Learning from the Best (Happy CNY from Mr&MrsMooncat!)

A beautiful, luxuriantly bushy white overgrown fox with an antler, was blinking his eyes repeatedly while looking blankly at a mid 30s aunty squatting down in between the bushes in a not-so cute manner while digging for something. The fox had a lot of questions swirling in his mind but refrained from asking questions. He knew Mom must be doing something important right now just by looking at her serious expression. The 'strange team' of a snake and a bird were gone for quite sometime already, but Hana was still here, strolling around looking for something, before she started squatting down and digging the earth.

After ten minutes of waiting, Shiro finally could stand the silence and asked his mistress telepathically, [err Mom, are you taking a dump? This is not a really good location.]

Hearing the pleasant androgynous voice in her mind but with not so-pleasant remark, Hana nearly sprained her ankle and fall, but was quickly supported by the white fox from the back.

She gave a full-of-grievance look to Shiro as he bowed down guiltily, [Sorry. I really thought you're having an emergency there. Just reminding that this is where you like to pick your herbs.]

"Of course not! I too remember where to take a dump and where not to. Obviously, I'm finding herbs to use for cooking later." The shameless aunty surprising knew how to blush with the misunderstanding as she flicked the snout of the adorable fox. "I'm trying to harvest some lemongrass, my dear. The problem is, lemongrass herb and a normal looking grass looks just the same in my eyes. I can't differentiate them. What I can do was digging at all the look-a-like grass to check." Hana shrugged.

[Is it important? Can we just omit?] Shiro tilted his head questioningly. He didn't know his unconscious action made him look extremely cute.

She cannot help but fawn for a few seconds before recovering her regal status of a mother, Hana cleared her throat, "Yes, it is. Sweetie, some optional things we can omit, but some others are extremely important as they played a significant function in a cooking. For example, the usage of lemongrass. Lemongrass had a nice lemony scent that will offset any fishiness from marine produce. If you're planning to cook something with fish, prawns, squid or shell things, some lemongrass is a must."

[What if we don't put in? What will happen?]

"Some people, like me, can't eat food with strong fishy smell and taste. It will just kill my appetite." Hana smiled gently at the inquisitive fox. He reminded her of her highly inquisitive eldest daughter. She kept on asking questions non-stop all the time until Hana got a headache finding an acceptable answer which could make her five-year old mind understand.

[But I've seen you've eaten your fair share of fish before this?] Shiro asked again telepathically, not understanding why Mom became so picky all of a sudden. She was even quite ravenous last time.

Hana nearly fall down the second time. She vengefully smeared some soil on Shiro's snout, "No need to nitpick too much-lah, Shi-chan." It was quite hard to deal with an innocent child.

Hana tried to explain the usual practice from her hometown to the fox, "Usually, for grilled or fried things, it was enough to just smear or rub some turmeric paste to remove fishy smell. The salt is for enhancing flavor. However, lemongrass can also be added into the marination base before grilling to enhance the aroma, besides other additional ingredients." Hana shrugged and didn't continue to explain what the other ingredients were lest it might spur the fox into a searching frenzy to compete with his 'brother'. Moreover, the number of ingredients needed was not little. Since she couldn't actually get them and made a more complex marinade paste, it's better to cut things short, for now.

Hana smiled, and patiently continued, she actually loved to talk about cooking and ingredients, "For soupy dish, we just need to smash or bruise the base of the lemongrass a little so that the fragrant will come out before tossing it in the soup. I intend to make a soupy dish tonight if all the ingredients can be gathered today. If not, maybe tomorrow. After all, we have so much eggs in hand. Eggs are delicious too."

As Hana was talking, she managed to yank off the base of the plant clusters. To her delight, it was a bunch of lemongrass! To reconfirm, she cleaned off the base from dirt and sniffed deeply after she pressed it a little hard. She then nodded in approval, before placing it under Shiro's nose, "Smell this. This is a lemongrass. Refreshing right? It's the scent of a lemon minus the taste. In the future, I will leave harvesting for lemongrass to you, sweetie."

Hana gathered a bunch of them happily while humming a children's nursery rhyme about 'finger family' (1) under her breath. Next, she started foraging for galangal tubers and onion bulbs once she identified them. Every time she worked on a new herb, she would explain to Shiro in detail in the hopes that in the future later, she could pass the troublesome job of herb gathering to her faithful pet.

"Try to smell this one... Long slightly thin bunny ear shaped leaves. Good for tomyam and coconut soup."

" Try to smell this one... Important in all kinds of cooking that Mommy knows, try to find more to transplant to our garden. The more the better. Got different size and colors too. Delicious when caramelized properly."

" Try to smell this one... Good smell. Taste good in hot broth with seafood."

" Try to smell this one... "

" Try to smell this one... "

The enthusiastic aunty was so excited she had cited the function of more than ten herbs she found around the stream bank area before she realized she had really derailed from her original intention. Shiro's eyes were spinning from the sudden influx of unnecessary extra information into his mind. Only when Hana snapped her fingers in front of his eyes that the unfortunate fox's eyes regained some focus.

Hana apologized and asked Shiro to accompany her to transplant some more tree herbs she found just now. Now they have rows of new herb plants. Once they were done, Hana prepared to return to their cave dwelling with the pots. She tied up the opening of the pots with suitable vines and placed them on Shiro's back. She only carried the lids in her shopping bags.

Inside Shiro's mind, he could only lament on Hana's extensive knowledge on this subject. He's lucky to learn from the best. It seemed that their Mom was not as clueless as he thought. Only, her knowledge was limited to an extremely narrow range. It was something very alien in his life.

[Is this considered inheriting Mom's knowledge?] Shiro felt somewhat enlivened, knowing that the snake won't get this precious information since he was not around.

Hence, both aunty, together with her white fluffy fox sashayed in a good mood towards their cave with style.

...

Hana routinely checked the messages from her smartphone after she put down all of her items and started a small bonfire like a boss. After five days in the wilderness, fire could be started just with a flick of a finger, of course figuratively . After all, our aunty is not a magician.

[I'm so awesome!] The aunty snorted arrogantly but accidentally sucked in a plume of smoke which resulted in a terrible coughing fit. After haphazardly drinking a few gulps of water and washed her face with the rest, she cleared her throat bashfully and pretended nothing had happen in front of the fox.

After sitting cross-legged on the floor, Hana felt something wasn't right.

It wasn't as comfortable as before!

[Aha!] She stared hard at Shiro with hungry eyes; especially at those bushy white fur under its neck! Her doting smile turned sly. Since she had been spoiled by Shiro earlier today, she planned to indulge again as long as the adorable fox didn't explicitly pushed her away.

Patting the ground with her left hand, while waiting for messages to enter her phone, she called for Shiro, "Come, come, over here sweetie. Rather than sitting over there, you should sit here and let me lean on you a little more. Mommy's body is aching everywhere. Mommy need the comfort of your body to let me feel much better." If others heard what the shameless aunty said, they would've called the police, thinking that something like sexual assault on children might've been happening next door. Realizing that she had been talking like a certified paedophile, Hana cleared her throat and added while laughing sheepishly, "You won't be molested. Mommy just needed something soft to pad my aching back." She pounded her back tragically.

Shiro gingerly came over while sighing in his heart and sat behind Hana. Hana just leaned her full weight on Shiro's fluffy stomach and sighed in happiness. Perfect.

"Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!"

So many messages entered simultaneously as her smartphone continuously beeped and buzzed for a good one minute. Since her whole family had known about her predicament some time ago, Arash had shared the info on how to contact Hana. Her phone getting lively was within her expectation. Once the messages entered, Hana choose to read the ones from Arash first, and then from her mother, second. She just ignored the rest for the time being. She then realized she didn't receive Arash's response because she forgot to check her phone from being too engrossed with making the filter shelf, prepping the bamboo shoots and potteries.

After having some intimate conversation to appease her worried hubby, she turned to conversing with her mom. In her heart, her strict mom was always the best in many aspects. She needed to learn some basics on traditional cooking methods since there was no microwave, ovens, airfryers, double sided pans and electric griller. Everything must be done the old school way. Even the standard store-bought ingredients needed some adjustments before she could replace them with something else. Most importantly, she was having trouble finding chilies in the area. She needed to know what could replace chilies in her cooking as they were key ingredients in her upcoming soup. Hence, it's extremely logical for her to learn from the best!

Thank God, the standard cooking method of using a gas stove, an induction cooker and a wood stove were just the same!

While waiting for Kuro and Markisah, she planned to learn ad-hoc as much as possible from her mom.

...

Kuro had reached the hiding place where he hid a lot of eggs (2) he snatched from the inhabitants of the bushes beside the stream embankment. It was not that far from the little garden they had just constructed earlier today. However, since he was successful in obtaining the large egg from the silver-banded eagle territory, he had disregarded the eggs he collected totally.

Now, he decided to keep the unconscious brown bird here first. After thinking deeply during his journey towards Mommy's cave dwelling, he came to a decision to keep the bird first in his secret stash. Right now, Mommy already have the spirit herb to cook. He was sure the little fish would've fulfilled her promise and brought the agreed amount of prawns that Mom wants by tonight or tomorrow. Since they already have so much food, why not fattened up the brown bird first and choose a different day to give her as a present once Hana was tired of eating freshwater produce and spirit herbs?

The more Kuro thought about it, the stronger he felt his decision was correct. Feeling positive, he tried to drag the bird from the top part of the dead tree trunk. He pulled and pulled the bird in but the bird simply couldn't fit. It was too big.

[Hmm, what shall I do?] After pondering for a while, Kuro suddenly remembered how Shiro and him worked to widen the cave door this morning! Although he couldn't widen the opening of the dead tree trunk, lest the action would've destroyed the whole thing, he could easily create a new one from the ground around him!

[Mom is such a genius! The stupid bird is wrong!] He still felt quite slighted with Markisah's gift earlier today but could only begrudgingly kept it to himself after seeing Hana's hard stare towards Shiro.

As such, the sweet little snake made a dirt tunnel from the base of the dead tree and dragged the bird inside. He was careful not to aim at the middle of the tree trunk so that he won't inadvertently broke the eggs. After all, those eggs will be a ration to fatten up the bird before it could be used as food ingredient. After that, he slithered out and pushed a big boulder covered with moss to close the tunnel entrance.

[Yes, I'm so clever!] Unfortunately, of all things, Kuro has gotten Hana's bad habit of praising herself.

Like mother, like son.

...

Author's Notes:

(1) finger family = one of the most popular kid's song on YouTube together with 'Johnny Johnny' and 'Baby Shark' haha. It has so many variety. Anyone who have a toddler would've seen the video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCka94jeGTk)

(2) .. hiding place where he hid a lot of eggs.. = refer to chapter 18 before Kuro went to steal egg from silver-banded eagle