This day last week, I was invited to spend the day in Los Angeles at the
Nestlé HQ to celebrate
Dia de los Muertos! Before I arrived, I had no idea what to expect, what would you think if you were on your way to one of the world's largest chocolate companies? Yah, a Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory experience, right? You know how much I love chocolate!!
When I got there I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was a party for Latina bloggers from all across the country. The Nestlé team decorated a room with elaborate decorations and an altar for Dia de los Muertos. There were about 20 of us bloggers and we were all asked to bring an item that we felt connected us to our heritage and then talk about how it inspires us. I brought a couple images of my dad, but when it was my turn to speak, I got choked up thinking about how much I missed him, that I had to come up with a different topic altogether so I wouldn't break into tears. Actually, I would have been fine because other chicas teared up sharing their stories as well. We were an emotional group! It was a very uplifting morning and hearing everyone's personal stories brought us all close together.
Here's part of the beautiful ofrenda they made for our celebration.
Artist Danial Gayo talks to us about the importance of placing food at a Dia de los Muertos ofrenda. He also talked about how it's important to place candles and marigold flowers to provide a scent that the spirits can follow home. The scent helps open the portal between the this world and the spirit world.
Freshly baked
Pan de Muerto. We ripped it apart and devoured it!
The new granulated version of
Abuelita! It's so yummy, I've been using a teaspoon in my coffee ever since. So much easier than dissolving the tablets!
Here is one table of ladies. We had about three or four tables and we all shared personal stories about growing up, our families, school, raising kids and such. Even though we came from diverse backgrounds we found we all had a lot in common! Here are some of them that I met, check out their sites!
One of my besties, Denise from
PearMama.com!
Master papercutter,
Marcelino Sifuentes taught us how to do Mexican papercutting. He started this art form as a hobby and became so good at it that his son set upa web site for him. Marcelino said at first he laughed, but when the orders and requests for demos came in, he was delighted to have found a new career path. Now his work is shown all over the world! He doesn't use scissors, he uses traditional tools from Mexico. His work is amazing! Below are my samples I made (using scissors!)
Here we are, working on our paper cutting!
They served us a delicious lunch, but dessert was my fave - this is a chocolate pecan pie made with Abuelita! I'm going to be trying
some of the recipes here - watch for them in my Chubby Girl Delights section!
A random flower, I saw it on the way out and snapped a pic!
Thank you so much to the folks at Nestlé for inviting me to this fabulous event!
It was great to finally meet you! Hope to see you again soon!
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