It’s incredibly generous, and the postage was ridiculously expensive to Canada.
Unfortunately, I don’t like Szechuan food very much. I don’t cook it, I don’t order it apart from an occasional ma po tofu.
For whatever reason, the idea of using fermented black beans is intimidating to me.
I have been cooking more Asian food over the course of the pandemic, mostly because I haven’t been ordering restaurant food, making more Cantonese dishes, more Chinese Canadian dishes, Chinese Trini chicken, Chinese BBQ pork, Chinese BBQ duck, Thai, Vietnamese, Burmese, Japanese and Korean dishes. While I like some Shanghainese and Northern Chinese food, I don’t have the mojo to attempt to make it. With Szechuan, I feel like I don’t have the interest required.
I’ve got a dozen Chinese non- Szechuan dishes on my wishlist I want to eventually try. I feel like I’m under pressure to make Szechuan food now that I received the ingredients, when I normally wouldn’t be thinking of making it.
My cousin has a very good intentions, and she likes sending me culinary gifts that are complicated. Last year, she sent me a Posole cookbook with hominy from Rancho Gordo, which is also an amazing product and super delicious, but posole is also a way more labour intensive dish than I have the time or attention span to make, when I’ve cooked dinner almost daily since March 14th. I did make posole a few times . I started this thread due to the gift of hominy and the posole cook cookbook : Posole: chile paste help
I am very privileged to receive a nice gift, and it’s the thought that counts, but I’m probably going to be splitting up the spices and sharing it with ppl who will appreciate the ingredients more than I do.
I guess it’s a reminder, for myself, before sending an extravagant gift, that the recipient might appreciate the thought, but might not have the energy, interest or attention span during Covid to use the gift.
My cousin is extremely sensitive, so I can’t tell her the gift was generous but not up my alley, without hurting her feelings. I have a feeling her feelings will even be hurt if she doesn’t see some photos of Szechuan food I’ve made with the gift on IG or FB. This social media is a blessing and a curse. Lol. Mostly a curse 
