ABOUT

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The Chef in the kitchen...

Who are we…

Well – were do I begin. First off – let me introduce my self. I´m Thora – the self proclaimed voice of The Basic Cookbook. I am a happily married mother of two – originally from Iceland. I am as culinary/domestically challenged as they come but fortunately the man of my dreams happens to be the most talented and amazing chef I´ve had the pleasure of meeting.

His name is Volli – or Volundur S. Volundarson if you prefer. Tall and handsome he captured my heart six years ago and today we are blessed with two incredible children – Baldvin, who was born in 2008 and Moey, born 2010. Life is as hectic as it can get with various projects going on. We have a restaurant where we live in the Bahamas, we also love books – and we just finished Volli´s second book – which is dedicated to fish and seafood, called Silver of the Sea. Volli´s previous book Delicious Iceland was published in 2006 (the day before our wedding!) and has since then received international awards – and was chosen by Gourmand one of the 100 best cookbooks published in the world for the past ten years (that was in 2007). We are also busy with or TV production company and our latest endeavor was Delicious Iceland – tales of unique northern cuisine where Volli traveled all over Iceland – to some strange and amazingly beautiful places and cooked delicious food as well. If you go to the Delicious Iceland site you can see clips from the show.

Anyway – I´m transgressing – we´ve sold Delicious Iceland to various countries all over the world and couldn’t be prouder – and determined to do more.

The Basic Cookbook is our passion project. Our dreams are big and the goal is to fill it up with easy and simple video tutorials, recipes and all those other things we find even remotely interesting.

About me… well back in the days – before I met the Chef I hosted and wrote a TV show for kids. I did that for about four years which was amazing. I even recorded an album once even though I´m a horrible singer – but hey – you only live once. Other than that I´ve been working in the media my whole adult live – in TV as a host, writer, production assistant and later a producer. I´ve also been writing for newspapers and magazines, translated books from English to Icelandic as well as writing three books on my own.

Volli and Thora

When I met Volli it was love at first kiss! And about fifteen minutes later or so we were married. It was kind of crazy but we just knew it was right and so far so very very good…

The Mysterious Nunni - the man behind the camera

The third and probably the most important person here is Nunni – or Gunnar Konradsson. Our partner, friend, photographer and filmmaker. An extraordinary talent that we are truly blessed to know and work with. Please visit his site NunniKonn and see some of his amazing work. Nunni is a proud father of a four year old dancing genius named Konrad and his fiance Heibba is truly one of a kind. Nunni´s talent and vision is above and beyond. He is the go-to guy for big networks such as National Geographic in Iceland. Nunni is passionate about anything that has to do with photography or filming – and he happens to be an excellent editor as well. He doesn´t eat raisins, is allergic to dogs (which kind of upsets him since he wats one) and has been desperately trying to get certified as a diver – but his inner ear wont let him finish!

And of course… there are others key members:

Isabel Allison – Recipe Development

Borgar Thorarinsson - Composer

Thorir Celin – Graphics

Gyorfi Szilard – 3D Graphics

Harold Mansfield – Web Development

And here are some pictures of us…