We, the people behind "Yummy Iceland" - that's me (
Ursula) and my husband
Markus.
We have been married for over 20 years, live in the greater Frankfurt / Main area and have four children and now also a grandchild.
We are both passionate Iceland fans.
I love baking and cooking, and Icelandic cuisine has become another passion of mine. So, I cook and bake, take photos, and write, while my husband works behind the scenes, ensuring design, layout, functioning technology, and smooth operations.
Since July 2014, I have been blogging about Iceland and Icelandic cuisine on Island-Fan-Kochbuch in German and here on Yummy Iceland in English.
Our cookbook, "Leckeres Island - Das große Koch- und Backbuch", (only in German) also emerged from the blog in 2015. In November 2021, our Christmas book, "Yummy Iceland at Christmas Time" (with recipes and Christmas traditions from the island), was published at first in German, and is meanwhile also available in English. I have also been writing recipes for the German Iceland magazine "Zauber des Nordens" ("Magic of the North") for several years, and in March 2023, the special edition of "Zauber des Nordens" was published, focusing on "Icelandic Cuisine".
Why Iceland?
We're often asked why we came to Iceland of all places. Around 1990, Markus saw a slide show from someone who traveled across Iceland by bike.
Even back then, the landscape absolutely fascinated him.
And just 14 years later, we traveled to Iceland together for the first time. In the summer of 2004 , we cycled around the island for 8 days (luckily, I was spared the cycling crossing!).
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| (2004) |
We were incredibly lucky with the weather on our first trip and had the best first impression we could have wished for. We had a wonderfully individually planned road trip and stayed in very different accommodations every night, from a rather functional hotel in the city to one of Iceland's oldest wooden houses dating back to 1884, where Marlene Dietrich stayed in the 1940s, to a country hotel and farm accommodation, often with stunning views of the Icelandic landscape. And we ate some truly delicious Icelandic food!
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| (2004) |
We fell hopelessly in love with this island in 2004... After the 2008 crisis, a trip to Iceland became more affordable again, so we visited Iceland for the second time in the summer of 2009.
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| (2009) |
We visited Iceland for the third time in the summer of 2010, then for the first time in the winter on New Year's Eve 2011. We never let it go. In the summer of 2012, we visited Iceland for the first time with our children, and in the summer of 2015, we visited with all four children.
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| (2012) |
At first we went to Iceland once a year, then more and more often... and in 2020 we fulfilled our dream and bought our
own house in Iceland .
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| (2020) |
Since then, we've spent an average of around 14 weeks a year in Iceland, and even though life here is often quite exciting, we haven't regretted buying the house one bit!
"Við erum að læra islensku"
Originally, I wanted to learn "a bit" of Icelandic so I could translate the recipes. I can't recommend using Google Translate when coffin nails suddenly appear as ingredients in the automatically translated recipes, or it took me ages to figure out that you have to use dates, not dates.
At first, we tried to learn at least a little of the language on our own, but quickly reached our limits. For 6.5 years now, the two of us have been learning once a week in private lessons via Skype ( isländisch-lernen.de ), and even though there's still plenty of room for improvement, we're noticing progress. It's more than enough for small talk with the neighbors or for attending the owners' meeting for our summer house...
My great passion: Icelandic cuisine
On our first trip to Iceland in 2004, we were able to enjoy some truly excellent Icelandic cuisine, and at some point I came up with the idea of surprising my husband in Germany with some Icelandic specialties and delicacies. However, I quickly realized that at the time, there was only one cookbook on Icelandic cuisine in German, and it had an online delivery time of over 3,000 days... So I started collecting, translating, and trying out Icelandic recipes myself online.
From this recipe collection, this food blog about Icelandic cuisine was created in 2014 , which has grown considerably over the last 10 years and now has over 1,500 articles and more than 900
Includes recipes .
Our books "Delicious Iceland" and "Delicious Iceland at Christmas" and the special edition of "Magic of the North" about Icelandic cuisine can be purchased in bookstores or ordered online , for example, via our website or from the publisher "Magic of the North".
My second hobby: Icelandic knitting
Over the past four years, I've discovered a second hobby: I enthusiastically knit "Icelandic sweaters" ( lopapeysa ). More or less classic models, but all made from Icelandic wool. Mostly from "medium-thick wool" ( léttlopi ), but now also from the thinner wool plötulopi , and I've even knitted with the thicker wool álafosslopi .
And sometimes I combine both hobbies and bake delicious Icelandic sweaters from gingerbread dough or knit self-designed Icelandic sweaters with meat soup motifs!
Is there anything else you'd like to know about us? Then ask!
[Translated from
here.]
Prince cake
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