feeling fjordy: windy rosh hashanah
#5: windy rosh hashanah
this week, mich mich talks about their amazing rosh hashanah dinner! featuring our adventures with a wild wild windstorm, a handmade table cloth and a slick communal dinner. also would really recommend reading on website for full experience w videos.
enjoy xx!
okay so - lets be honest, we’re back in london, so this isn’t going to be an 100% accurate account of our time, but we still have 3 weeks left of newsletters that cover our time in iceland. we’ve been back for 3 weeks, and memories of iceland are a bit fuzzy. adjusting back to life in the hustle and bustle, the cozy community we made feels like a dream. but the best, most mystical, wholesome dream you’ve ever had. we’re hoping that by continuing to write these newsletters, it will help us get back in touch with our time there, to process these memories so we can continue to draw from all the wonderful connections and lessons we learned during our time at heima in seyðisfjörður.
this weeks edition is brought to u courtesy of mich mich!
since leaving canada, i’ve taken to really appreciating jewish holidays. at first, i thought it was due to a generalised disconnect to my judaism. am i searching for (deeper) meaning in these events? hashem, are you there? however, i now realise that it’s not the religious or spiritual aspect i’ve been searching for, its’ the community, bringing people together. in other words, jewish holidays have really just been an excuse to have a big dinner party where we can flex our kitchen tricks and drink pitchers of wine.
since the kitchen at heima became a glorious melting pot of all of our communal efforts (delicious communal cooking every. single. night.) it was very exciting that rosh hashanah (jewish new year) took place during the residency. a time to curate a dining space for this unique community; a space to eat, drink and tell stories, or play the “you know what i hate” game (a really cool game where we just list the things we hate like magic tricks or people who chew wool).
i don’t know much about jewish history and am not religious so my version of “experiencing” and “passing forth” my jewishness is always through food and the food always stems from my mother’s kitchen. (big shout out to mama ela)
here is our standard menu, an altered version of my mom’s original jny suppers, a version enabling us to make our own traditions as we build our own home.
✡️ avrgbbs' rosh hashanah menu ✡️
salad
always always always salat olivier (or as my mom calls it: salat mayonnaise)
something dry and potatoey
potato kugel
stew
my mother always makes a veal or chickn stew. since we don't eat meat. we've appropriated the stew dish to include carrots, mushrooms and chickpeas
bread
my family doesn't do this but a couple of years ago julia made the most incredible challah i've ever had and so now its officiall an avrgbbs tradition
dessert
honey cake. this year we infused it with ear grey! delicious!
apples & honey
the most important part!
to add an almost biblical element to our experience, on rosh hashanah (25th september) eastern iceland was hit with a violent windstorm. as the winds occupied the entire fjord, blowing away trees, huts and this very cool glass cube installation (270 kilos, rolled over, twice.) so obviously, we were told to stay indoors for our safety. that meant that we had to postpone the dinner as we couldn’t get groceries and not everyone would be able to attend. julia and i decided that we would spend the day making a table cloth reminiscent of the space, the people and this unique experience. rummaging through the bins of second hand fabrics, we decided to make 8 placemats to represent the 8 people at the residency and connect each one with lace bows. while the winds roared through our home, causing turbulent floors and unstable rooftops, we sat on the floor in the main studio, hand sewing into the night as we listened to the raging winds.
the windstorm marked a valuable period of our stay at heima. it taught us to challenge our patience, to respect the outdoor environment and even though it created some destruction (everyone was safe), it also introduced a brand new landscape of fallen natural gifts for us to forage and use in our projects. but more on that in the next newsletter!
when the windstorm subsided, we decorated our sweet little dining space with our newly made tablecloth, candles, food and beautiful people. and together we sat, embracing the last humming of the wind storm, we dipped our apple wedges into the little pot of honey and in a harmonious patchwork of voices, said: shana tova! ;) xx
