Things I've Made and Ate, Summer Edition

Here are a few more non-musical, non-sight-seeing things I've made and ate lately.

J & B came for a visit and they made me a delicious polenta! I enjoy polenta but have never made it for myself, and now I know just how easy it is. And the light hitting those vegetables was just beautiful this night.

I'm continuing some jewelry work as well, it keeps me sane here. The last few things have been getting twistier and more lava-y, even more than these two examples. I think I'm going to include some more bright, possibly even fluorescent, colors soon.



I'd really like to make more things out of fish skin leather, but the market for those things is limited...it takes a special and daring person to want to wear fish skin, but the texture of it is just so cool. Perhaps it will be a hit in my upcoming location, which should be Boulder, Colorado.

I'm guessing my crowning domestic achievement whilst in Iceland will be the creation of my first sweater. I crocheted it from Icelandic lopapeysa (thick wool) yarn, without a pattern!

For not having a pattern I think think I did a decent job! I wanted something that was form-fitting and not baggy like the traditional lopapeysas are. I also wanted a shwoopy neck. I think the shoulders could have been bigger, and made the armholes bigger up at the top, which if I made another sweater I will try to remember that. But on the plus side, the sweater also makes my butt look nice. No, just kidding, I don't need any help with that! Just a good ol' contrapposto pose, borrowed from the 16th century.

More Things I've Made and Ate

Here is another chapter in the saga of Things I've Made and Ate in Iceland. This one's just about as random as chapter one! In no particular order:

A necklace out of sea-glass from the Reykjavík coast, it could be quite nice for a bride's dress or something summery and formal. Potential brides: cawl me, we'll tawk.


Some no-bake chocolate-oatmeal-peanut butter cookies, and a Pittsburgh favorite (thanks, Mark!), sage and carmelized sugar-coated pecans.


Icelandic lamb, two ways! I splurged one week and bought Icelandic lamb, and one medium-sized steak was enough for several meals. First it was a lamb masala! The mix was from a jar but it was some of the best out of a jar I've had. I used potatoes, chickpeas, and onions for the veggies. And then made a collage that day too. Then came steak salad, with leftover veggies. Really quite good- the lamb is fatty but not greasy, so it kind of melted, it wasn't chewy at all. Absolute yumsh.



Bracelets made out of fish skin leather! I made four of these beauties and they should be on sale at Mattress Factory in a bit, for those stateside people that want some elegant salmon and spotted wolf-fish around their arms. And don't it look lovely.


Also in the meat family, some beef curry. Maybe the winter has influenced me into making a lot of stews. They're certainly easy and I can also leave them while they simmer away. This curry came with some bamboo shoots, but I added the rest.


And finally, two small collages of Mount Esja in two seasons. I just worked on these this weekend and they're simple but I love them! I hadn't collaged anything in months, and it was about time. I also don't really do figurative things or landscapes, but being here and looking at the mountain all the time, it's hard not to at least use a mountain shape. The works are on silver paper too, which has a really shimmery glow. I'm really happy that I found a piece of magazine that had colorful stripes in it- I think it's a picture of the pavement, but it works really well for imaginative mountain layers.

Things I've Made and Ate (So Far)

Sometimes the creative musical urge just doesn't strike me. I have all this time here to work on music, but it's often hard to work without the same resources I'm used to. (I should remind myself that just reading and listening to music and writing while I'm here is work!) I thankfully have access to pianos most of the time, but do have to work around other people practicing, church schedules, my Icelandic class schedule, etc. At home I've been working on manipulating recordings and improvisations from the computer, but I also have no money to pay performers to play anything, so I'm finding ways to work on pieces for voices, piano, natural sounds. Thank goodness for willing friends who will speak in other languages into my one lonely microphone, or make a chorus of whale noises for me (as was the case this weekend).

So, when my grand plan for the day to sketch out some choral ideas becomes foiled, or when my brand-new computer decides to become incompatible with all of my older software programs, or when the one book I'd like to find in the library doesn't exist, at least I'm able to distract myself a bit by cooking, or whipping up some new design creations. I've been crocheting a bit more again, using lava stones, some sea glass, and this great wool thread from the town of Vík. I've been cooking a lot of fish, and trying to make nice meals on my limited budget. And one day I even paid a visit to Nicole's print shop and tried out a printing press, which was really fun and certainly out of my usual everyday. Here are some of the random things I've made here thus far, in no particular order.

-Prints from the printmakers' studio in Reykjavík, made by embossing my wire designs and adding ink and marker to the printing plates.

-Necklace with lava beads


-This was a fish cacciatore with haddock, and an olive tapenade. I usually make this with chicken but I think I liked the fish better, what a nice surprise.

-This was an Icelandic Antipasto of sorts! Also included hangiáalegg, very smoky lamb leg, which was not my favorite, but I tried it. I do like having smoked salmon in the mix.

-A Beef vegetable soup. I was quite impressed with myself on this one, it was pretty delicious.


-I also successfully crocheted sterling wire together with wool, so you get a sort of warm and fuzzy necklace with a shiny silver sparkle.

To top it off, I finally made myself a circular neck scarf, which I've been wanting for some time but hadn't figured out how to taper in the shape so I wouldn't just be wearing a cylinder (that won't keep out the wind at all). Now I can wear it with another shirt, with a dressy outfit, or pull it over my head like a giant lampshade, or like a dog with a surgical cone around his neck. Obviously I am the life of the party when this happens.