Iceland review - 2006, Blaðsíða 69

ICELAND REVIEW 67
I knew my lack of domestic skills had come to a head when I was
asked to serve cake at a dinner party last month and I broke a sweat.
The hostess set her afternoon’s work in front of me on a cake stand,
handed me a silver server, and gestured. Go ahead. Cut the cake. I
scooted my chair back slowly to stand, the table of guests watching.
The cake in question was a thing of beauty – towering meringue
and cream layers, grand and organic in shape. Curled shavings of
nougat were piled sweetly at its center.
I made my incision and it crumpled. Eyes were averted. The hostess
punctuated the unfolding catastrophe with words of encouragement
as I passed out plates of glop. Well done! You’re doing fine!
When it was finally over, and everyone forked into their meringue
mash, I thought, What’s happened? I used to bake cakes for friends’
birthdays and host dinner parties. Or at least co-host dinner parties.
But at some point, it stopped being fun, and now I feel I’m wasting
time when I think about cooking for the sake of it. And I’ll admit
it. I miss it.
IT’s AlmOsT 8:30Am on monday morning. I’m late for breakfast
at Hússtjórnarskólinn á Hallormsstad, a school about 30 kilometers south
of Egilsstadir in east Iceland. The 31 letters comprising the school’s
name mean “house manager’s school,” and the school teaches
young men and women from 16 into their 20s skills like sewing,
embroidery, ironing, weaving, cleaning, cooking and serving. It’s
one semester, and students usually come to live at the school while
it’s in session. There used to be several stationed throughout the
countryside. Today, there are only two, one in Reykjavík, and the
one I’m on my way to visit.
It’s my first time in Egilsstadir, the biggest town on Iceland’s east
coast. It looks a lot like other small Icelandic towns I’ve visited: one
or two intersections of gas stations, greasy spoons attached to gas
stations and listless teenagers hanging out at gas stations. single-
family homes ring out from this nucleus until they hit the edge
of an abrupt, sprawling empty landscape. One minute you are
watching satellite TV, the next you are standing in a lava field, or, in
Egilsstadir’s case, a rolling, snow-covered heath.
my driving directions to the school are vague, but I’ve been told
I can’t miss it. It’s tucked in the midst of Iceland’s largest forest,
part of the national effort to re-tree Iceland, which was supposedly
denuded to its present barren state by generations of very un-green
Vikings with a propensity for building big ships, etc.
I turn a corner and I’m upon it: the building’s three white peaks
hunch between bare trees. I park in its empty gravel parking lot. The
school’s front door is locked. I knock, and Kolbrún sigurbjörnsdóttir,
The Zen of Household maintenance
By Krista Mahr Photos By Páll stefánsson
There are two schools left in Iceland that teach students all that used to go into the balancing act of running a self-sustainable home.
One is buried deep in Iceland’s biggest forest. IR’s domestically challenged Krista Mahr spent a few days
back at school, finding out what it takes to make it at Hússtjórnarskólinn á Hallormsstad. If nothing else, she learned how to say it.
Winter Class of 2006. anD Class of 1962-1963.