…a certain special ingredient comes into my bread…

Wherever life may take you, you always fondly recall the scents, images and people of your childhood. Those memories stay with you your whole life long. They are part of you, however your life looks today and wherever you find yourself, they remain a part of you. Even today you can feel them just as strongly. This story bears that out too.

On the island of Garmenjak, it was not unusual for people of the same surname to marry, even though there was a chance they were distant blood relatives. This was also the cause of the degenerative traits among the Roman emperors, the Julio-Claudians and the Flavians, as well as among royal families across Europe. Older women looked kindly on marriages between people of the same surname, since this had been the custom there for centuries. In the past, cases were recorded on the island of children being born deaf-mute, or with six fingers. One reason for this was that, until the middle of the twentieth century, the islanders had no contact with people living beyond the island - they did not attend secondary school or university, and were not employed in town. Quite simply, there were no places where men and women could meet one another unless they were both from Garmenjak. It was only my husband's generation that went off to school and brought back wives who were not born on the island.

And my own path led me to the island of Garmenjak, from my native village of Popovići near Benkovac. When I was due to be born, the doctor came to the house for my mother and decided to drive her in his Fiat 750 (a little "Fićo") to the surgery in Benkovac. But I was in a hurry, and I came into this world in the car. That was a sign, in a way, that I would be a traveller in my life. I attended primary school in my native village. One day the headmaster came to us and told us that our old teacher had found a job in the city of Zadar, and that a new, young teacher would be coming to us. When she told us about herself in her first lesson, she said she was originally from a small island called Garmenjak. She had seen a notice on the noticeboard of the teacher training college and decided to work in the countryside. When she mentioned the name of that island, a certain pleasant feeling came over me. I imagined a wooded island out at sea, fishermen getting up early in the morning to go and check their nets, sheep grazing on the hillsides. Later it turned out that I would be bound to that island by fate. After the lesson, I stayed behind in the classroom and asked the teacher to tell me a little more about her island. She smiled and told me about its geography and about the people who lived there. A mutual liking grew between us, so that my family often invited the teacher to Sunday lunch. I listened to her stories with great pleasure.

After finishing the eight years of primary school, my path took me to Zagreb. My aunt lived there; after the Second World War she had stayed on in Zagreb with her husband, who was a career military man. Since they had no children of their own, they took me in as their own child. I enrolled in catering college. We girls from Popovići have skilful hands. Some of the girls became hairdressers, some seamstresses, some nurses. My other aunt went to live in San Pedro, California, where she set up a business for sewing curtains and interior decorating, called Final Touch. We all had some unusual gift in our hands. Whatever our eyes see, our hands can make.

One day I was walking along Ilica and, I don't even know how, my bag slipped off my shoulder, fell to the ground, and all my books and notebooks spilled out onto the pavement. Luckily it was dry weather, because if it had been rainy, I would have had to dry them by the stove all afternoon. A passer-by immediately came to my aid and helped me gather up my scattered things. I thanked him and invited him for a coffee. He told me:

-        "I'm a medical student. I'm not from Zagreb. I come from a small island that isn't very well known. Its name is Garmenjak. I came here to study because I have an aunt living here. I'm staying with her."

When he said the name of that island, something passed through my whole body. A feeling of pleasure. I felt that this was the finger of fate. Some call it God's plan. What that plan was, I did not know at the time. We had so many things to talk about. A little older than me, educated, full of life. Love flared up between us. I had finished secondary school, and three years after my final exams he graduated from the Faculty of Medicine.

For those three years I worked as a young cook at the Hotel Esplanade and learned my trade. I loved my work, and I still love it today. I love making people happy in a particular way, through the taste, colour and aroma of a dish. I think of myself as an artist creating small works of art. Writers work with letters, painters with paint, sculptors with stone or plaster, and I with cooking ingredients. My culinary skills were noticed by the hotel guests. I advanced quickly and won the trust of the managers and the administration. Soon I was preparing dishes on my own. There were times when guests left their tip specifically for me. My earnings were enough for us to rent a flat near the main railway station, where the two of us moved in together. Together we made the decision to go abroad. He got a job as a doctor at a care home for the elderly in Salzburg, and I got a job at the same home as a cook. There was singing and merriment there at weekends. We saved up some money and decided to build a house on Garmenjak, so that we could spend our summers there.

I was brought up to work. Some people might rest in summer, but I am not one of them. The builders put up a komin - a black kitchen, as we call it in Popovići - next to the house. In summer I would get up early in the morning, light the fire, knead the dough and bake the bread under the peka [a domed baking lid covered with embers]. I would also bake fritule [small Dalmatian fritters] or make pizza. Everything I made turned out very tasty. The local women asked me to teach them my skill too. I always shared my knowledge with anyone who wanted to learn something from me. On the day, several women gathered, mostly younger ones. Each brought with her a kilogram of flour and a packet of Digo dried yeast. They worked just as I did. First we dissolved the yeast in a little flour and warm water. Once the yeast had "woken up", we kneaded it into the flour, added salt, and topped up with warm water as needed. We covered the dough with a kitchen cloth and let each loaf rise. While the loaves were rising, we chatted over coffee. Even while it was rising, all the women noticed that my dough was the biggest, that it had risen the best. Then we each kneaded our own bread once more and went home so that each of us could bake it on our own komin, under the peka. After baking, we met again at my house to taste the results. Mine was the best - evenly baked, burnt neither on top nor underneath. And the tastiest. The other women's loaves did not turn out the same way, and they could not understand how I managed it.

I decided to share my secret with them. I was taught how to make bread in Popovići by my grandmother Ljuba. She taught me that I must knead the bread with feeling, fully focused on the work I am doing. If, while kneading the bread, I think about something else, it will not turn out as it should. You can feel that in the bread. I have to stay composed while I work. That is how I have worked my whole life. She taught me one more thing. Before I tip the dough out of the bowl, in which it has risen twice on the warmed bricks of the komin, I make the sign of the cross over it with my right hand. Sometimes I also cut a cross into the dough before baking. Then I have the feeling that a certain special ingredient comes into my bread. Something we cannot see, but can feel. Feeling love for the work you do, and passing it on to the bread in some unusual way. That is how churches and cathedrals were built all over the world. Love is a recipe you will not find in any cookbook. Whatever you do, do it with love, and believe me, success will not fail to follow.