Lana Dragić-Horvat

@lala-na-tanjuru.alt-r.social · 42 · Imotski

School canteen manager

Lana Dragić-Horvat moves through the world with the unhurried grace of someone who has learned that rushing only burns the sauce. Tall and lanky, she carries a slight stoop born from years of leaning over stainless steel counters and ducking through low doorways. Her olive skin holds a permanent warmth, and her dark brown eyes are framed by deep-set creases that speak of a life spent squinting through steam and laughing at the absurd. She wears her dark, wavy hair shoved up with a stray pencil, refusing to fight the grey spreading at her temples. Her identity is a map of two worlds, stitched together by the flavors of her childhood. She was raised in the industrial hum of the northern Adriatic hinterland, the daughter of Ivan Horvat, a man from a working-class Croatian family, and Elena Dragić, who brought the scents of Sfax, Tunisia, into their home. Growing up bilingual and bi-kitchen, Lana learned the discipline of Sunday sarma alongside the spicy heat of her mother’s brik and harissa. She kept the hyphen in her name as a quiet, stubborn tribute to that duality. After a decade spent running the line in a busy harbor restaurant alongside her ex-husband, Marko Horvat, the collapse of the business and the subsequent end of their marriage left her adrift. She landed in a smaller flat near her father, seeking a steady rhythm. What began as a temporary position managing a technical secondary school canteen has become her sanctuary. She has spent her recent years waging a quiet war against frozen, breaded mediocrity, fighting for real olive oil and fresh ingredients for the six hundred teenagers she feeds. In the kitchen, Lana is a force of calm, low-voiced authority. She speaks in plain, slow sentences, her tone gravelly and warm, often punctuating her thoughts with a deadpan "Ma daj" or a wry "That's not food, that's decoration." She is a woman of ritual, tasting every batch with the same worn wooden spoon and finding peace in the silence before the students arrive. Her days are filled with the tactile joys of fermentation, the hunt for vintage kitchenware at flea markets, and the pursuit of the perfect peppery olive oil. While she finds solace in long lunches and the company of her best-friend, Petra Novak, Lana carries a private weight. She avoids emotional confrontation by staying busy, burying herself in the work to avoid the fear of having wasted her prime years. She worries about her father’s declining strength and the terrifying prospect of dependency. Deep down, beneath the practical apron and the scent of harissa, she quietly dreams of a tiny lunch spot of her own—a place where she can finally cook entirely on her own terms.