The Oil & Asparagus Fair of Godall welcomes the second Encounter of Ralda+Friends Adopters

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The week-end of 11-12 March, while the Oil & Asparagus Fair was taking place in Godall, our village welcomed the Second Annual Encounter of Ralda&Friends “Padrinos” (Adopters). Some 20 people, coming from Spain, Switzerland and France came to discover the origins of our project and enjoyed a wonderful Mediterranean day with temperatures close to 30ºC in some moments of the day.

The activity with our friends started by 9.30 by having breakfast on the Fair installations, with typical bread, “botifarra amb ailoli” (Catalan sausage) and asparagus omelette (stay connected as we are publishing the recipe soon). Then, they walked the Fair stands, where the local associations and craftsmen were showing the works they had been doing through the previous year.

The Mill

After that, we all visited the new Oil Mill of Godall, where the olives from our olive trees are milled, processed and their juice bottled until the purest Ralda+Friends oils are produced. The staff of the Cooperative of Godall gave us complete explanations on the productive process. This year they were awarded the Prize CDO to the best extra virgin olive oil of 2016 by the Tarragona Province administration.

Alfredo’s speech at the opening of the Fair

The explanations and a taste of the different varieties of oils lead the group to noon and we all returned to the village to listen to the protocolary speeches. This year we had the enormous honour to have our Alfredo Ralda as speaker, detailing the wonders of our “terroir” and encouraging everyone to work for the excellence and spreading the storytelling of our community around the world. After that, Alfredo cut the ribbon and the Fair was officially inaugurated. Then, the local music band played the traditional “jotas y pasodobles” to show the true feeling of a village that feels proud and happy.

Lunch time and visit to La Serra

As it happened last year, our lunch time was the best moment to share friendhips among R&F friends and our family. We went to the “El Caçador” restaurant, in the close village of Els Valentins. There we had more delicatessen: rice, meat, fish, wines, desserts…. By 4.00pm we all made a walk to our La Serra field, where some adopters discovered our olive trees. Some of them did it for their very first time. We took some pictures of the wonderful views and a went back to the village, following a long path that lead us to the Cap d’Assens natural source, the cave of Cova de la Vila and a lot of histories and local legends from the area.

See you on 2018

Some of our friends came back home the same day. All of them with the feeling of having spent a wonderful day, with plenty of friendship and learnings. Some others decided to stay close as they wanted to keep on joining the Fair the next day or visit the Montsia.

We want to thank them all (the ones who came and the ones who were unable to attend) and invite everyone to the next Encounter, next year.

Alfredo & Pierre RALDA

PS Thank you very much to Casi and Josep Maria from the Godall Cooperativa as well as all its members, », la yaya Pili  Aitana, Alain, Alexandre, Alix. Christophe, Ester, Félix, Ghislaine, Isabelle, Joaquim José, Josep, Marga, Maria José, Mario, Nicolas, Ramón, Ysé, and our Friends from  “Salvem Lo Montsia”.