Five days in the land of farting showers, majestic horses and delicious seafood

On route to the UK for my cousins wedding at the end of July, my parents and I took the opportunity to stop in Iceland, the stingray shaped island in the North Atlantic Ocean and explore the country. Over the course of our lifetimes we have taken many a transatlantic flight and accidentally leaving the phones on which has resulted in a plethora of "welcome to Iceland text messages", so it was about time we took up the back logged welcome offers. This trip was not without it's apprehensions though as the night prior to departure, my mother stumbled upon a blog post entitled "Iceland smells like farts." The gist of the article was that due to Iceland being dependent on geothermal energy and all water being geothermal the smell of sulphur, which resembles eggy farts pierces the air throughout the country. This however turned out not to be completely true, and it was only in a few places where the pungent stench of eggy farts tantalized our nostrils.

One of these places this was present was the showers, which is actually advantageous if you have ever had a shower and mid shower find yourself succumbed to the urge to fart and so you fart. Upon realising the excess carbon dioxide between your buttocks,   releasing the fart is instantly regretted as the moisture in the shower amplifies the stench as it clings to the moisture droplets and you find yourself gagging on your own farts. Fortunately in Iceland this isn't the problems as the stench of the water can mask pretty much anything including this.  Thankfully though Iceland is pretty windy, especially it's capital Reykjavik this comes in handy as the continuous gusts  of wind swiftly move away the most pungent of geothermal fart water and instead turns your nipples into icicles.

 This is apparent in almost all parts of the country, along with the ever changing weather. It's a slogan in the country that, if you don't like the weather in Iceland wait ten miniutes, as with every gust of wind the weather completely changes. In addition to the wind causing Iceland's weather to constantly change, I am convinced it has also shaped the landscape.

 The Icelandic landscape is dramatic and completely random, one minute emerald hills are cascading for miles, the next jagged mountains and booming waterfalls and ten minutes later, your surrounded my mountains and lava fields. This is the result off a serious volcanic eruptions and glaciers melting.

 This Subsequently explains why one goes from thinking they are on the moon and wandering what in the hell they have gotten themselves into, to feeling like they are in the middle of no where or a fantasy world....actually to the extent Iceland is a fictional world as it's where Game of Thrones is filmed along with several other fantasy shows and much of the population still believes in elves and fairies. Needless to say, if one has ever wanted to frolic through fields of flowers and unleash there 1960's hippy child, or has ever dreamed of performing the underpants Charleston in a field,Iceland is the place to do it. Alternatively and more family friendly, it's wonderful for hiking, meandering the countryside and enjoying the remoteness of it all. One of the best ways to enjoy the countryside is on top of a horse weaving through volcanic craters and through fields of lupines.

 With the parents and I being chiefly based in the capitol Reykjavik, we got a good insight into the Icelandic population, or what very littler there is of it. With only 300,000 people in the entire country and 120,000 living in the Capitol, the Icelandic gene pool is rather limited.  Resulting in the governments decision to encourage Icelandic to marry non Icelandic ignored to diversify the gene pool.

 The Icelandics have flawless skin( l'oreal got nothing on these people) most likely attributed to lack of sun and high fish diet, and are buy and large soft spoken and very pleasant people, whom are adorable. It is clear though that some Icelandic's are much stranger than others, probably a result of the ethnic homogeneity, lack of sun in the winter and billowing winds year round. The most classic example of this is Bjork obviously, and the lesser know equally as strange Icelandic , Hjörtur Gísli Sigurðsson, the curator of the Icelandic Phallogical museum, passed down from his father. The museum features a collection of 200 plus penises and penile parts mostly animal but there are some human contributions to the museum, including models of the Icelandic Handball teams.

 Strange and adorable Icelandic's aside, the high fish and low sun diet appears to have resulted in a plethora of attractive people. If the sexy bastard or hot piece of ass index existed, in which the geographer examines the amount of sexy bastards in a population, divide that by the total population in order to calculate the sexy bastards per capita. Iceland would probably win. This can also be attributed to the, Norwegian/ Celtic settlement in the Viking era, and the Danish colonization of  Iceland in the 18th century. The Celtic influence in the Icelandic's is still present in there sense if humour in there over all bluntness, this can be seen in the grapevine, the English language newspaper which featured a section entitled "a guide that fucks you up" featuring a list of all the happy hours in the city. The Celtic sense of humour can also be seen through many other publications where they openly  make fun of themselves in comparison to their other Nordic neighbours, revealing an inferiority complex .

 So if you've ever wander what happens when you get a volcanic island,in the North Atlantic which is currently the youngest earth mass on the planet, is covered in a glacier that then melts, gets occupied by broke ass Viking farmers looking for land. That then drag Celtic slaves kicking and screaming to work their land, that accidentally get rid of all the trees on the island, forcing them to depend on fish until Danes show up and start bossing them about....until the Nazis take over Denmark making it so they couldn't rule Iceland anymore. Resulting in independence just before World War Two ended. All of this in addition to constant wind, horses, 24/7 golf courses when, there is 24/7 sun, and 24/7 ski hills in winter, an abundance of fish and a distinct lack of people and an average temperature of 11 degrees, resulting on a dependency on the greenhouses.You would get something delightfully quirky like Iceland.

Sloppy Slovenia

It's been a while since I wrote anything, because for once in my life i have actually been doing my homework and doing all my readings( ok that's a lie half of my readings...if that).  I have technically "travelled " as far as this project is concerned to about 13 countries now. Last time I wrote I was struggling, to find recipes for Slovenia, when I embarked on this, project my plan was to work my way strategically starting in Hungary through Europe into the Middle East then onto Africa Asia etc.... as this you will find out in later posts, that went completely tits up a while ago.

Slovenia is a small country, population and area wise, where large quantities of horse meat, and bizzare cheese's are consumed. Subsequently, Slovenia has yet to penetrate the culinary market in ways such as other countries have (probably cause half the names are hard to pronounce....actually impossible is a better word. After sifting through the internet I eventually surrendered and found a recipe for Slovenian Fritatta. Which is basically eggs, flour, cream and a bunch of green herbs served with prosciutto and bread.

Anyone who knows me well enough will know that, I can cook a complicated dish just fine but when it comes to omelettes or anything that requires cooking eggs in a pan, my plating skills are about as elegant as a warthog with a head-cold, after too many drinks. In other words, a bit of a mess. A bit of a hot mess I suppose is the best way to put it, but being a hot mess is better than a cold mess at the end of the day. Especially when it comes to food.

Destination Italia

Alright, so this past weeks destination was Italy, the initial destination was suppose to be Slovenia, and from there make my way to Italy. However, Slovenia is a tiny country, and with tiny countries comes tiny amounts of recipes on the internet. To put it in other words, trying to find a Slovenian recipe that I can a)pronounce and b) lacks horse meat is a bit like trying to find some in  Vancouver who despises kale and yoga. It's near impossible. So I made the decision this week to head to Italy after a long week at uni and curl up on the sofa, with books on how children's rights are a load of bollocks in practice but grand in theory.

I chose to make a Risotto, this week with chicken breast and broccoli. I've made many a risotto before, and every time I make one I tend not to touch them for about a month or two after woulds....namely because I always make way too much and after eating the stuff for two week straight I am quite ready to banish it to the back of the classroom. That being said, the wonder full thing about Risotto is that provided you have a chicken (or veggie stock), white wine,Arborio rice and parmesan cheese you can put what ever you want in it. I opted for mushrooms, peas and sun-dried tomato and large quantities to even out the obscene amounts of rice and stock in the pan that I added. I took a chicken breast out of the freezer marinated it using the contents of the fridge which included, basil, dijon mustard, garlic, splash of tomato paste, salt pepper and chilli flakes and threw it in a pan along with some halloumi to add texture.
 
Plating was a night mare because in the wise words of one of the biggest influencers on my food obsession, my dear Lorenzo Schober, " you cannot make risotto look good, it always looks like shit."So here is my attempt at poshing up a un-poshable food.

Around the World in a 192 dishes and a hand full of cockups: Destination number one Hungary.

Once again, it's been bloody ages since I wrote anything and once again, I am writing something that I have no obligation to write because I don't feel like writing something I am obliged to write if I want to complete my university degree. As most of you know reading this,  I have a pretty terminal case of wanderlust, which I largely blame being the product of two adventurous parents. As always I am broke, and wanting to travel, the simplest of ways to save money is to cut out food and live in a shack. Unfortunately, when you live in a country which is wetter than England on one side and colder than mars on the other, that doesn't really work. So on a bus ride from LA to San Francisco, I made the decision that this year I was going to travel to every country in the world through food. It's a way to develop my cooking skill, as well as my photography and slow my progression of wanderlust. Wanderlust is like a degenerative disease such as Parkinson's or Alzeimer's, it never goes away and gets worse with age, but you can consume things that slow the progression.

At least, this is the case for me and so the year of travelling the world through culinary creations starts here, in "Hungary"with the famous Goulash, a beef and paprika stew served with potato dumplings and a nice blob of sour cream. I also served it with a side of mushrooms and green beans. Some of you might be asking why I started with Hungary....well the only reason is because I had a spontaneous craving for goulash....that's about it really and so after reading a recipe about as closely as I read my assigned readings for school. I attempted to make a pot of goulash, and like all things in life it wasn't perfect, mainly because I like spicy things and underestimated how spicy adding large quantities of  paprika, cayenne pepper and chilli, which if nothing else will kick start my metabolism.

So for my friends wanting to try something new hearty and delicious, I would highly suggest cooking some goulash up. One more piece of advice I will give you, if you are making it after a busy day, buy mince beef instead of stewing beef, they both cook quickly... but stewing beef is designed to cook it for a long slow period of a minimum 2 hours of time so it melts in your mouth...... whilst i was waiting for this my appetite consumed my brain and i subsequently ended up saying sod it and proceeding to eat cooked tough beef giving my upper molars a workout they were not especially use to. My jaw line is now without a doubt the most chiseled part of my body.