People always ask what I bring back from trips. They expect me to say wine, and yes, there's always wine. But the suitcase holds more than bottles.
From Portugal, there's always salt. Not just any salt—flor de sal from the Algarve, hand-harvested crystals that dissolve on the tongue like a memory of the ocean. I use it to finish dishes, and guests always notice. "What is that?" they ask. It's a story, I tell them. It's a guy named João who's been working the same salt flats his family has tended for four generations.
From Spain, olive oil. The good stuff, the kind that makes you wonder what you've been putting on salads your whole life. It arrives wrapped in clothes to survive the journey, and I dole it out like liquid gold because that's exactly what it is.
From Scotland, there's usually a bottle or two of whisky you can't find anywhere else—single casks, distillery exclusives, the kind of bottles that require showing up in person and knowing someone who knows someone. But there's also shortbread from a tiny bakery in Edinburgh that makes everything else taste like cardboard.
The strangest cargo? Probably the massive wheel of cheese I once transported from a mountain cave in the Pyrenees. Or the hand-thrown ceramics from a village in Portugal that now serve every dinner I cook. Or the copper pan from a market in Seville that's become my go-to for paella.
Each object is a portal. When I pull out that salt, I'm back on the coast watching João work. When I plate on those ceramics, I remember the potter's hands shaping clay while explaining how his grandmother taught him the technique.
This is the secret to what I do: the physical things are vectors for memory and meaning. The wine tastes better because you know where it came from. The dish resonates because the ingredients have stories.
My suitcase is always too heavy coming home. But the weight is worth it. Every ounce represents a moment, a maker, a place that will now live on at your table, in your glass, in the stories you'll tell your friends.
And if you're wondering: yes, I do leave room for one more bottle. There's always one more bottle.