With the tailgate of his truck serving as our work surface, we separated some greenhouse romanesco into florets and tossed them into a Dutch oven. We cubed baby kohlrabi, did the same with the smoky brined lamb shoulder, then added the herbs, the hops and a half-dozen glugs of cream. As we worked, the geyser would blow its top every seven minutes, and we had to pause, retreating beyond the reach of its warm, misty spray.

Next, we poured the colostrum into ramekins that we set into our bain-marie — a roasting pan half-filled with water. Then Mr. Sigfusson brought out a two-pound brown trout he had caught himself (“on a Hairy Mary salmon fly,” he reported with pride). We stuffed the brightly spotted trout with sorrel, angelica and green onions, folded it up in parchment paper (en papillote is an ideal way to cook in a steam oven) and placed it in with the rest of our feast.

We left the oven to work its magic and, a few hours later, returned to unburden it of our meal. The bread, Jon’s own variation on this Viking staple, could have easily sufficed for the whole meal had we not exercised some restraint. The trout was flaky and herbaceous. The milk pudding, topped with a jam of green tomatoes, ginger, and honey was super-creamy.

But the star of the show was the lamb braise. The meat was salty and smoky, the creamy gravy enriched with the captured juices of lamb, romanesco and kohlrabi, and everything suffused with wild thyme, angelica and hops — which brought the sweetness-enhancing quality of fresh tarragon. I made a note to try it under the skin of my next roast chicken.

The breeze was gentle, and the ground was soft and dry enough to lie or sit on without getting damp. Late afternoon sun lit up the landscape formed by long ago by lava flows. It looked like pale-green velvet rippled by the breeze.

I’ll admit to a tingle of schadenfreude as I looked over at Hekla to see to see if the soul of anyone on my hit list was plunging into hellfire, but I didn’t dwell on it. The day was too lovely, the natural world too congenial and the food too satisfying to yield to uncharitable fantasies.

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