She had planted far too many chili peppers, and selling them was out of the question—who would even buy them? The only thing to do was process them herself for now. Later, once the workshop was built, if the pickles sold well, she could sell the processed peppers to the workshop as raw ingredients.
So, every few days, Juhua would haul basket after basket of red peppers home. Some were sun-dried and ground into chili powder. Others were washed, air-dried, and put into a large wooden tub. Using a sharpened spade, she would chop them repeatedly inside the tub until they were in small pieces. Then, she would add ginger and garlic to make pickled chili slices, or grind them into chili paste with a stone mill.
