Marti Kilpatrick. Chef & food writer currently living in San Sebastian.
A restaurant.

Etxebarri, hands down.  It’s the whole package: ambience, location, food, and story. And Victor is so real, a chef’s chef, innovating within his culture’s cuisine.
A dish.

My favorite dish is one that we have all summer long in Alabama: succotash. The version we eat is pink- eyed peas, a very delicate version of the black-eyed pea, fresh summer corn, ripe Alabama tomatoes, fried okra, and crisp bacon. It screams summer.
An ingredient.

It’s not something I use on its own but….vinegar. Specifically sherry vinegar.  Almost everything is better with a splash, and it’s my favorite go-to vinegar for dressing any salad. And reduced it’s awesome for garnishing and even as an ingredient in cocktails.

Drink.

I have to say vermouth. Ever since I discovered it not as an ingredient but as a stand-alone drink, I’ve loved not only trying different vermouths but learning about and experiencing the culture around it.

If you were to cook us dinner, what would you serve?

Probably a dish from another Southern state I spent a good third of my life living in, Louisiana. It would be a tie between gumbo and jambalaya…both dishes that stick to your bones, abound in flavor and represent techniques, ingredients, and culture that is so specific to that area, which is one of my favorites in the world.