How to tell you about Double Dinner Night or what Wanja has named, “Scandal of the Week” without giving you every necessary detail to understand the weight of the situation? I had a busy day. In Anja fashion, I planned 101 things for myself to accomplish—totally plausible with more hours in a day, but impossible within the existing time limits of linear reality. I had planned to prepare Jalan Sarma for Wanja and me that night, a dish I’d been promising to cook for some time now. A neighbour of ours in Blagaj shared the recipe with me back in June, when the young wine leaves it requires just began to reach a suitable size for use. We'd been in Döröske for 2 weeks and I had yet to make dinner once. Wanja's a good cook so I was particularly eager to wow him with my cooking skills. Also, I was hungry for some sarma. I had big dreams—fresh pita bread, fava bean dip with yoghurt and dill, maybe even some zucchini cakes—all this alongside the sarma.
Sarma is a dish best eaten cold, so I knew that in order to reach high levels of deliciousness, I would have to prepare it before I left for work so that they’d have time to cool. I started the morning in confidence, writing, walking the dogs, picking wine leaves and mint for the sarma with the speed of a retiree on vacation, drinking coffee slowly. At some point, it became obvious to Wanja—still not to me— that I wouldn’t have enough time to do all the things I’d set out to do before getting on our bike to make my way to the next village where I use Wi-Fi and teach my English students online at a friend's house. Therefore, in an act of great service, Wanja offered to prepare the sarma for us so that I could slowly make my way, rush-free going. Did I feel like a failure? Fully. But mostly, I felt grateful.
Before I left, I swung by the neighbour’s house to say farewell to Heinz who would be travelling back to Germany that day. Heinz is a neighbour, yes, but he’s also a teacher and mentor to Wanja, someone I’d heard many stories about. I knew how much he meant to Wanja and because of this, I really hoped we would get along. He was here on a short visit and I had just met him momentarily, but when I arrived, he mentioned that he'd extended his visit for another day and invited us to his home for a fire later in the evening. I remember the words, “I’ll prepare dinner” come out of his mouth but I truly wasn’t sure if he meant "for himself" or for "all of us". I was in rush mode and in that state, my senses are weak. I get uncomfortable in these situations when I have to ask someone to clarify a sentence which may in this case result in him inviting us to something he didn’t want to. I settled on the idea that it was just a fire invite and then I said "yes." I sandal-ran back to the house, delivered the fire-invite news to Wanja, and power-pedalled my way to teaching, praying I wouldn’t lose my way in the fields between.
When I pulled up to the front gate around 17:30, I was greeted by Wanja, the dogs, and a small wooden barrel that had newly planted marigolds in it. It felt good. In the house, I saw that he had finished the sarma, cleaned, put up new pictures in the house, and even boiled the beans I wanted to prepare as a side dish. I felt treated—and also still a bit frantic. Time felt tight for finishing up the things I wanted to do and still having the space to sit and enjoy the meal Wanja had prepared before the fire. Intent on eating, we both set off and finished our small tasks before dinner—garden work, dog walking, the rest of the food preparation. Wanja asked me again if I was certain that Heinz hadn’t invited us for dinner and I said “yes” —but, it was more like a “yesss…I’m pretty sure.” I didn't want to stir the pot, bring up confusion. Uncertaintly certain, we carried on with a pre-evening routine that flew by and brought us to the table at 19:10. I was sorry that we had a short time frame to eat such a mezza situation, but we still managed to lick the plates clean, dog-inspired. Wanja’s sarma was so good that it could’ve passed as the work of a Bosnian grandmother (picture attached) and I managed to re-create a fava bean dish I had picked up from a small Turkish restaurant in Leucadia, CA. All was good and our tum-tums were on the edge of overload. We went straight from the table to Heinz.
When we entered Heinz’s yard, we could see him moving around in the kitchen of his home and we heard the classic sounds of cooking-- chopping, sizzling, plates clinging. I was thinking no, no, no. Then, he came out with a plate of sliced cantaloupe and said the words that made my heart drop—“horderves”—appetizers—as in more was coming. Wanja looked at me with what can only be explained as tiny flames in his eyes, and I was hit with the sobering realization that yes, Heinz had prepared a 3-course meal for us and we had just stuffed sarma that I should’ve prepared for us (but didn’t, as we all know now) into our bellies on account of my inability to ask someone to clarify my frazzle-inspired confusion. Here was the man I wanted to impress staring at me with a plate of beautiful green cantaloupe and now I had to tell him that we’d already eaten. In the tone of a child having to explain why the cookie jar is empty, I did it. Some words were exchanged in German between Wanja and him and eventually, it was understood that I misunderstood. I looked at Wanja and pleaded, love me. I'll eat the cantaloupe anyway. Because the hilarity of the situation failed to escape any of us, we did get to laugh about it and praise what a good story it'd be for the future grandchildren. But sometimes, when Heinz left the room, I watched Wanja teeter from hating to loving me, which made me laugh harder and made it easier to love the mistake.
All in all, it was a good story—the first time making sarma, the first time truly “meeting” Heinz, and a good lesson in time management for me. Also, we ate all the food Heinz prepared—with pleasure—and I think he liked me anyway.
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