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I need a new suitcase

January 13, 2020 3 Comments Filed Under: Travel

  • Cool couple in Bordeaux with brightly coloured suitcases.

I need a new suitcase. I’m leaving for Japan next week. The two I have are broken and they didn’t last long. I’ve been kind of obsessed with luggage for several months now.

I spent part of my last holiday in France making a special cover for one of them, out of vintage tea towels.

  • Yup, I made this on a 100 year old sewing machine. It houses a Unitravel red and white vintage suitcase. However this only lasted about four trips.

I wanted to protect it. But one of the wheel corners has collapsed, meaning it’s now impossible to wheel around. My other suitcase, a hard shell red and white spotted one I bought in South Africa five years ago for about £90, has cracks and holes in it and one of the wheels no longer works.

I’ve been looking at suitcases around the internet. While I love the style of the vintage looking Unitravel, it’s doubled in price over the last couple of years and isn’t strong enough for air travel.

  • Unitravel vintage style suitcase

I bought this one by Ho-Jax off amazon. It. looks similar to the vintage Unitravel but costs less. But when it came, it looked so disappointingly cheap and nasty I sent it back. That’s the trouble with internet shopping.

What I want, what I really really want, is a Globe-Trotter suitcase. They are gorgeous but also a couple of thousand quid. They last forever, in fact age improves them, they are repairable, lightweight (made from cardboard), vintage, strong. I love this blog post ‘How great things age’ about one man’s stylish Globe-Trotter.

  • Gorgeous aren’t they? Globe-Trotter suitcases.

I’m on the look out for a second-hand one. I’ve heard you can get the Globe-Trotter factory, which is British and uses Victorian machinery, to add wheels and straps. I don’t have the money for what I really really want. Globe-Trotters are the suitcase equivalent of an Aga, fantastically expensive but solid, traditional, beautiful, functional, and lasts a lifetime. Those are my design values. This is what the Queen uses.

I’ve also discovered this Czech factory Kazeto which sells vintage style suitcases, with wooden slats, at a more reasonable price, but they aren’t on wheels.

  • Kazeto cardboard suitcase from Manufactum, only £31 for this smaller size, but no wheels.

So looking further afield into more modern baggage, there is the Away suitcase which I spied being wheeled about by food writer Meera Sodha last year when we did a press trip together.

‘My husband bought me it as a present’ she mentioned.

So I’m envious twice over, not only has she got a husband, but he’s the kind of guy who buys thoughtful elegant presents. Away comes in stylish pastel shades like millennial pink and has a mobile phone charging facility. Brilliant.

  • Away suitcases with ejectable phone battery. Cool as fuck.

I’m also fascinated by Crash baggage – these witty suitcases come already damaged- pre-dented- and in bright colours. I love the transparent one, but you’d have to pack carefully- no period underwear and nothing illegal. Do customs just wave you through?

  • Empty transparent
  • Bright yellow
  • Full Transparent
  • Army green

In the past I’ve crammed suitcases full of aubergines, butter, artichokes. So the transparent Crash suitcase would suit me. As a food and wine writer, I always get check-in luggage, so I can bring home liquids or foods surrounded in liquid.

  • This was my suitcase at the end of a trip to Sicily: purple cauliflowers, artichokes, cheese, bottarga, pistachios from Bronte.
  • After a trip to Naples, lots of lemons from a farmer and starting my spaghetti collection.

For non check-in, I use a small backpack stuffed with laptop and camera which I don’t want to risk checking in. I need another one of those too. My Cath Kidston day pack, bought in the sale at an airport, is falling apart, zips are broken and the side pockets aren’t large enough for a water bottle.

The Union Jack holdall on wheels below lasted a considerable amount of time considering it only cost £25. But it died in India.

  • Going on the P and O cruise.

What kind of suitcase do you use? Do you go hard shell or soft? Vintage or modern? Cheap or expensive? Comment here with recommendations please.

  • This is my suitcase after a trip to Alaska and Portland. Full of hot sauce, eskimo knives, candied salmon, birch syrup, beechwood sheets for cooking salmon.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. helen emsley

    January 14, 2020 at 5:29 pm

    Eagle Creek Tarmac for dashing across ferry ports and anywhere where the surface is uneven. Samsonite for gliding through airports.

    Reply
    • msmarmitelover

      January 15, 2020 at 1:45 pm

      interesting.I didn’t know about Eagle Creek Tarmac. Thanks for the suggestion

      Reply
  2. Margo

    January 15, 2020 at 1:41 pm

    You need to be redy

    Reply

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MsMarmiteLover aka Kerstin Rodgers.

Chef, photographer, author, journalist, blogger. Pioneer of the supperclub movement.

This is my food and travel blog, with recipes, reviews and travel stories. I also stray into politics, feminism, gardening.

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Kerstin Rodgers/MsMarmiteLover
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Galette des Rois, made yesterday in 12th night. Mi Galette des Rois, made yesterday in 12th night. Minus Crown and king as I cannot find either. This one is made with Tonka bean. Plus homemade puff pastry (well worth the effort). According to ike delorenzo at The Atlantic:  The tonka bean, a flat, wrinkled legume from South America with an outsize flavor that the US government has declared illegal. Nonetheless, it proliferates on elite American menus. The tiniest shavings erupt in a Broceliande of transporting, mystical aromas.
The taste of the tonka bean is linked strongly to its scent. "Scents," I should say, as the tonka bean has many at once. I register the aromas of vanilla, cherry, almond, and something spicy—a bit like cinnamon. When served cold—say, in tonka bean ice cream—the taste is like a vanilla caramel with dark honey. When warm, perhaps shaved over scallops, it moves toward spiced vanilla. Additionally, the aroma of the tonka bean shavings (it's almost always shaved) is so affecting that it seems like an actual taste in the way that opium, which has no taste in the traditional sense, "tastes" like its rich, flowery smoke.  Here is the recipe: 

Tonka bean galette des rois

Serves 8
Ingredients
* 140 g caster sugar
* 125 g salted butter, softened
* 100 g ground almonds
* 2 eggs, medium
* 1 tonka bean, grated
* 2 packs ready made butter puff pastry on a roll
* 1 yolk for brushing the pastry
Instructions
* Preheat your oven to 200c.

* Blend the butter with the sugar then add the almonds. Make sure it’s well mixed. Add in the 2 eggs one at a time, then add the tonka bean.

* If using a block: divide the puff pastry into two and roll out to 5mm thick. 
* Make two circles about 15 cm’s each in diameter. Lay one circle on a silicone mat/parchment paper on a baking tray and fill with the almond cream leaving a 3 cm border around the edge. 
* Paint the border with the egg yolk. Then lay the other circle on top, sealing the edges with a fork. 
* You could then carve designs into the top. Make a little slit in the middle to let steam escape then brush the top with the egg yolk
Mapo tofu is probably my favourite Sichuan dish. T Mapo tofu is probably my favourite Sichuan dish. This is a vegan version. ***

Ingredients:
- 400 g box of soft tofu not silken
- 5 soaked dried shiitake mushrooms, diced, keep water
- 1 red bell pepper, finely sliced
- 400 g fresh shiitake mushroom, sliced thinly
- 400 ml vegetable stock
- 1 thumb fresh ginger, minced
- 3 cloves garlic, crushed
- 4 tbsps groundnut or vegetable oil
- 3 tbsp fermented bean paste
- 1 or 2 small red chillies, minced or a spoonful of Chinese chilli paste
- 1 tsp heaped sichuan peppercorns, finely ground
- 2 tbsps soy or tamari sauce
- 2 tbsp cornflour in 3 tbsps water, mixed into a slurry
- 4 spring onions, finely sliced
- large pinch fresh coriander leaves

Prepare the tofu by cutting it into one inch cubes and soaking it in hot but not boiling salted water. Drain after 15 minutes.
Soak the dried shiitake mushrooms, covering them in boiling water. Leave until soft, then dice the mushrooms. Retain the mushroom soaking water and add to the vegetable stock water.
Prepare the other ingredients so they are ready to stir-fry: red bell pepper, fresh mushrooms, ginger, garlic.

Using a wok or deep frying pan, add the oil and heat to frying temperature. Add the bell peppers,fry for a couple of minutes, then add fermented bean paste, chilli paste or chillies, ginger, garlic, soy sauce, sichuan pepper.
Add the mushroom/vegetable broth and simmer on high for a couple of minutes.
Carefully add the cubes of tofu, taking care not to break them too much.
Add the cornflour slurry, stirring for a couple of minutes.
Serve with rice or noodles, garnishing with spring onions or chives and or coriander leaves.  #veganuary #mapotofu #sichuanfood #tofu  #shitakemushrooms #supperclub #londonchef #msmarmitelover #ham&highcolumn #eatplants #lockdown3 #selfisolation #coronaloner #cooking #recipe #cookingfromscratch
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#happynewyear #happynewyear2021 #supperclub #hootenanny
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#christmasdinner #vegetarianchristmas #vegetarianchristmasdinner #supperclub #londonchristmas #liqueurs #christmasspread #grazing #cheeseboard #port #pavlova
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