Several years ago, my husband, Greg, and I went on a small group culinary tour of India organized by my dear colleague and cookbook author Suneeta Vaswani. We traveled through parts of Northern Indian, visiting New Delhi, Agra, Jaipur, and then headed south to Kerala visiting the backwaters, as well as the mountainous region of Periyar where the tropical evergreen forests and spice plantations grow pepper, cardamom, nutmeg, cloves as well as tea and coffee. In the town of Kumily is a beyond-fabulous spice shop called, Red Frog. A certificate on the wall confirms that every spice and tea sold in the shop is grown on a local organic farm. The shop also has beautiful antiques, including spice boxes. The owner took us across the street and down to a dusty basement room where he stored more spice boxes. Like a kid in a candy shop, I was overwhelmed and excited. We shipped home spices plus four boxes (two were gifts). I cleaned the box, buffed it, and oiled it with mineral oil. As you can see, it holds my whole spices and is a constant reminder of our extraordinary travels in India.