We had Szechuan cooking lessons!

 
Absolute Panda, reached through Hias Gourmet of Beijing, put together two full days of custom cooking lessons for my friend and I. We negotiated the exact menu of recipes to learn each day with Lily. We learned about 12 recipes total and made a LOT of food in Mama's home kitchen. It was good to see the real life circumstances in preparing these dishes. Like, the Chinese generally don't have ovens so everything is prepared stovetop. Ingredients are all chopped precisely, added in a certain order and stirred in a certain direction. Johnson, our translator, also contributed a lot, wrote down recipes for us and gave us two market tours. Mama was a natural cook and a very good teacher. There was no language barrier. And all the food was absolutely delicious! You have never seen or tasted Szechuan "peppercorns" like the ones they have there!