Sheep's head revisited
I've been fond of Yrsa Sigurðardóttir since Bouchercon 2008 in Baltimore when, on a glorious fall day, we chatted about the collapse of her country's economy.
At Indianapolis in 2009, Yrsa was part both of the first convention panel I ever moderated and also of a group that made its frequent cigarette breaks so much fun that I wanted to take up smoking at an age when most people have already quit many times.
Yrsa and I have stuffed ourselves with dim sum in San Francisco and rung up bar tabs in Bristol. In short, a crime fiction convention would not be a crime fiction convention without Yrsa and her husband, Oli, two of the most popular and hospitable figures on the convention circuit.
But something was missing from the just-concluded Crimefest 2012: Yrsa brought no Icelandic food specialties or enamel-searing spirits with which to force the delicacies down our throats. Two years earlier, she had brought hákarl, a pungent fermented shark that, according to Wikipedia, even many Icelanders never eat. And the schnapps that went with it was pure, burning volcanic effluvia. I can't even show you what Yrsa brought to Bouchercon 2011 in St. Louis. So I'll let Leighton Gage do it instead.
So, Yrsa, if you read this, what will you bring us in Cleveland?
© Peter Rozovsky 2012
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| (Indianapolis, 2009. Photo by your humble blogkeeper) |
Yrsa and I have stuffed ourselves with dim sum in San Francisco and rung up bar tabs in Bristol. In short, a crime fiction convention would not be a crime fiction convention without Yrsa and her husband, Oli, two of the most popular and hospitable figures on the convention circuit.
But something was missing from the just-concluded Crimefest 2012: Yrsa brought no Icelandic food specialties or enamel-searing spirits with which to force the delicacies down our throats. Two years earlier, she had brought hákarl, a pungent fermented shark that, according to Wikipedia, even many Icelanders never eat. And the schnapps that went with it was pure, burning volcanic effluvia. I can't even show you what Yrsa brought to Bouchercon 2011 in St. Louis. So I'll let Leighton Gage do it instead.
So, Yrsa, if you read this, what will you bring us in Cleveland?
© Peter Rozovsky 2012
Labels: conventions, Crimefest, hákarl, Leighton Gage, Yrsa Sigurðardóttir
posted by Peter Rozovsky at 12:43 PM
8 Comments:
Peter, have you ever visited our Sheep's Head here in Ireland? Fortunately, it's just a geographical landmark and the idea of having to eat the thing doesn't arise.
Amd don't ask me why it's called Sheep's Head because it doesn't look like a sheep's head. Perhaps, it's a euphemism of some kind.
No, I have never been in Ireland's wild and storied south and west, though some of the photos of Sheep's Head I've just seen are gorgeous. Perhaps sheep were once herded there. Or, as a distant second guess, do sheep play any role in Irish mythology? They lack the savage glamour of wolfhounds, but who knows?
Hi Peter,
Thanks for this post which I am seeing way too late - since you say such nice things about me I am going to have to bring something to Cleveland for sure. I am thinking about ram testicle pate. You managed the head, now for the hard part....
bye Yrsa
Well, you could make something up and see how appalling you can get and still get someone to agree to try it ... unless you already did that with ram testicle pate. Just thinking of how that must be prepared fills me with painful sympathy for my fellow male creatures.
Waste not, want not in the far north! Besides, you only need one or two good rams to do the job. The other guys will just have to resign themselves to having their balls smashed into pate, before the rest of them becomes a leg of mutton, etc.
Anyway, some of my best friends are geldings. And, no, I've never had pate made out of their testicles.
Yeah, that's a great slogan: "A Few Good Rams." I bet it has 'em lining up at the testicle-pate recruiting center.
I bet "ram-testicle pate" sounds better in Icelandic.
Well, not much... hrútur testicle kæfa. There's no escaping that testicle.
Besides, the poor guys never know what hit 'em.
Couldn't the Icelanders come up with a better word?
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