It is difficult to resist the invitation of Ada Parellada. Since 2011, the cook at the Semproniana restaurant in Barcelona has celebrated International Women’s Day by bringing together women from all walks of life for a dinner that she has dubbed the Festa del Davantal: “One of the first gestures of the feminists was to hang the apron to claim that they could carry out a job, just like men, beyond the walls of the home. And with this party I demand that we put on our aprons but because we want to and not out of obligation”, explains Ada Parellada.
“I must be one of the oldest, because I have been here since the first edition,” explains the clown Pepa Plana. The most wonderful thing is that many friendships have arisen because while you cook you can be next to fantastic women, and with whom you would never have met in another place”. Because divided into four groups, they cook dinner themselves: vegetable rolls, salmon blinis, stuffed aubergines and financial cakes.
Marina Rossell made her debut on Monday at the Festa del Davantal and when it finished she was forceful with her definition: “This is like an antiaging, a cure against aging”. The singer was chatting with the very young Suu, which is the second year that she has participated. “In 2022 I was going a bit blind, but I had such a good time that this year I have not hesitated for a moment to come. Besides, I love to cook, especially chicken croquettes”. And she added that she would love to be called to participate in Masterchef celebrity. Meanwhile, she prepares her concert in the Sala Apolo, on April 22, to which she invited many of the davantaleres women, as they are called among themselves.
Another who is also preparing concerts is Beth, who will perform on April 22 at the Municipal Theater in Girona and on May 23 at the Luz de Gas venue in Barcelona. On Monday, the OT2 singer had just started filming a documentary about the 20th anniversary of Dime, the song that she took to Eurovision and which she has denied all these years. “After Eurovision I have not interpreted it again. Maybe I was too radical, but it was the way to chart my own path in music. This year I will include Dime in all my performances, because the song was not so bad and I will participate in the Eurovision Party on March 25 at the Sant Jordi Club”. Between cooking and cooking Suu revealed to Beth that she has a picture of her when she was 3 years old and dressed up as Beth with her dreadlocks. And the journalist Txell Bonet, another of the veteran davantalers, intervened in the conversation reminding her that she traveled to Riga to cover her participation in Eurovision.
But between laughter and dishes there were also moments to reflect on 8-M. According to the psychologist Alba Alfageme, “feminism is in a very positive moment”, but she warned that “the more progress there is a more aggressive response from the patriarchy”. The lawyer Carla Vall confessed that if she has specialized in gender violence, she is thinking of her grandmothers: “I would have liked to know everything they and the women of her generation had to keep quiet and endure.”
Núria Salán, professor of metallurgy at the UPC, works to make women inventors visible: “There are around 7,500, and most of them are unknown. Few know that we owe the refrigerator to a Florence Parpart woman, or that the bain-marie was created by the alchemist María la Judía”. Throughout this month, the Jordi Rubió library in Sant Boi has organized a traveling exhibition on women STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics), which can later be seen in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat and Vilanova.
Other leaders invited by Ada Parellada were: the Minister of Equality and Feminism Tània Verge; the journalists, Mònica Terribas, Isabel García Pagán, Anna Surinyach, Patrycia Centeno, Ana Boada, Marta Romagosa, Anna Pérez Pagés, Maria Xinxó, Esther Vera, Núria Orriols, Olga Suanya and Meritxell Falgueras, the meteorologist Mònica Usart, the gastronomist Sue Moya , the photographer Marta Mas, the screenwriter Marta Buchaca, the singers Paula Valls, Estela Wav and Anna Sardà and Laia Casanellas (Roba estesa), the ex-deputy Mireia Boya, the basketball coach Carme Lluveras, the biochemist Montse Vendrell, the architect Benedetta Tagliabue and Clara Martinez.
