The First Wulong Pot, with its large golden characters and lacquered signboard, hangs brightly at the intersection of the secondary road and the highway leading into the county town!

Wulong County’s iron pots are famous throughout the province, and Wulong’s iron pot stews are even more renowned than the pots themselves. Whenever restaurants elsewhere serve iron pot stews, they always make a point of telling customers, “Our chef is from Wulong County!”

Everyone knows that the First Wulong Pot is the signature restaurant for iron pot stews in Wulong County!

As for how long this sign has been hanging, James Brooks still can’t say for sure. For as long as he can remember, whenever his father’s acquaintances met him, they’d call his dad “Thomas Brooks,” and he himself naturally became “Little Brooks.” Since kindergarten, this “Little Pot” nickname has stuck with him. Occasionally, when a girl teasingly calls out “handsome guy!” the “guy” part is drawn out with an “OU” sound, making it sound like “handsome pot!” His childhood friends and close buddies just call him “Pot Bro” or “Pot Little Bro,” and even his girlfriend Grace Brooks has earned the nickname “Pot Sis-in-law!”

James Brooks knows that his friends’ admiration is largely because they get to eat and drink for free. Still, James Brooks doesn’t mind the nickname. After all, he’s been eating the First Pot’s stews since he was a child and never gets tired of them. Besides, in recent years, both he and his sibling have relied on their father’s hard work running the First Pot to support the whole family. Not only does he not mind, he actually feels a special fondness for those four iron pots in the restaurant’s backyard, which are even older than he is.

In Wulong County, iron pot stews are a household staple, a familiar delicacy found everywhere. Grab any old man, old lady, young guy, or uncle from a village or the countryside, and they’ll know how to do it: toss in two or three seasonings as a base, stuff three or five handfuls of firewood into the stove to get the fire going, throw in six or seven kinds of vegetables, stir-fry first, then flip and add a few ladles of well water for a long simmer. However it’s made, it always turns out delicious. When the food is ready and the pot is lifted, steam fills the air and the aroma fills the house. The whole family gathers around the table, eating steaming hot stew with plain steamed buns, accompanied by chili cooked in lard and homemade sweet potato liquor. On holidays or if they’re lucky, there might even be wild rabbit, pheasant, or fatty pork in the pot—now that’s the ultimate country treat!

And these delicious scenes are a daily sight at the First Pot!

What outsiders find mysterious is perfectly ordinary to James Brooks. Having grown up around it, he feels confident he could take over as head chef for his dad without any problem. To be honest, there’s nothing particularly special about the First Pot’s stews—they just have a few more varieties than others, taste a bit richer and fresher, the broth is thicker and more robust, and the price is more affordable! James Brooks doesn’t think his dad’s skills are especially high, and since no one in this field is aiming for the top, the ingredients are just common vegetables like radish, cabbage, tofu, and bean sprouts. The best you’ll get is pork, beef, or lamb. A whole table of dishes here wouldn’t match a single plate at a big restaurant. It’s always run on thin margins—enough for a modest living, but never a fortune!

As soon as you walk in, you’re greeted by the unique, fragrant aroma of stews—so appetizing!

“Cousin, you’re back!”

“Xiaofan, you’re back!”

“Son! Come here, come here, go clean up that bowl of small fish!”

As soon as James Brooks enters the restaurant, several people greet him. At the bar is a sturdy, big-handed girl—his cousin Emily Brooks! She dropped out of middle school and now helps out at the bar. The ones wiping tables and washing dishes by the kitchen sink are two waiters, William Brooks and David Brooks, both from the old hometown, both surnamed Jian! Dad is busy in the backyard. It’s been a year since graduation, and Dad has already gotten used to treating James Brooks as a runner—ordering him around for free!

A classic family-run old restaurant, and the liquor they sell is brewed at Grandpa’s distillery in Fenglin Town—corn yellow and sweet potato spirits, delivered to the county once a month.

The kitchen doesn’t look like a kitchen, just a standard country stove. Lined up are four rows of seven, twenty-eight double-handled small pots simmering over a slow fire. On the other side is a row of thick porcelain square bowls, white with blue bases—a Wulong specialty. On the counter, several huge basins are piled high with chopped cabbage, tofu, greens, wild mushrooms, soaked vermicelli, pre-cooked kidney beans, and fried potato slices—enough to cover the whole counter.

Out in the backyard, there are four soup pots. The biggest can hold eighteen loads of water, with one pot simmering pork belly, two others boiling lamb and beef bones for broth, and the last one is truly a sight: twelve layers of straw mats stacked up, billowing white steam like a steam engine, a mix of steam and the light smoke of burning firewood, carrying the scent of country cooking! Lift the straw mats and inside are big, white, tender, chewy steamed buns. These rustic buns, steamed with straw, have a natural aroma of straw and wheat. From firing up in the morning to taking them out at noon, it takes over six hours. They’re delicious, but time-consuming and labor-intensive. And they’re always in short supply. James Brooks has tried more than once to persuade his dad to switch to a mechanized bun oven, but sometimes Dad is even more stubborn than Mom, insisting on sticking to this traditional method.