Italian week in Sauðárkrókur

This past week was a bit like Italian week and we have made pasta, salami sausages, roasted capsicums and fried pizza dough.  Ross' dad, Nick (my ex) and his sister Irma came visiting from Australia, the main attraction was of course Henry.

 Nick with our grandson.

Henry with his great aunt Irma

 Irma stayed with me and spent the week at the old post office. 

 

Irma and I as sister-inlaws have always got on well and it was lovely to spend the past week with her and catch up on all the news of the Di Blasio families.

We didn't do much site seeing as they both really came here to spend time with Henry, Ross and Olga.

 

 

 Color coordination by grandparents purely accidental.

Nick likes to swim regularly so Ross took everyone to the fabulous Hofsós pool on the Sunday.

I stayed behind and looked after Henry.

Olga, Irma and myself had a good long soak in the hot pots at Grettislaug on the Wednesday.

 

and the last day they were here we went for a drive to Holar where we had a beer at the beer club (Irma and Olga that is... I was the driver) and checked out the horse museum which I had not been through before.

old horse saddles, reins, stirrups etc

 Old drawings by a 14 year old girl

Saddle making machine and other equipment

Iceland also did put on a little show for them...the day before they arrived it snowed and the mountains were white, plus on the night they arrived they saw a spectacular Aurora Borealis display.

In between the little bit of touristy stuff, we did extract as much info as we could from Irma and Nick re the traditional Italian foods that Ross remembers ever so fondly from his childhood.

One of the ones that we had no idea how it was made was Sfinges ....(or to spell...it is probably an old Italian dialect name, however if you click on the link someone else spells it this way, so that is good enough for me). Sfinges are basically fried pizza dough, we always ate them as is straight from the pot or later with salami, cheese etc, although on the internet I see many people sprinkle them with sugar...not the sort of food you want to eat all the time but on the odd occasion you might be able to get away with it.

Sfinges

Irma showed us how to make them, we were given no strict quantities...just a bit of this and a bit of that and if that doesn't look right then a bit more of this...Olga and I took lots of photos of the process and I also filmed a little, so hopefully we will be able to reproduce the recipe later on.

Ross had tried to make salami sausages before in London and whilst his housemates thought they tasted great, Ross was disappointed as they did not taste like the ones his Nonna and Nonno make,  so he was very keen to have another go when his dad and aunt were here.

Sausages of any sort are not made here in Iceland (except maybe hotdog ones) so trying to buy the intestines for the sausage casing was quite difficult...eventually Olga managed to track down some synthetic skins which we ordered but they were very narrow and Ross had to be creative in making the spout from the grinder fit them.

Here is a video of Ross and his dad mixing the meat with the spices, vegetarians look away now. Note how the meat is in the shape of Australia at the beginning of the video.

But with patience it all managed to come together and Ross' cellar is now looking very Italian...with the sausages hanging up and his bottles of homemade wine stacked on shelves (not in photo).

Ross and Olga also had Joe visiting, he is Henry's godfather but not of the Italian variety,

 

Joe of course is one of the members of the band Snowman (now defunct) and he serenaded Henry at every opportunity.

Andy was also suppose to be visiting at the same time and it would have been the first time in a year that the band were once again all together.  However Andy had difficulty getting his schengen visa, there was a huge delay in processing it...apparently if your Indonesian, Muslim and have been to Mecca there is no quick rubber stamping of your visa...not sure if the extra long delay had anything to do with it being the 10th anniversary of 9/11 at the time.  The delay sadly meant that Andy would not make it when Joe was here. Andy will now visit in the first week of October and the silver lining is he will not have to share Henry with any other visitors.