I should concede that Caroline and I, in our addiction to travel, are loathe to let go of our experiences. The tens of thousands of photos and millions of words I’ve penned are not the only connections to our adventures. Rare is the day that we’ve not fallen in love with other aspects of those travels, such as Caroline’s obsession with Mayan clothing from a trip to Chiapas, Mexico, a couple of years ago. This past summer, we became once more enamored with the usual stuff: nature, people, history, traditional clothing, and food.

Sometimes, what we desire, though, is hard to find in the United States. Take herring, not pickled, canned, or creamed. I wanted fresh herring, but that is not to be found. Caroline, with her relentless sleuthing skills, found a place that sold salted herring. After our recent experience with bacalao (salted cod) and the success of desalting it, I felt that salted herring could offer me what I desire, so we bought five pounds. Shipping was going to be pricy because of the weight, so if we are already paying for 2-day delivery, we might as well throw some other stuff into the package. We had originally found the Scandinavian Specialties shop up in Washington before Christmas, but they were sold out of many of the items we wanted.

By early February, things were restocked, and we were able to order a variety of caramelly goat cheeses called Brunost, another cheese popular in Sweden called Prästost (Priest cheese), and different types of crispbreads. We also just had to buy crispy onions as we’ve come to believe that Scandinavian crispy onions must be the secret ingredient in their amazing pølser (hotdogs). The photo shows our Scandinavian life-savers that bring us back to last year’s summer vacation. Daniel Espinoza of Scandinavian Specialties assisted us with our order and was incredibly helpful. He’ll also play a key role when we will order a cured winter lamb specialty called Pinnekjøtt towards the end of summer. These little luxuries are incredible reminders of just how fortunate we are.