Portugal, May 2022

“Bacalhau”, this rather unassuming fish, is one of the subjects you talk about with most passion - especially in respect to how it shouldn't be done. It's been 6 years and, despite my total control of everything that has to do with the kitchen, I haven't yet managed to cook it in a tomato sauce as I've intended to. You look insulted whenever I try to add it to the menu, and then I'm reminded that you are Portuguese. I love you the most for it - for being made of so many elements that I was not there to live or witness and quite frankly can't even make sense of, but end up filling the voids in my life anyways. I love you for being all those things that I am not, and for having lived most of your life in a world that, no matter what, still feels a bit alien to me. It's like having front row seat to a foreign-language play.