out and about

This weekend began by making Hallah with Etienne and then hosting a great pot-luck Shabbat dinner. Everyone here was laughing how they will continue celebrating Shabbat even once we are not here. That was nice:) Zelia loves it and sings part of "hayom yom shishi" she says Shabbat, kipa, yain and einu (short for what she hears when we say the blessings - eloheinu)whenever she sees a candle.

Yesterday we went to a slatur making party at Gisli's parents' house. Every year at this time 4 families get together, buy several kits and get preparing. Slatur is an Icelandic sausage either made with liver or blood, yesterday they were making both, I probably don't have to tell you that Zelia LOVES it. On Friday they began by sewing the stomachs and on Saturday by the time we arrived there were 4 people sitting at the table cutting up fat and two people around a large tub, one woman with her arm up to her elbow in the mixture of liver, milk, oats, rye flour, salt and ground cloves. When the mixture as ready - the wooden spoon would stand in it the stuffing began. Jacob had a go and stuffed a few, then the stomachs were secured closed with a long nail! In total they made over 100 sausages, most to be frozen for the year and a few left for a big meal that night. We headed back over to the same house at 6:30 for dinner. In the dining room there was a large electric "pot" where the slatur had been oiling for 3 hours. the tale was set and out came boiled potatoes, white sauce and both mashed and cut up rutabaga. I could not get over the blood sausage and didn't try it but I did take several bites of Zelia's liver sausage. Now, I HATE liver, but this didn't taste like liver and if I liked lam I would have devoured it. It was super tender, very flavorful and I could really understand why it is loved...oh that lamb flavor, if only I liked it!

Zelia ate and then was off following the different children around and playing. We finished with a delicious cake called something Dream and headed home.

This morning, Zelia and I slept in until almost 9 and had a nice slow wake-up. We all had breakfast together and Zelia had so much fun playing with her legos. then we went out for a walk and to the park before heading back for her nap.

This afternoon was quiet, Jacob went to work and we had a nice afternoon. We had dinner with Jamie and then Tray came over and we all watched Food Inc together. It is safe to say we are all pretty upset...not that it was all new information but just astounding how tremendously sick our food system is, it made me very sad and very angry. ahhhh, when we return we will continue to eat mindfully making more and more changes to our diet and food purchasing. If you haven't seen it, I cannot recommend it enough.