Auður Ólafsdóttir - Butterflies in November

Peeling and chopping seven onions can be a daunting task for sensitive souls. The use of swimming goggles is recommended or ski goggles, when available, since the latter are, of course, bigger and work better in many cases. Some people are of the firm belief that holding one’s breath during the cutting is an effective antidote. It normally takes less than a minute to peel and chop an onion, but seven onions represent a far greater challenge. There are also those who recommend peeling the onion under a tap of running cold water. If none of these remedies work, it is best to ask the nearest person to you to cut the onion, a man, for example. Although this is by no means a universal law, their emotional make-up is often structured differently, particularly with regard to the thickness of their skin. CARROT MOUSSE (SIDE DISH WITH GOOSE)

1 kilo of carrots, ½ cup of carrot juice, 1 teaspoon of salt, 2 tablespoons of sugar, 1 cup of cream, ¼ teaspoon of nutmeg. Wash carrots and boil in a pot with as little water as possible. The carrots are cooked when they become soft. Put them into a food processor or mixer, if you happen to have one handy in your home (if not mash the carrots with a fork) with a little bit of carrot juice, cream, salt, sugar and nutmeg. Eat it as a side dish with the wild goose or roasted lamb (see recipes). The same method can be applied for the making of turnip mousse by substituting turnips for the carrots. Or you can even mix the two vegetables to make carrot and turnip mousse. SUCCULENT REDCURRANT JELLY (SIDE DISH WITH GOOSE)

1–2 shrubs of redcurrant, sugar (60 % of the weight of the fruit) . If you don’t have any redcurrants growing in your garden, you can always negotiate with a neighbour who doesn’t make any use of his or her bush — due, for example, to back problems or old age — and bribe them into allowing you to pick the berries in exchange for two succulent jars of redcurrant jelly. The island is littered with unexploited redcurrant bushes, particularly in the older neighbourhoods of towns. One needs to bear in mind that there is considerably more waste in the making of redcurrant jelly than other types of jelly. Pick the redcurrants and rinse them. There is no need to strip the currants from their light green stalks. Place in a big pot. Put on heat for 2–3 minutes and allow to boil or wait for the berries to start bursting. Turn off the heat and let it simmer a while in the pot. Tip the whole lot into the sieve and allow it to drip through. Add sugar (600 grams for each litre of juice). Boil for a few minutes or until it starts to thicken. Skim the froth off and make sure the juice does not boil for too long. The succulent redcurrant jelly is ready when it slides off a silver spoon in long blobs. If there is no silver spoon in the house, a normal spoon will do. Allow to cool and place in small jars. Remember to give your neighbour his/her jars. SPAGHETTI CARBONARA

Spaghetti, dry or fresh, a packet of bacon (preferably diced), 2 egg yolks, 1 pot of crème fraîche or 1 cup of cream, grated parmesan, olive oil. Boil water in a pot, salt it, throw the pasta in and cook it as instructed on package. Be careful not to over-boil it. Meanwhile, cut or slice the bacon into thin pieces and pan-fry them in a tiny bit of oil. Drain the water from the pasta through a sieve and then throw the pasta back into the pot again. Do not place the pot back over the stove. Mix the two egg yolks with the pasta and toss in the pieces of bacon with the tub of cream. You have to be quick mixing all this together to make sure the egg yolks don’t curdle. Sometimes the cheese is added into the pot. Season with freshly ground pepper and eat immediately with parmesan and, on special occasions, with a glass of Umbrian red wine. OVEN-BAKED PEPPERS

Sliced or whole peppers baked in the oven or grilled are one of the simplest dishes to make, and will normally just cook themselves, with a maximum time of 10–15 minutes. Peppers are rich in iron, beneficial to women, and make a good side dish with fish, meat, other vegetables, rice or as a dish on their own. It is the ideal dish for a woman taking her first steps in the culinary arts. Choose organic peppers and cut each one in four, slicing them lengthwise. Place them on a baking tray or an oven-proof plate, sprinkle them with olive oil and sea salt and bake. You can mix all colours of peppers, yellow, orange, green and red. Red peppers are the sweetest and tastiest, however. You can throw any kind of vegetable into the oven to roast, e.g. sliced vegetable marrow, mushrooms, leeks and aubergines. CHRISTMAS CAKE WITH RAISINS

When a guest appears unexpectedly, it is a good idea to buy Christmas cake in the nearest bakery, i.e. if guests appear with only ten minutes’ warning. That is normally the simplest way to be totally sure of the quality of the cake. Very few working single mothers actually have the time to bake a Christmas cake. The following, however, is a quick recipe. 2½ cups of flour, 3 teaspoons of baking powder, ½ cup of sugar, 1 egg, a few drops of vanilla, 2 cups of milk, 100 grams of butter, 50 grams of raisins. Mix the flour, baking powder and sugar in a bowl. Mix half of the milk and the egg into the dough. Melt the butter in a pot and mix it with the dough, remainder of the milk and vanilla drops.

Finally, mix in the raisins. Pour into a buttered cake tin and bake for 40 minutes. SOUR WHALE (FOR BUFFET)

1 kilo of whale blubber, 1 litre of whey. Even though sour whale might be offered on the buffet table of a kindergarten (along with black olives, mozzarella, feta cheese, French goat’s cheese, blood pudding, dried fish and mushrooms) in a novel, this isn’t a combination I would want to offer any guests of mine. Yet many young children are curious to taste this white whale jelly and it is very easy to make. As is well known, whale blubber is the thick layer of adipose tissue that covers the stomach of the whale and is rich in fat. The main obstacle is the scarcity of these basic ingredients. The method to be used is roughly as follows: wash the whale blubber, place it in a pot and boil it until it becomes tender. Drain it fully using a colander and then cut the blubber into pieces about 2cm thick. Then place it in a container, pour the whey over it and allow it to ferment. Make sure the blubber is completely covered by the whey and note that you may need to add whey from time to time. The blubber can be tasted after 5 days of fermentation in the whey. Keep in a cool place but do not freeze. If the whale blubber is transported between countries, ensure it is kept in a little whey in a container with a good lid. KRÚTTKEX (CUTIE COOKIES)

There is no guarantee that all of the food items mentioned in this novel can be found on the shelves of a supermarket. One example of this is the episode in which the narrator does a weekend shop for the child in her charge. The items mentioned include, among other things: whey, Superman yogurt, bananas, hopping sausages, children’s cheese, Little Rascal bread, milk, kindergarten pâté, alphabet pasta and Cutie cookies. Some of these products are to be found in stores, others not. However, since fiction can sometimes have a prophetic dimension, one cannot exclude the possibility that some of these products may appear on the market in the future. PORRIDGE

3 cups of water, 1 cup of organically grown oats, salt. When the water is on the point of boiling in the pot, put in the oats, salt it and mix it once. Remove the porridge from the heat as soon as it boils. That way the porridge stays granular and retains its original form. The porridge can also be cooked starting in cold water, which will make it softer and smoother. The porridge should then be boiled for two minutes and divided equally between two bowls, if both parties have the same appetite. Porridge is eaten with milk, or perhaps with a little cream. In Iceland some people like to substitute the milk with AB milk (a local dairy product produced from pasteurized and homogenized milk) http://www.ms.is/Vorur/Markfaedi-og-baetiefnavorur/AB-vorur/204/default.aspx or súrmilk (a type of yogurt made from skimmed milk). In the last century, cold porridge was often mixed with skyr (buttermilk) and known as hræringur around the country. Many of the people who were sent off into the countryside and had parched mouths at the end of their long journeys have mixed memories of this kind of porridge, which was served with blood pudding. Nowadays, dates, apples and dried apricots are sometimes mixed into the porridge. One can also put green leaves into the porridge to give it a green colour, such as finely chopped lemongrass, boiled Icelandic moss, yarrow, lady’s mantle and white dryas. This would make it summer porridge. RED WINE (ON VARIOUS OCCASIONS)