Torrijas —and Spain’s love affair with bread
It is the Easter season, and my favorite treat is torrijas! They can be enjoyed at any time of year, but In Spain they are traditionally eaten during Holy Week and Easter.
But what are torrijas, you ask? They’re a delicious sweet bread treat, and even though I hate to make the following comparison, this is how I explain what they are here in America when asked: torrijas are the Spanish version of the French toast. Yeah, I know, who knows what came first, the torrijas or the French toast, right? But French toast is popular in America, so that is my best way to explain torrijas.
Cristo de la Palma during the Holy Week Processions (Onteniente, Spain)
Holy Thursday Procession, Maritime Holy Week in Valencia (Spain)
Come Thanksgiving, and everything is a whirlwind of events, celebrations and parties. The fact that my birthday is in early December adds to it. Not to mention the yearly tradition of attending the Handel’s Messiah concert by the 
While searching on my blog, I realized that I don’t have any post about the most important festival in Onteniente, my hometown, las Fiestas de Moros y Cristianos, the Moors and Christians Festival! Many recipes can be related to this post, so it was hard to choose, but I decided on coca de calabaza, pumpkin coca, a sweet torta popular in my region,
Coca de calabaza is a pretty simple coca, it includes only a few ingredients. It is eaten by itself, like a morning snack or an afternoon merienda, but I also like to eat it as a light lunch —never mind the sugar in it, the pumpkin 
If you’ve been following Mama Ía blog for a while you know (and have heard me say more than once) that the recipes I post are quite simple. Spanish cuisine is not complicated and it doesn’t use a ton of ingredients, relying more on excellent ones cooked without many adornments.
Today’s recipe, Alcoy meat cakes, while not hard to make, is a bit more elaborate, so I have to warn you. It also requires the dough to sit in the fridge overnight, so it’s a recipe that you need 
Oranges and almonds for a celebratory post: Mama Ía is 10 years old!
Thanksgiving came late this year, so as I kept basting the turkey every thirty minutes, I was already thinking of recipes for Christmas. With the aroma of the bird roasting in the oven, football on TV as the background sound and the sight of two of my children relaxing on the sofa —a heavenly picture, given that they had not been home since the summer—, my mind kept going back to …yule log!
Thanksgiving will be in just a couple of months, so it is not too early to start thinking and planning for it. In my case, it means getting flights for my sons to come home! But it also means starting to think about delicious meals to prepare while they are home. I think they are going to love this chocolate and coffee mousse cake. It could be made for the big day, but also for any of the other few days they will be home, since each of those days will be precious and celebratory.
What a whirlwind the last few months have been. There’s been travel (a lot of it!), for celebrations, for vacation and for soccer. But most importantly, there have been milestones and “the last of” for my son David. I’ve been able to prepare a few recipes to share on the blog, but for this post, I wanted a sweet one, coca de pasas y nueces, raisins and walnuts cake, because sweet always means celebration.
I will tell you about some of the trips in future posts, but for now, I want to celebrate David. Because my youngest, the “baby,” is wrapping up his life as a minor (he turned 18 this month!) as a high school student (he just graduated!), and 
Citrus marmalades are my favorite ones and since I already featured the recipe for 
And with this recipe, it’s time to address the beloved and most idiosyncratic meal in the Spanish culture: la merienda.
Galette des rois is not, as the name implies, a Spanish treat but a French one.
The feast of the Epiphany, celebrated on January 6, commemorates the visit of the Three Kings, the Three Wise Men, to baby Jesus in Bethlehem. In Spain, the feast is widely celebrated, marking