We all jumped out of our chairs yesterday afternoon when Ivan Rakitic nailed the final penalty kick to send Croatia past Denmark in the knock out round of the World Cup yesterday.
But, really, only one of us is a super fan.
Wearing her lucky dress, with her legs still a little charred from the afternoon she spent roasting garlic, red peppers and eggplant over an open flame to prepare Ajvar, a traditional Croatian condiment, Molly could not wait for game time.
She’d been following Croatia through the group phase of the tournament and spent a hot and sticky Saturday afternoon happily baking buck wheat sour dough bread and charring her Ajvar ingredients over a camp fire she’d built for that purpose.
Occasionally, one of us would pop out of our cabin to check on her.
Pink-cheeked and sweaty, she’d smile widely and say, “I think it’s going really well.”
We’d give her a thumbs up and scurry back to our blessedly cool cabin. All told, her game day snack took hours of roasting, peeling, blending, seasoning, storing, rising, growing, kneading, rising, kneading, rising, and baking.
She loved every minute.
After the game, we headed back to our house where we toasted Croatia, with some wood fire baked bread, ajvar and Plavac, a Croatian wine.
And, because she loves to cook and she doesn’t want to mess with the juju, before Croatia lines up against host team Russia on Saturday, Molly’s going to make the whole spread all over again.
Zivjeli!
