UBLF's Chilldown Period: Chilldown Period - Episode 43

This month we are taking an aural journey to Iceland!

You can download the podcast here.

Special thanks to all of the artists, booking agents, managers, etc. who have made this episode of the Chilldown Period possible.

One thing I enjoy about doing these series of podcasts is listening the different trends and styles of music from around the world. This is one of the great advantages of the internet that you can discover, listen to, purchase and for some, use these different influences in their music production.

Music shows so much individuality and can also be appreciated by one and all.

The photo used for this episode of the Chilldown Period comes to us from Matt and was taken at Skógarfoss, Iceland. The license for use of the photo is found here.

Just like I did for the Latvian episode of the Chilldown Period, we decided to cook/recreate some Icelandic recipes or Icelandic takes on different foods. We started off for lunch with Brauðterta, or sandwich loaf. According to Bibliophile's blog, this originated in the US and it looks to have been perfected in Iceland. We couldn't find some of the spices for the spread, so I improvised with Paprika, Ms. Dash and Cinnamon. I've never used asparagus in my cooking before, yet it makes a good ingredient for an egg salad. I improvised and put ham in between the layers of bread. I used black bread and topped it with ham and pears.

I thought I had taken a better picture. :)

Love the recipe and my wife declared quite a bit how she liked it. I'm a big sandwich fan. I frequent sandwich shops quite a bit and this is a fantastic variant which I cannot wait to share with friends and family.

The longest part of preparing this was boiling the eggs. I'm impatient, even for boiling eggs, yet the wait was worth it.

Our next dish we cooked up was Shepherd's Pie. We had to make do some cooking of the ingredients fresh before we mixed the dish. I had never cooked lamb before and I find it to be a very tender meat, like other cooks have said before me. The mashed potatoes were a new experience. I rarely make mashed potatoes and this time we used cheese in the recipe and bread crumbs. I wanted to use an Icelandic cheese and the closest I could find on short notice was a Norwegian cheese, Geitost (spelled Gjetost for American consumers). I LOVE this cheese. It has a rich, sweet flavor and works well in this recipe. My wife doesn't like how rich of a cheese it is, yet she liked the flavor it added to the mashed potatoes.

We also made Flatbrauð to go along with the Shepherd's pie. This recipe was fast to make. And it is delicious. Put honey and butter on it while it is still warm and you have a meal in and of itself. We used our electric griddle and cooked the bread like a pancake.

We needed more lamb to go along with the Shepherd's pie. That's the only quibble I have with the recipe and with future improvisation, it won't be a problem. Great recipe and it makes a fantastic dish!

It is cool to learn that if Shepherd's pie is done with beef it then becomes Cottage Pie!

We finished up our meal with something simple: Hrísgrjónagrautur. I was a little impatient with this so it wasn't as thick as I wanted it to be.

Needless to say, it was still good.

And yes, the recipes I found from Iceland are as good as the music found in this episode of the Chilldown Period.

Grand music, great food and good memories in the making of this podcast!

One mistake I made in the podcast and not in the tracklisting: Bonnie Gregory's tune is called "Same Notes" not "Some Notes".

My apologies and also, I apologize right here for my mispronunciations of the names of the tunes and Artists in this show. Please forgive me.

Now, on to the tracklisting!