03-I-2017.
Now as Smilja, aka debelamačka, is still in kantina, we decided to go for a lunch there. The time is ideal, it's past the doček, no crowd, and the weather is too, silent, no wind. The only trouble was that Neša just didn't want to go, screamed and kicked and squealed, but Stanley and Go somehow persuaded him to come. Anita didn't object, she just scanned all the views with those huge eyes.
Now we had the chance to take a better look at how the insides were done. The neons are the same as they were in the late fifties, and she didn't touch much of the rest either. The hunters' hall (behind the arch, to the right of me) still looks as it ever did (only the mural on the rear wall is fresh or refreshed), the floor made from smoothed out ground stone is the same, she just refurbished the bar and the wall paneling. And, of course, the furniture is all new.
We were alone in there. Around middle of our lunch another guy came, a retiree by the looks, and ate his lunch. Seems routine - walk, lunch, walk, nap.
Smilja says her kitchen burned, and it cost her a lot to renew. Her personel is one waiter and herself. The grub, her classic - the proper banatian soup with long noodles, three kinds of sausage and hocks, all proper.
The first shot I only now (august 2022) stitched together, even though it was not intended for it - Go actually made one shot of Neša between these, but I figured she didn't move the zoom and didn't change position much. Did a little, though, so the stuff on the table is chopped at the stitch, but the app still managed to put it together.
(... 75 words...)
The door behind them on this picture leads to the so-called winter garden, which is yet another, smaller, dining room. It used to be lined up with potted palms, ficuses (fici?), probably maintained by the famous Vlada parkar. Don't know how waiters liked it, it went two steps down.
On fifth there was snow. Not much, three fingers thick, just to make atmosphere. We still keep the spruce.
On sixth we went to Silvija and Dragan to see the baby Milan. Arpi and Boba also came. I finally put the brother and sister in the same picture and for the first time noticed that they are alike. The air was quite merry, with three kids and a baby it can't be boring. Neša and Jagoda were running around, jumping over the kids' room, zigzagging under the table, asking the adults this or that every few minutes.
The kids from the entrance (see novogradnja) came to korinđati (done on christmas eve, they go door to door like on halloween, recite or sing a bit, and get walnuts, oranges, candy from the hosts).
The kid is a sweetie, and his full head of hair grows in little typhoons, I'd say that there's not a place on it where after a few centimeters it doesn't change direction or angle, it's now upward now forwards, just chaos.
I think I was the driver for the evening and Stanley drank this time. I try not to abuse my position, except sometimes. Also, the approach to their apartment requires three quarters of a circle on the exit ramp from the overpass, and then the entrance to the parking lot isn't marked too well, what with the snow when everything looks different.
On seventh, of course, the cristmas.
Lena and Milan came, I brought dad, so it was the big christmas lunch. I poured the 2014 plum, cooled well - the temperature on the terrace was -7, so when I brought it in, it didn't just sweat, it frosted. The lunch was rich - the soup (with farina dumplings this time, so not to risk the scenes from last year, just in case, but then dad was quite composed and didn't even drink much). boiled meat, tomato sauce, something pohovano (maybe squash), roast shoulder in a plek. Then dad confessed that he didn't make a česnica (part of the ritual here, a layered cake made out of filo dough, walnuts, lots of sugar and honey, like baklava but drier) this time. She said she didn't either, but she made a cake. That was good news for him, he cleaned up the saucer with his piece.
The lunch was so huge that it led to the inevitable - Lena and Milan had a nap on the couch, and dad took the other one. He was avoiding that for yers, he'd rather fall asleep a dozen times and wake up a dozen times while sitting and pretending to be in on the conversation and then sleep when he got home.
Then I drove him home, the two drove back to Belgrade, everything was good, and only then I had my nap.
Mentions: Anita Jennifer Berger (Anita), Arpad Gunaroši (Arpi), debelaMačka, Dobrivoj Gunaroši (Boba), doček, Dragan Umljanić, Gorana Sredljević (Go), Jagoda Umljanić, Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Kantina, Milan Nastić, Milan Umljanić, Nenad Berger (Neša), novogradnja, plek, pohovano, Silvija Umljanić, Stanley Berger, in serbian