Pieces of My Weekend.

My birthday weekend commenced with a 7am wake-up for homemade french toast and bacon (a massive surprise, considering Chris hasn't shown much talent in the kitchen beyond ordering delivery online...), he also gave me a pair of cocktail earrings with olive colored stones.

After work (and a much needed nap), Chris picked me up from my apartment to hail a cab to the East Village for dinner at my favorite Serbian restaurant. We nibbled on our usual dishes: lamb stew and grilled pork. As we finished our bottled of wine from Montenegro, Chris insisted on dessert and I requested a few shots of slivovitz. He pushed the table aside and got on his knee with the most beautiful ring I could have ever imagined (complete engagement story to follow!)

After a chorus of applause and what seemed like endless photos from the photographer, he ushered me into a limo outside. We drove around the city for hours- calling family and celebrating with each other.

The next morning, we decided to walk to Union Square to run some errands. We stopped at Delicatessen for a spot-on brunch. We couldn't stop looking at photos from last night and our months of past adventures.

As the afternoon burned off, my best friend came over to sip a glass of bubbly before we joined a bar crawl. We split bottles of procesecco at the Tribeca Grand....

and decided to pop into the SoHo Grand for more bottles of prosecco. The low lights and popping of corks matched our celebratory mood.

Our group swelled and dwindled throughout the night. We decided on dinner at Felix: l'oigon gratinee, l'aissiette de fromage, escargot (avec beurre!) and steak tartar avec frites. The plates were gorgeously satisfying with bottles of red wine.

To punctuate the idyllic weekend, I met two lady friends from my hometown for brunch at Fresh Salt. We enjoyed lox, speck omelets, salads and coffee. We chatted for over five hours and shared a double chocolate chip cookie for dessert. Amazing.

a dinner at Kafana

We rolled out of a cab and into the cutting chill in the East Village for dinner. Kafana, "neighborhood restaraunt," is Manhattan's only Serbian restaurant. With our shared Balkan roots, we couldn't resist a slow dinner in the tiny, warm venue. Distressed brick, tightly packed tables and cyrillic posters define the candlelit room. My partner ordered two double slivovitz while we perused the menu.

Our server pushed a couple in close to us and announced, "I will tell you all-- the specials today-- together," in her deliciously throaty accent. All were heavily influenced by pork and other meat of unspecified origin. "You clearly have Balkan blood," she coaxed for the specifics of our heritage.

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We selected a bottle of Plantaze cabernet (Montengro, 2007) and nibbled complimentary house bread with ajvar (a paste of eggplant and peppers). A gorgeous marriage of familiarity and comfort- the paste is among the best I've sampled. To boot, the wine exhibited a surprising fruit of berries well suited for the cold.

He insisted that we share an order of the lepinja sa kajmakom- a traditional bread sandwiched around creamy spread with the added smoked meat (two dollar suppliment). Served warm, the dish is quite wonderful with what I determined to be the proscuitto family and the sauce just a tad lighter than cream cheese.

After conversing with the folks to our left (former colleague of mine) and the sweet couple to our right that showered us in our wine (kindly picking up our slivovitz tab in apology), we settled into our mains. He had the cevapi- traditional grilled minced meat with a small bowl of chopped white onion on side. For myself, the rolovane suve sljive: prunes stuffed with walnuts and cheese, rolled in bacon with chicken liver rolled in the bacon. Arranged with a heap of red cabbage salad, the rich dish is generous and deeply satisfying.

As we sunk into our seats tipsy on the wine, the food, the slivovitz and conversation- three musicians sauntered out to play Serbian music.

images: from my iPhone