here’s a simple and delicious summer salad that I just made for lunch a few days ago. The recipe is from the Veggie Belly blog. In addition to being full of flavors, it’s a beautiful rainbow of colors. This recipe makes enough for about 2 servings but can easily be doubled. It’s a fruit salad with a twist!
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Landmannalaugar is a park in south central Iceland. I finally got to visit this spectacular place on my 3rd visit to Iceland in 2010. It is comprised of miles of rhyolite mountains in a whole rainbow of colors, including reds, purples, browns, yellows, white, black and more. In the center of those mountains are several hot springs that you can swim in and a camp. There are also lava fields that surround the area, and, in the summer, cotton grass in bloom. Just getting into the park is not for the faint of heart: you have to ford many streams and rivers and be in a bus or other heavy duty vehicle. But it’s absolutely worth it. As with many places in Iceland, it is very windy. But the hot springs were so warm that once you got in, the wind wasn’t as much of an issue.
Details of Landmannalaugar. Left: overview of some of the “mountains”, lavafields covered with moss, the hot springs and the nearby vegetation. Right: another overview:
some smaller details:
and shots of the actual place:
Tired of plain ol’ corn muffins? This recipe from Whole Living takes them up a notch. Who would have thought of putting grapes in corn muffins? But it actually works really well. For some reason when I made them, all of the grapes floated up to the top, whereas the bottom of the muffin was much more dense. I think next time I make them I’d like to add some lemon peel or flavoring to give them an even more distinctive touch.
Knitted Journey, the Iceland Series part 4: Thorsmork. This one was based on a trip that I took to Thorsmork National Park. This spectacular place (Thor’s Forest) is surrounded by dramatic mountain ranges in 3 directions and eventually stretches out to the sea. To get here, you have to ford numerous streams and rivers on a bus with heavy duty tires. A utility vehicle follows the bus the whole distance to make sure there aren’t any accidents. When I went in June of 2010, Eyjafjallajokull volcano had just finished erupting about a week before. The entire park was covered in nearly 1-2 inches of thick ash. I visited a glacier that was about 5 miles away from the volcano. The mountains had hoodoos and bizarre formations in them. In the center of the park was a beautiful forest. I hiked up to the top of the cliff and had the most spectacular views of the park. Layers of mountains, lava fields, endless rivers and streams and patches of forest stretched out for miles on end. The overall piece:
Thorsmork detail. A few of the many rivers you had to ford to get into the park and the heavy layers of ash and moss covered lava fields (left)
Thorsmork detail. The magical forest that was full of purple and yellow wild flowers and birch trees (right):
Thorsmork detail. The many layers of rocks in the mountains and cliffs, the hoodoos and strange formations (left):
Thorsmork detail. Another view of the flowered forest, the ash and the layered cliffs (right):
Pictures of Thorsmork that I took in June 2010:
Spring is here and I made these delicious gluten-free shrimp tacos with mango salsa and topped with fresh avocado from Tide and Thyme blog. They were really easy to make, I just used all corn tortillas and marinated some shrimp in a lemon garlic mixture. The salsa has mango, lime juice and red cabbage. I do not like raw onion so I omitted that. They are just as delicious as they are colorful!
For a lovely salad, I made Corn Salad with Mango and Toasted Coconut from Diva Eats World blog. I love the unusual combination of corn, mango and coconut. Tropical and summery!
This is the third Knitted Journey in my Iceland series. Of all the non-US cities in the world, I am most familiar with Reykjavik, Iceland. I’ve been here several times and have spent nearly a total of 3 months there. For a small city of 150,000, Reykjavik is surprisingly cosmopolitan and has an impressive arts scene. It has 3 major art museums plus a bunch of minor ones and galleries. It has a major lake (the Tjornin) in the center of the city. It has Hallgrimskirkja, the tallest building in Iceland. It has numerous islands, including Viday, in Faxafloi Bay. It has the Perlan, a domed building sitting on top of 6 hot water storage tanks. It has the City Hall, designed by Alvar Aalto with moss down one side and water dripping into the Tjornin. Rows of rainbow colored tin roof houses, innovative and cutting edge shops, serious graffiti, hot dog stands (Pylsur) and streets by the names of Kaplaskjolsvegur and Bergtadastraeti and Thingholtsstraeti. I got to know the city like the back of my hand. This is my Knitted Journey dedicated to this most fantastic city. Completed March 2013:
Details:
The institutional grays of the government buildings on Bankastraeti street, the sharp white futuristic architecture of Hallgrimskirkja and the modern art museums of Hafnarhus and Asmundarsafn and the rows of rainbow colored tin roof houses.
Detail of the Tjornin (the central lake) and Faxafloi bays and the moss covered City Hall:
Detail of colorful houses, Faxafloi bay, aluminum factories (Alcoa) and the moody gray skies:
March 9, 2013: Slept in and then drove to Vogue Fabrics on Roosevelt and then on to Fishman’s Fabrics. Hadn’t been to Fishman’s in about 25 years. Overcast and light rain. Then I drove to the Prairie Avenue District and took a one hour tour of the Glessner House-a beautiful Old World mansion built in the 1870s on the corner of Prairie and 18th streets with strong Frank Lloyd Wright elements. Then picked up Melanie and went to a Mexican restaurant with a gluten-free menu. They screwed up and I ingested unsafe chips and found out some of the items on their gluten-free menu weren’t safe, either. I filed a complaint and got a free meal. Had fun with Melanie, though, and we talked about our futures. Then I drove back to the hotel and went for a very brief swim. The swimming pool was full of loud tourists, so I didn’t stay long at all.
March 10, 2013: Went to the Field Museum for several hours. First saw a small fashion exhibit. Then wandered through Native America and Northwest coast/Arctic peoples. Went to the Hall of Totems. Deep wood colors, reds, blues, spruce, black. Then through the Americas and up to South Pacific/Oceania. Maori jade and creepy masks and puppets from Papua New Guinea, Vanatau and New Ireland. Exhibits on Hawaii, Tahiti and the Marshall Islands. Then on to Tibetan and Chinese exhibits. Entered the Hall of Plants. Dated but beautiful exhibits. Briefly through the dinosaur exhibits and then back downstairs through mammals (particularly Asian) and briefly through Africa. The beautiful white interior of the museum with sweeping balconies, chandelliers and massive elephants and dinosaurs.
Then on to Karl Vogel and Jeremy Brown’s house. Karl is now a father to 2 twin boys named Nate and Sam, born in India to an Indian mother. Lots of visitors. Took down the Christmas tree and the ornaments. Chili for supper and ice cream. Socialized.
March 11, 2013: Went to Village Discount Outlet in Andersonville and got some great deals. Strange people as usual but some good finds. Then drove back home. Overcast, misty and windy. Most of the snow was melted and there were huge puddles dotting the dead brown land. Very gloomy skies. Got home around 2:30pm.
My latest knitted journey was my most recent trip to Chicago in March 2013. I spent 5 days up there, saw many friends, family and explored several new neighborhoods and attractions. It was a mixture of excitement, angst, luxury, discovery, annoyance and intensity. The overall piece was about a foot wide and about a foot and a half long.
Day 1 (March 7, 2013)
drove up to Chicago from Champaign. Snow speckled fields-a mixture of white and brown (dead vegetation). Arrived to the Palmer House in early afternoon. Clear skies and melting snow. Walked through the South Loop to Loopy Yarns and stocked up. Then Trader Joes. Some other miscellaneous shopping, including a visit to TJ Maxx. Interesting installations of flashing colored light fixtures with talking sports channels in the Loop.
Day 2 (March 8, 2013)
Drove to the University of Chicago hospital for my morning appointment. Cancelled! They never notified me. I was in shock and angry. Still got my blood drawn. Then drove to the Beverly Hills neighborhood to meet up with my friend Arlena. She showed me around this interesting neighborhood in the far Southwest side. The highest point in Chicago is here, a ridge with giant mansions on top of it. Lots of Irish influences, Victorian houses. Drove back to hotel. A hair-raising drive on the expressway and in the Loop. Exhausted and took a nap. Then went over to the Chicago Cultural Center to see several great shows, including one with huge painted rainbow blow-up sculpture and an indigo textile show. Met up with cousin Patrick that evening and had Chipotle takeout. Then went to an RIT reunion at the SPE conference and saw some people I hadn’t seen in decades.
I have finally finished my second Knitted Journey in my Iceland series. This one is inspired by the Blue Lagoon in the lava fields near Keflavik International Airport.
I have been there 3 different times, once with each of my visits to Iceland in 2005, 2007 and 2010. Here is an excerpt that I wrote from my first visit in 2005:
“There is simply nothing like this place anywhere else. You drive through tortured lava
fields for miles and suddenly, you see a huge steam plant and a spa. And
lots of tourists. The Blue Lagoon is a artificial lake, but uses the steam
nearby to heat it. The lava fields and white calcium boulders are also
natural. The color of the water is otherwordly- a milky, almost
flourescent baby blue. This is due to the algae in the water. There are
also some natural steam vents that produce a complete blizzard of white
smoke when you stand in the path. So I took a swim. It was almost a
spiritual experience. I felt I could only move very slowly. There were a
few boulders where you could get white silica mud to put on your face like
a face mask. I waded in the lagoon for about an hour. Additionally, the
wind was so strong outside, that it felt really nice to be in the warm
water. When i got out, I felt that I had huge weights hanging from me. I
have never experienced this feeling getting out of a pool before.”
The finished piece is about 4 feet long by 1 foot wide. There are well over a dozen yarns in here including novelty yarns (some with sequins), angora, hand dyed lace yarn from Montreal, alpaca and more.
I just made this delicious recipe from Simply Gluten Free recently. I made a few adjustments (I used white rice instead of brown because that’s all I had) and used plain edamame instead of the Crunchies Grilled. I made the spicy pickled carrots without the cucumbers (as I didn’t have any) and without the red pepper flakes. I don’t make seafood dishes often. It’s not that I don’t like seafood…I love it. It’s just hard to get good quality seafood in landlocked east central Illinois and it’s also really expensive. But I bought some frozen wild salmon filets at Aldis and those worked quite well for this recipe. I thawed them and then marinated them for several hours to get a more pronounced flavor.
I bet this will also work well with other types of seafood like shrimp and scallops and also for beef, chicken and tofu!
