download an app, things of that nature…” Su Ran made all those up as she cocked her head and looked at Su Han.
“You…” Su Han’s face was a little long. Staring at Su Ran, he couldn’t help but asked again, “Have you forgotten something?”
“Mmm? What have I forgotten?”
I didn’t forget!
Su Ran shouted in her mind.
“Ah!” Su Ran took a look at her cellphone and exclaimed. She rushed Su Han out the door. “It’s already 16 after. Hurry up! You are really going to be late if you don’t leave now!”
“Oh.” The young man responded dully before he turned around and left with his back to Su Ran, hiding the disappointment on him.
***
“Whew…” Su Ran finally let out a sigh of relief after Su Han had left.
She jumped of from the couch, rushed into the kitchen and quickly pulled out the baking ingredients that she had bought yesterday from underneath the cabinet and the corner in the refrigerator.
Flour, butter, pastry bags… Su Ran pretty much bought everything recommended by the supermarket employee yesterday.
Exactly! Under her recommendations, Su Ran even splurged and bought herself a hand mixer!
Now that everything was ready, all she needed to do was to roll her sleeves up and start!