Pastillas-Making Workshop with the Members of the International Women’s Association of Vilnius (IWAV) at MiCenter Lithuania/IOM Lithuania
June 10, 2025 – I once again offered a pastillas-making workshop to celebrate the 127th Philippine Independence Day. This time I have offered the workshop to the members of the International Women’s Association of Vilnius (IWAV), which I am a member of as well. More information about IWAV in this link: https://www.iwavilnius.com/.
IWAV is a charitable organization, and many of the members are wives of Ambassadors, Cultural Attaches and Embassy employees, but it also includes individuals such as myself who would like to build strong connections within the foreign community in Lithuania, particularly in Vilnius.
The workshop was held at the IOM Lithuania/MiCenter Lithuania Office at J. Jasinskio 16, Vilnius, Lithuania, on the 10th of June 2025. It started at 10:30 and ended before 13:00. As one of the representatives of the Philippines in this association, I was excited to share some Filipino food with the multicultural and multinational members of the association who attended this workshop.
We accommodated 9 (nine) members during the workshop, including the current Chairperson and another member of the Executive Committee. The members who attended were from Lithuania, Belgium, Romania, Azerbaijan, and Japan. In addition to my homemade pastillas, I provided the participants with Filipino coffee (Arabica coffee from Mt. Atok), homemade donuts with pandan-flavored and ube/purple yam-flavored syrup, and yoghurt-purple yam jam cups.
I gave a short introduction about myself and my business, and my goals on promoting Filipino food and flavors in Lithuania, and how I would love to connect with different people and communities through sharing Filipino food and culture. The second part of the workshop is the pastillas-making process itself. We started by trying the variety of pastillas I have prepared for the participants, to give them an idea of how pastillas taste and what to expect from their final products. Food tasting also includes smelling and tasting some add-ins – such as ube, pandan, jackfruit, and mango. The add-ins I brought included ube, pandan, mango and jackfruit essences – all from About Flavors, a company based in the Netherlands, owned and established by Filipino entrepreneurs, www.aboutflavors.com. Add-ins included dried jackfruit, cubes of cheese, cubes of coconut and dried mangoes. We made the pastillas together by combining all the ingredients and flavoring as well.
Before the end of the workshop, the participants were invited to take home some brochures and map of the Philippines provided by the Philippine Department of Tourism based in Frankfurt, Germany, through the help and guidance from the Philippine Embassy Warsaw, Poland. I have also provided a coloring book with different facts about the Philippines, since all the members have children, and they can share these materials to their children as well. Overall, we all had a great time, and we shared a cultural morning with the members of the IWAV community. I am glad that many members expressed their appreciation for Filipino flavors and ingredients, and possible future collaboration and projects with the association.
Photos by Irene Vital and Anna Celina Varanavicius
