And the ribarska vecer was full of stalls selling fish – grilled over hot embers – small ones, even smaller ones, and octopus. It was a hot evening, and added to the heat of the fires and the smoke, that end of town had its own microclimate going on.
Striped t-shirted men were cooking and selling behind the stalls, a band was playing and a festive air was lent to that corner of town.
I talked once before about big wheels of bread filled with spinata and feta sir – then pressed flat. Well, there they were on a stall, 5 kuna a piece. I bought one, and it was so delicious that I bought another – and then just to make absolutely sure, another, and a photograph! Deliciously salty and garlicky and oily.
I didn’t try the octopus because historically octopus and I haven’t had a close relationship, and to be honest, I’m too impatient to eat the fish here with all of those bones. Fish is one of the things that New Zealand does really well (my opinion¸- although I have heard locals opine about the fish here).
There certainly seem to be a lot of the little fish in the water at the moment, obviously being chased underneath by something a lot bigger, eyeing them up for breakfast. This morning when we were rowing there were rainbow arches of the fish leaping out of the water.
I said I would mention the rowing – and so I shall. My job there is nearly done grasshopper – the fifteen or so little boys (and two girls) that I started with at the beginning of the season are nearly all flying solo (except for one last little nine year old who lives in a world of his own and gets a huge amount of enjoyment out of just organizing the shoes into rows as the boys remove them to jump into boats – oh, and he gets slightly disturbed if someone moves one – which they do to try and wind him up..) Where initially I had a row of little birds sitting on the wall to take turns in the double with me, the birds are all out there doing it in singles now. They are so cute – the one photo that I want to get is when trener tells them to bring the double out, and like a centipede, there are about 8 of them all trying to carry it together without dropping it.
The association with the rowing club has brought me a huge amount of pleasure. The boys have so much respect for trener – they don’t complain about the quality of the boats or the blades – they don’t fuss about which boat they are given, or if they have to wait a while to get a turn to row in a boat. They are polite and grateful and diligently roll out of bed four mornings a week to come to rowing.
This morning one of the older women who swims where we are training was catching the little silver fish to take home, and was having trouble with a ginger stray cat hanging around (there are heaps of strays on this part of Sveti Petar – some mornings the cat smell is disgusting). Every time she turned to try and catch more fish, the cat tried to make a move on the fish she had – Roko¸ a cute and very aware 9 year old was watching, and next thing he and Frane and Marko were racing over the kamena (rocks) chasing the cats away. But so intent and serious. They then reported back to the old lady with a shrug of shoulders and hands on hips like little old men. So cute.
Some of these little ones have been rowing just for the summer and are now returning home to other cities like Zagreb – hopefully they will keep the rowing up and continue this excellent sport. And with numbers depleted and rowing time back at 8 in the morning again soon, I will be back in a single myself, being told to row to Krvavica!
No comments:
Post a Comment