Abundance, more than anything else, is a key component of
Jovancicevic’s strategy, not just in entertaining but in cooking at
home as well. (“I relate to the Romans in that way,” she says.)
Her refrigerator positively overflows with fruits and vegetables,
and the dishes that she teaches me wouldn’t be out of place in
Brobdingnag from Gulliver’s Travels.
Her gibanica, a Serbian specialty that involves dipping phyllo
dough in a bowl full of eggs, feta cheese, goat cheese, and a Serbian
cheese called kajmak, then piling it up in a springform pan and
baking until it emerges golden brown from the oven, is an absolute
spectacle.
Her braised rabbit with carrots and mushrooms is hearty
enough to sate you for days, and her plum dumplings are a meal in
themselves. Clearly, no one leaves hungry when they come to visit
Jovancicevic. “I don’t know how to do a small amount,” she says.
Yet, despite her knack for abundance, Jovancicevic isn’t
impractical when she entertains. At her Christmas party, she
served the food on heavy-duty, biodegradable paper plates. She
bought her flowers from the flower district in New York. The key
is to create a feeling of abundance without breaking the bank: “At
my parties, it just feels over the top.”
At an engagement party that she threw, she brought a whole
smoked pig’s head from Fatty ’Cue, the restaurant of her ex-
husband, Zak Pelaccio. “I love the visual effect,” she explains.
“You eat it off the cheek.”
Less may be more in some circles, but at Jovancicevic’s more is