Column: For Lent, I finally cooked my mother’s capirotada recipe. It was OK — and that’s OK

The bread was burned. Accompanying the piece was a recipe for my Mami’s capirotada, along with a promise to myself at the end to make it for my family the following year even though I had never attempted anything more complex in the kitchen than a quesadilla. Well-meaning aunts fed me other Lenten dishes to lift my spirits — chile rellenos, shrimp fritters, potato tacos, bean gorditas, and so much more — but I couldn’t bring myself to try their capirotada. When Ash Wednesday came this year, I vowed anew to make my Mami’s capirotada … and the excuses came faster than a Shohei Ohtani fastball. Food A holiday Mexican bread pudding comes off the secret menu The title of Arizona poet laureate Alberto Álvaro Ríos’ memoir is “Capirotada,” the name of the anything-goes bread pudding from Mexico that typically shows up on menus around Los Angeles during Lent.