Sometimes you eat something and it is so good everything you eat after it gets compared to that one perfect dish. It is not to say you can’t enjoy a meal after this perfect plate, but when you eat the same food again, it is always measured against that one amazing moment.
This is what fish is for me. Every time I eat fish, no matter how good, I am always reminded of the trout in Otočac.
“The best is the enemy of good.”
Voltaire
Not a great night sleep. A small bed and quite a bit of noise from drunk punters on the street. The afternoon nap yesterday didn’t help and I was awake at 04:30.
Shell gave me three choices for the day.
- We hang around Zagreb for the day
- We catcha train somewhere
- We hire a car and drive to Otacǎc for lunch
We shower and head to The Boogie Lab for coffee and breakfast. Full details on that excursion here
We head to the train station to grab some train tickets to Ljubljana. Its a two hour trip and our train departs at 12:15.
We walk a few kilometers to a car rental but nothing is available. A few more and we are in luck. In 20 minutes we are driving a KIA Picanto to Otacǎc. It is a grey day and the temperature is dropping. As we gain elevation we get a few snow flakes. The trees are bare and the landscape is as grey as the sky. It is a perfect winter day.
“In the middle of winter I at last discovered that there was in me an invincible summer.”
Albert Camus
The last time we were in Otocǎc it was Spring heading into Summer. The days were warm and we were on the end of an 8 month bicycle tour. We crossed a bridge just outside of Ćovići. The river Gacka is crystal clear. It flows fast and even though it is deep, you can see all the way to the bottom.
We pulled over to take in the stunning water. Peering into its clear blue depths you could see trout swimming against the current. Dozens of them. We must have spent half an hour watching the fish sit in the fast moving water before riding a few kilometers to our place in Otacâc.
Shell found a restaurant just out of town on the same river. We jumped on our bikes and headed out. For lunch we had trout caught that morning from the same river we watched them swim in an hour before. It was one of the most memorable meals of our trip, maybe even the best I have had.
Freshness makes a difference. Davey paddles the waters of Dora Creek every morning and if you are lucky enough to be there when he lands a big lizard you get something special. Gutted and filleted that morning, cooked in butter and lemon off the tree in the yard, it almost matches the trout of Otacǎc.
“Then he felt the gentle touch on the line and he was happy.”
Erenest Hemmingway
The weather is different, last time it was so warm we had to move into the shade.
We arrive at Bistro Ribić and it is just how I remember it. The Gacka has more water and the skies are grey. The weather is cold and the trees on the mountains are bare, but it is the same place. We get a table on the river and when we are given the menu Shell shows the waitress a picture from the last visit.
We order a carafe of house white to drink while the fish is cooked. It comes out exactly like before. Two plate sized rainbow trout each. Boiled potatoes and spinach on the side. The only accompaniment is olive oil and chopped garlic with parsley in the same oil.
Beautiful. Delicious.
We drive out to the bridge we first saw the trout in 18 months ago. The water is deeper, but still clear. There is no trout. Apparently they move into different currents in the winter.
As we drive home Shell mentions the only difference between the two lunches was the freedom we had on the bicycles. We love our jobs and they afford us the privilige to return to places like Italy and Croatia. To see new places like Slovenia. But jobs are commitment, a necessary commitment, but they dictate how you use your time. They create end points and start points, narrow how you see things and places. Time is our most precious commodity, you can’t replace it when it is gone. When we were riding, our time was ours. We had the freedom to do what we wanted. As good as our life is, our time no longer belongs to us. We have traded our time for the money and it is costing us our freedom.
“You must learn one thing:
the world was made to be free in.Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learnanything or anyone
David Whyte
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.”
We drop the car off and walk home. An hour or two for the blog before we head out for dinner. It is busier than the evening before. I am not really in the mood for crowds so we head back to Oranź Wine Bar for tomato soup.
Home. Bed.
Slovenia tomorrow. Ljubljana has a lot to live up to after Zagreb.
If it lets us down, it is Leanda’s fault.
The two plates, 18 months apart.
