First! I found N'DUJA!!!!! Unbelievable.
FL and I rode into Udine last night to bring my digital camera to the Samsung store. It had gotten knocked out of my hand at the festival while I was trying to photograph someone spinning mozzarella strands into milky white braids. The lens is jammed, not at all uncommon and totally fixable, but we'll see what price they come up with.
As we were leaving the Samsung store I was obviously all bummed and put-out and boohoo-ing because "I just can't have anything nice", when FL interrupted my grumblings, shouting, "There it is"!
I thought, "my pretty perfectly-repaired-free-of-charge Samsung?!", but no!
It was a tiny little meat and cheese shop, named, simply, Calabria. I gasped, squealed! FL swung the car around and I dashed inside through the rain, up to the counter, where a huge be-mustached man with tiny spectacles opened up his palms and, in an accent that even I could tell was clearly from the farthest Southern depths of Italy, said,
"you look like a girl who knows what she wants; tell me".
"N'duja", I cried!
His face took on a look of surprise, and his eyes swished pointedly from left to right, as though he was suspiscious.
"N'duja? You know what that is? You know what it does to the mouths of little girls like you?"
"Yes! Of course!", I yelped, grinning wildly, practically hopping up and down with excitement, "I love it!"
"Ok, then, beautiful, here's your n'duja", he said with a mock sigh, handing me a lump of pork paste as heavy and red as raw beef. He winked. "But be careful, capisc?"

Second! I found a recipe for ajvar, the serbian red pepper spread I am now obsessed with. One can decide to omit the eggplant, or regulate the amount of spicy chili peppers, or whether to roast the garlic or mash it raw, so it can be fixed to suit anyone's taste. The recipe is incredibly simple, and I think it's a nice one to have on hand for a get together, or even a week-night dinner picker-upper.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6430271

Third! As for the birthday cake...Bentley loved his panino.