The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.2008, Qupperneq 44

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THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Vol. 62 #1
times, and to some family members more
often then others. The idea was to have at
least one recipe from each family member
and to include all the recipes that had been
passed down from Mother.
The next job was to cull out the dupli-
cates. It was through this process that we
discovered that often “Mother’s original
recipe” differed depending on which
daughter it came from.
This would be a book for all the gener-
ations. When determining the number of
copies we would need, copies were ordered
to be set aside for even the very youngest of
Johanna’s family, some who would have no
recollection of her. If the book was to be
dedicated to her, which we all agreed it
must be, then we needed to tell the young
ones about her. We needed to include the
memories and the things about her that
made her so special and that made us who
we are.
So, then came the story telling. The
dedication and poems that told who she
was and the reminisces from each of her
daughters that told of the childhood that
she gave us.
Each entry had to be typed in a consis-
tent format. The font and font size and
spacing had to be determined and page
breaks set.
Well, that didn’t work so well. We
have all these empty spaces. Now what?
Songs Mother sang to us as children, poems
and our own “handy tips” were used to fill
the “part pages” Then came the proofread-
ing and what seemed like never ending
changes.
Finally it was ready for print. First we
approached companies that typically print
cookbooks. Flowever, they only print
recipes. Our book did not meet their crite-
ria as it is far from just recipes. We had it
printed by UPS. They did a wonderful job
and we are all very pleased with the end
product.
This was not an easy task and it would
never have been accomplished without all
of Marlene’s work. Not only was she the
driving force but she typed all 259 pages
and did the layout work. From beginning
to end the entire project spanned two
years. However, I would recommend this
project to every family. We had a wonder-
ful time doing it and spent hours reminisc-
ing. To us, our book is like a family heir-
loom. Originally written solely for family
and our closest friends, other people seem
to have taken a liking to the book. Requests
have been received for copies and it is now
in its second printing. We have even talked
of doing another book. I think we will call
the next one, “All the things we forgot to
tell you ...”
Mother was such a remarkable person.
Though she was almost blind and totally
colour blind all her life, there was very lit-
tle that she could not do. She brought up
four daughters; sewed clothing for us, her
sisters, friends and most of her neighbours;
knitted (even Icelandic sweaters) and was
always our favorite person to spend time
with. She often said that there was nothing
written about her family in any of the his-
tory books about New Iceland. I wonder
what she would say if she could see her
name in The Icelandic Canadian.