El Roscón de Reyes

 El Roscón de Reyes or King Cake

 Tonight, 5th of January,  is Noche de Reyes, or the evening when the Three Kings,  Los Reyes Magos or Wise Men arrive from the Orient on camels (or helicopters or boats) to bring Christmas gifts to Spanish children.  Throughout the country there will be parades where the kings accompany their loads of colourful boxes, waving and throwing sweets to the children from atop a camel or decorated float.

And this evening or tomorrow's holiday of Epiphany will see the appearance on many tables of the ROSCÓN DE REYES, or King Cake, traditionally served on this day. Often split and served with a custard or whipped cream filling, the cake contains two surprises, a dried bean (haba) and a small ceramic figure of a king.  Whoever finds the bean in their piece of cake is obliged to pay for the roscón and the person who finds the king will be as lucky as a king in the coming year.   Here is the saying in Spanish:

"Si es el haba lo encontrado este postre pagarás, mas si ello es la figura coronado y Rey serás."

I bought my roscón at the bakery this afternoon.  

It is so special that it came in a beautiful gold box.

And I have to admit that I couldn't wait....and already had a piece!   

And I found the little ceramic king - it was Balthasar, from Egypt (or Ethiopia so they say.)

 I'll hide him back inside the cake so there will be again a lucky surprise for who has the next piece of cake!

What a Great Sunny Winter!

We're having beautiful weather with sunshine every day since we had that bad storm.
Even the blackbirds think it's time to start singing and building nests.  They are certainly coming to visit me every day.  Or rather my bird feeder.  And there's one persistent dove who must have remembered this feeding tray from last spring.
Here's one of my visiting blackbirds again:

Today I walked downtown to the main plaza.  It only took half an hour and the temperature was just right, at about 23°C (73.4°F),

Down the steps at Calle Iriarte

Tapas in Calle Iriarte

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Waffle stand in Plaza del Charco

And because we are still in the Christmas period here, there is a fairground with a giant ferris wheel set up near the fishermen's harbour.

Tomorrow evening the Three Kings will arrive bearing gifts for the children, with parades through the streets of Spain's cities and towns.  In some places live camels will be used to carry the packages, while in others decorated floats will be used.  So today, the town was still very much in a Christmas mood.

A porcelain Nativity Scene

I stopped at the Columbus Plaza to have a look at the bakery and the Roscones de Reyes, or King's Cakes,

those light and puffy pastry rings topped with candied fruit and a gold crown,  made only for the holiday of the Three Kings, on January 6th.

Here you can see a few crown-topped king cakes in the left display case.

Here below is one from a previous year at our neighbourhood bakery:

Doris holding a Roscon de Reyes or King Cake

So while I was downtown in Columbus Plaza, I decided to have lunch of....yes, roast TURKEY again.

It came in a delicious mushroom gravy with German sautéed potatoes.

Roast turkey in mushroom gravy

Well I'll leave you with thoughts of food today.  Perhaps I'll be able to take some photos of the parade tomorrow.  I hope they will have camels this year.

(If you'd care to see them, there are a few more photos from today's walk  in my slideshow.)

Thanks for dropping by and hasta la vista!