The relationships I’ve made with the people of Sólheimar have made this village feel more and more like home. A couple of weeks ago, myself and two other CELL students signed onto a project within the community that will bring some traditions back to Sólheimar- sourdough bread making and herb/vegetable growing! A few months ago, Sólheimar had an organic bakery up and running, but unfortunately in November it got shut down due to financial struggles. With this project, we are bringing small scale community gardening and sourdough bread baking back to the community.
This project has been somewhat of a time consuming one, but my partners and I are happy to do something that will live beyond our time here. To make the sourdough bread, we had to visit a local bakery and ask for some sourdough starter. Since living bacteria are a main component in sourdough, we had to make a dough using part of the already-made living starter, while saving the other half. We then built upon the other half so we could produce a bigger starter and eventually have enough to make many loaves of bread. This week we were able to put our first two loaves in the oven! They turned out absolutely delicious. We were able to deliver samples to the residents that came to game night on Tuesday, and everyone enjoyed the bread very much.
For the herb and vegetable growing part of our project, my group members and I were asked to get creative and utilize the open space in Sesseljuhús to grow some personal use foods. So far, we have started several herb, root vegetable, leafy green, and fruiting plant seeds to eventually transfer into their own pots where they will live in Sesseljuhús. On Wednesday we were able to begin building our anticipated herb spiral. Everything is really coming together and we’re starting to see our brainstorming pay off! I am very grateful to give back to a community that has given me so much.
Until next time,
Gina McCrackin
