Want to give your Dad or the special family guy in your life a unique gift? Why not give him a gift of flavorful Spain? Spaniards love a fiesta – gathering friends and family together to enjoy great food and wine is second nature.

Here are some great gift ideas to help you celebrate Father’s Day in the Spanish style – paella burners for an outdoor paella party, distinctive Spanish grilling sausages, and festive porron wine pitchers are just a few ways to celebrate Spanish-style. Show Dad how much you love him.

Paella Burner with Rolling Stand – Roll this solid paella burner out, hook it up to a standard propane bottle, and you are ready to cook a paella, as easy as that! All you need to do is start cooking (attaches to a normal U.S. propane tank.) Read more about it here.

Glass Porrón Wine Pitcher – The porrón wine pitcher is a festive way to serve wine or sangria. Just pick up the porrón and tilt it so that a thin stream of wine pours directly into your mouth! It takes some skill, but it is fun at a party to see how well you and your friends master the technique. Each porrón holds 1 liter, well over a bottle of wine. Read more about it here.

Grilling Sampler of Spanish Sausages – A selection of three distinct sausages of Spain… all ready for the grill! Slice them in 2 inch chunks for crispy, flavorful bites, or roast them whole. Read more about it here.

Spanish Wine and Cheese Party – Have a pleasant wine and cheese party, with no effort at all! You and your friends can savor three of Spain’s finest artisan cheeses – and then cleanse your palates with a tasty red wine. Read more about it here.

Happy Father’s Day!

Spanish Food

As my blog reader, you know that I love the Spanish food of Tapas. I am enamored with how you can create beautiful small plates with such simple ingredients. So, I decided to share with you some of those yummy ingredients that you can easily get by going to your local specialty market or by visiting my favorite place online for buying GREAT Spanish food, La Tienda.

Here’s a list of some delicious ingredients. Then visit my Tapas Small Plates page to get some great ideas for Tapas. Enjoy!

Jamón Serrano or Serrano Ham is the famous dry-cured ham of Spain, with Jamón Ibérico the king of Serrano hams. Depending on the recipe, its easy to replace with bacon, or your local ham – such as York ham or Virginia ham.

Chorizo is Spain´s spicy sausage. Other Spanish sausages include Morcilla, made from blood and similar to English black pudding, and Butifarra – a white sausage made from pork, tripe, and pine-nuts. If you can’t find it, you can always replace with a spicy sausage, black pudding, or white sausage from your
own country.

Piquillo Peppers – are small, pointed red peppers from the region of Navarre, which are canned and sold throughout Spain. Replace with canned, ordinary red peppers, or roast a fresh red pepper yourself.

Saffron – is derived from a certain strain of crocus, and used to flavor and bestow that golden-yellow color to dishes.

Cheese – Spain has numerous regional artisan cheeses and, when a certain one is specified, a description of its type follows in brackets, [hard, soft, blue, etc.] Use your local equivalent.

It’s great if you can use authentic ingredients from Spain for your Tapas and cooking Spanish foods, but if not, then use the equivalent. It’s all good!