La Dolceria Soler & Chocolate Croissants

La Dolceria Soler, or simply La Soler, is a locally-owned bakery in El Vendrell. It has provided the town with pastries, cakes, savories and sweets since 1940.

La Dolceria Soler

mmm... fresh pastries

There are many favorable things that I could write about this bakery but the most important has to be about their chocolate croissants. I have tried many a chocolate croissant in my short life and believe me, once you eat a chocolate croissant from La Soler, you will have a difficult time finding the same level of satisfaction from other chocolate croissants.

What can be so difficult about making a delicious chocolate croissant? Or what can be so different about their chocolate croissants that it deserves a post, in and of itself?

These croissants are made with real, pure chocolate. The chocolate is soft and smooth. Inside, you don't just get a hard little bar of chocolate or chocolate cream, rather there is this perfect balance of softness and firmness, of quantity that makes every bite crave-worthy. As you can see, the ends of each side are dipped in this same pure chocolate which just add to its edibility. Finally, the pastry dough itself is not too buttery (and hence, oily) so you don't feel weighted down afterwards. It also isn't so thin that when you take a bite, it has completed diminished in size and volume. Yum!

I am pretty sure everything they have is made par excellence; their standards are high (just taste for yourself). I also tried this almond, orange sweet glazed pretzel-shaped (not pretzel bread) pastry and was equally satisfied (and surprised I liked it since it was made with orange).

They don't have a website, but you can visit their Facebook page.

Baha'i Youth Conference

In February of this year, the Supreme Body of the Baha'i Faith wrote to the Baha'is of the world, inviting them to participate in one of 114 youth conferences which would be held around the world

"To every generation of young  believers comes an opportunity to make  a contribution to the fortunes of humanity, unique  to their time of life.  For the present generation, the moment has come  to reflect, to commit, to steel themselves for a life of service from  which blessing will flow in abundance."

This past weekend, we attended the Madrid youth conference, which included hundreds of youth from Portugal, Spain, Gibraltar, and Canary Islands.

It was energizing to have these conversations with others in and around our community, to start planning how we can contribute to our community life. Kilian and I are living in a small town that at present doesn't have any children's classes or any junior youth groups. The three of us from our community were able to set the goal to become trained as junior youth animators and begin a junior youth group in El Vendrell as soon as we could. Establishing a unity of vision and relationships of mutual support and friendship are some additional fruits that came from this conference.

Here is a short video summarizing the conference in Madrid.



This is a great song that the Portuguese Baha'i Community put together for the Youth Conference.


Some photos, courtesy of Francisco González Pérez, more can be viewed on Google+:

Our facilitator, full of joy, as we consult in our small groups.

Youth performing at a plenary session.

Listening and engaged in thoughtful conversations.

Jumping!

A *free* walking tour of Madrid's main sites

Here are some photos from our one day in Madrid before the Baha'i Youth Conference, which I'll tell you about soon, and if I can find even more time, I will write more about Madrid!

Beautiful architecture on Calle Mayor

Loving the colorful buildings

One of the entrances to the Plaza Mayor

Plaza Mayor

Cute little bookshop on a side street (near Puerta del Sol)

Kilian in the Plaza de Oriente

Palacio Real

Alumdena Cathedral

Exploring Madrid's side streets (Plaza de la Villa)

Parque del Retiro

Parque del Retiro

Parque del Retiro

Puerta de Alcalá

Quilting in Catalonia (Part III)

I found this cute *free* pattern from Robert Kaufman fabrics.

Just Stroll With It Quilt (Photo courtesy of Robert Kaufman fabrics)

It's stroller size 36" by 36" but I have modified mine to be 36" by 49.5".

This quilt has been very simple and easy to do in a short period of time. I recommend it to anyone who is just beginning and wants to tip toe into the sea of quilting. Even with enlarging this quilt, cutting the fabric only took about two hours.

The most difficulty I have had with this quilt was when working with some of the ribbons I bought (which unravel easily) and with learning to use a new sewing machine.

The quilt itself comes together really quickly and I had all of it pieced in about six to seven hours, not including the two hours I spent on layout. Here are two different versions of the quilt, one is 4.5 by 5 blocks and the second is 4 by 5.5 blocks, which is the one I ultimately chose.

4.5 by 5 blocks

4 by 5.5 blocks

I couldn't find cotton batting or basting spray in town so I bought polyester batting and hand stitched the top and bottom to the batting which took about two hours. With basting spray, this can be done in ten minutes and without puncturing the fabric.

I have found that the tension on this machine is very finicky so I spent some time testing it before I started the actual quilting. It seemed like it was going to work really well until I actually started quilting. I think because of the weight of the machine and the looseness of the polyester, the machine got really confused. I tried quilting a simple straight line down the center and only got halfway through before it was totally destroying the quilt. I spent a few hours troubleshooting - sewing, unsewing, testing, sewing, unsewing before giving up and deciding that I needed cotton batting or to learn how to hand quilt. I found some batting on Amazon and I am waiting for it to arrive before I continue. (...to be continued.)

The Festa Major del Vendrell

The Festa Major or Major Feast is traditional Catalan cultural event celebrated annually. There are Festa Major's throughout Catalonia, in towns big and small. It is one of the biggest celebrations of the year for Catalans. In El Vendrell, its celebration aligns with the feast day of Saint Anne, the town's patron saint and is recognized as the most important day of the town's festive calendar.

The Festa is a multi-day event that involves fire and lights, diables (devils) and correfocs (beasts of fire or fire-runs), drumming, concerts and fireworks, among other typical Catalan cultural staples such as castellers and sardanes.

Some preliminary activities for this year's Festa Major began Saturday night. On one of the Rambla's, there was a display of all the correfocs, many of which are dragons, that El Vendrell has to offer. The correfocs are hollow which allow for one or more persons to drive them when they are lit. Each group or team associated with their respective correfoc set up an information stand for families and friends to ask questions, learn more and even buy a tee-shirt supporting their favorite correfoc!

As the sun was setting, these correfocs were ignited and the preview of what is to come next weekend was quite a spectacular!

Child devils with fireworks

A female correfoc

One large dragon correfoc, who had to be shortened so he could make it through the town's narrow streets.

More diables

Insect correfocs

Correfoc

For more information about the Festa Major of El Vendrell, visit:

1. Enfesta't
2. Ajuntament del Vendrell

For more information on Festa Major's in other towns, visit:

1. Festa.cat
2. Festa Catalunya

Bee/Wasp correfoc

Quilting in Catalonia (Part II)

The next step was finding a sewing machine. There was the question of buying a basic used machine, borrowing a machine, finding a store where I could rent a machine, etc. I had started looking from the moment we arrived but now that I had fabric, it became necessary.

There is this great second hand website that sells just about everything used (like Craigslist) called segundamano; we have found it very useful for finding baby supplies. I also searched on eBay and Amazon. What I found, though, was that in Spain (and I'm guessing, Europe in general) the available sewing machines differ greatly from what is offered in the United States. The brands are different and quilting hasn't really taken off here as it has in the States, which means getting information about if a machine can quilt or its capacity to quilt, etc. is very limited. There are some machines, of course, that are well-known in the US and in Europe (Brother, Singer, Pfaff, Bernina) but these are either ones that are available at a very low ($100-$200) or very high price-point ($1000+) and here are available beginning at a much higher price point (400€+), which means it is less affordable to begin sewing.

The machine!

Thankfully, Kilian's grandmother offered to let me use her older Singer which saved the project because we had not budgeted for a moderate to high-priced sewing machine (at least at this moment). The machine seems solid and it may even be from the 1970's. The instruction manual comes in English and I am ready to start sewing (I have already cut the fabric)!

My workstation in the basement.

Quilting in Catalonia (Part I)

As soon as I found out I was pregnant, I knew I was going to make a my baby a quilt. I love quilting and I will use any opportunity to create one. What I did not know was how difficult it would be to get going.

When we were living in Israel, there was one quilt shop that was about an hour from us by public transport that was opened on weekday mornings and some Friday afternoons - basically during our working hours. I think it opened on some Saturdays too but since that is Shabbat there, it is even harder to get around. It eventually closed last summer but I had already given up all hope for quilting in Israel. The prices for everything were high and there just wasn't time in our lives to squeeze in quilting. So I was really excited when we were leaving so I could get back in to my favorite creative hobby.

I started searching online for different fabrics to get ideas of what type of baby quilt to make before we left Israel. I even bought some cute nautical fabric from Dear Stella with the idea of taking on that trendy theme.

Selection from "All Hands on Deck" by Dear Stella

Shopping for fabric online, however, is just not the same as being able to go spend hours in a fabric store, mixing and matching different fabrics until you have the right combination for your project. Also, shipping fabric from the US to Europe or Israel is not exactly the most economical solution so I decided to wait until we arrived.

Fet A Ma Patchwork (photo courtesy of their website)

There are two small quilting shops in the town where we are living, which is AMAZING and both offer classes in applique and hand-quilting. These shops don't sell much fabric, however, so I needed to do some research about where I could find fabric stores in the area. Eventually, after trying to figure out the correct word for quilt in Catalan and Spanish, I stumbled upon a site that included a directory of quilt shops in Spain and from there it was just a matter of getting to Barcelona during their opening hours.

One rainy day, Kilian and I made our way to Barcelona and found ourselves holed up in a small fabric store for over two hours as I mixed and matched until I got the right number of fabrics and the right combination to make a simple fat quarter baby quilt.

The final selection - a clear departure from the Dear Stella nautical theme.

Poor Kilian was dying of hunger since he hadn't had lunch and I kept having him get down and put back bolts of fabric. He took leave to get a sandwich just as the rain was coming down the hardest. Of course we forgot our umbrella so he got pretty wet on his hunt for lunch. I am so thankful for his patience that day; it is small acts such as these that remind a woman of how lucky she is to have found someone so special.

Lemons and Life

A month ago, my husband and I moved to Catalonia, Spain from Israel where we were both in full-time positions. Since I am at the beginning of the third trimester of my first pregnancy and have not yet learned the Catalan language (I do have a not-quite professional level of Spanish though), I am neither working nor seeking employment. With the next few months ahead of me to transition into a new country, community and motherhood, and the months thereafter to find my place in the world and to figure out what is next, I decided to create this space to document the process. My plan is to cover this transitional phase in my life as well as other topics that interest me such as eating well, travel, culture, quilting and social action.

Much love to all!
Ashley

Lemon trees in the Serra de Tramuntana, Majorca, Balearic Islands