* * * * *
 Specialized Tours of Spain & Tour Advice 
 Gerry
 Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía 
(National Gastronomy Award).
 
  For
 custom-designed tours of Spain, organized and led by Gerry Dawes and 
Spanish wine, food, cultural and photographic itineraries, send 
inquiries to: gerrydawes@aol.com     
 
  "Gerry
 Dawes, the unbridled Spanish food and wine enthusiast cum expert whose 
writing, photography, and countless crisscrossings of the peninsula have
 done the most to introduce Americans—and especially American food 
professionals—to my country's culinary life.  At a time when most food 
journalists were writing about France and Italy, Gerry went off in his 
own direction to become the first to really tell the story of Spain. But, for Gerry, Spain is more than just the Adriàs and (Juan Mari and Elena) Arzaks.  He has connected with all manner of people working at every level and in every corner of Spain.  I’m always amazed at this reach.  You
  can step into a restaurant in the smallest town in Spain, and it turns
 out they know Gerry somehow.” - - Chef-restaurateur-humanitarian José 
Andrés, Nobel Peace Prize Nominee and Oscar Presenter; Chef-partner of 
Mercado Little Spain at Hudson Yards, New York.
 
Click on title to see full post. 
 
 
 
 
"Before the golden age of food travel media, and
long before Spain became the world’s most exciting food destination, there was
Gerry Dawes. A walking (and eating) encyclopedia of Spanish food and
culture—from tapas to the culinary innovators, from artisan winemakers and
cheesemakers to the sites only the locals know—Gerry has chronicled them all.
 Like few others, he continues to inspire and inform a generation of food
writers, travelers, and chefs like me." – Dan Barber, Chef at Blue Hill New York
and Blue Hill at Stone Barns, author of The Third Plate:  Field Notes on the Future of Food.
"Prowling through the bodegas, tapas bars, and markets
of Spain with Gerry Dawes is an educational experience, sure, but more than
that it’s an inside look at one of the world’s great gastronomic cultures, and
more than that, it’s just a whole lot of fun. Gerry knows almost anyone
you’d want to know in this delicious world, and those he doesn’t know, once he
meets them, aren’t strangers for long. If you’ve never been to Spain with
Gerry, don’t give up hope. It might happen yet. In the meantime, though, Sunset
in a Glass will give you a tantalizing taste of the experience." –
Colman Andrews, author of Catalan Cuisine and co-founder of Saveur
magazine.
 
   
Gerry Dawes in Madrid taking Chefs Tetsuya Wakuda, Charlie Trotter, Norman Van Aken and their wives and guests to Marisquería Rafa in Madrid.
 
 
"I
 have said this before and I’ll say it again, nobody knows Spain like 
Gerry Dawes. I sincerely doubt that there is another American, and very 
few, if any, Spaniards can approach, let alone surpass his knowledge of 
the people, food, wine and culture of Spain. He has been frequenting the
 depths, breadths and heights of the country as a second home for nearly
 fifty years, leaving no stone, and especially no wine, un-turned during 
that time. I have come to know him as a good friend over the ten years 
or so and have now had the pleasure to travel around Spain with him on a
 number of occasions, including last year, when he led my son and me on 
La Ruta del Ibérico, a tour of the major Jamón Ibérico de Bellota 
regions of Spain, which is to say the finest pork producing regions of 
the world. This year, Gerry and I did something a little different and 
no less unforgettable – we visited the finest wine regions of Spain, 
wining and dining like kings along the way."-- Dosconz:  Musings on Food & Life
 
   Baseball great Keith Hernandez checking out a paella in Andalucia. 
I have 
planned and led tours for such culinary stars as Chefs Thomas Keller, 
Mark Miller, Mark Kiffin, Michael Lomonaco, Michael Chiarello, John Sconzo, Rozanne Gold and Michael Whiteman and 
such personalities as baseball great Keith Hernandez.   I have led numerous others on shorter excursions  (or
 have given 
detailed travel advice)to many other well-known chefs and personalities 
such as Drew Nieporent, Danny Meyer, Ruth Reichl, Norman Van Aken, 
Charlie Trotter, Tetsuya Wakuda, Bryan Miller, Georges Mendes, Karen 
Page and Andrew Dornenberg, and James Campbell Caruso.  
 * * * * * 
“The American writer and town crier for all good Spanish things Gerry 
Dawes . . . the American connoisseur of all things Spanish . . .” Michael Paterniti, The 
Telling Room: A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge and The World’s Greatest
 Piece of Cheese
 * * * * *
Walking around the exhibition floor (at Madrid Fusión 2014) 
 between sessions, I ran into — among
others — writer/photographer and wine importer Gerry Dawes (whose 
knowledge of all things Spanish is encyclopedic). . . - - Colman 
Andrews, The Daily Meal  
 
 
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 The late Chef Michael Chiarello at Breakfast in San Sebastián on a trip with Gerry Dawes.
 
"Gerry Dawes, I can't thank you enough for opening up Spain to 
me." -- Michael Chiarello on Twitter. 
"Chiarello embarked on a crash course by traveling to Spain for 10 days in 2011 with Food Arts 
contributing
 authority Gerry Dawes, a noted expert on Spanish food and wine.  
Coqueta's (Chiarello's new restaurant at Pier Five, San Francisco) chef 
de cuisine, Ryan McIlwraith, later joined Dawes for his own two week 
excursion, as well. Sampling both old and new, they visited wineries and
 marketplaces, as well as some of Spain's most revered dining 
establishments, including the Michelin three-star Arzak, Etxebarri, the 
temple to live fire-grilling; Tickets, the playful Barcelona tapas bar 
run by Ferran Adrià and his brother, Albert; and ABaC, where Catalan cooking goes avant-garde." - - Carolyn Jung, Food Arts, May 2013.
* * * * *
 
James Michener and Gerry Dawes at Michener´s home in Austin, Texas.   
"In
  his nearly thirty years of wandering the back roads of Spain," Gerry  
Dawes has built up a much stronger bank of experiences than I had to  
rely on when I started writing Iberia...His adventures far exceeded mine
  in both width and depth..." -- James A. Michener, author of Iberia: Spanish Travels and Reflections
 _________________________________________________________________________________________________   
About Gerry Dawes
 
Gerry
 Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía 
(National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on 
Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural 
tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's 
Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava 
Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, 
was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles 
& Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 
2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature 
in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about 
Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià. 
 In December, 2009, Dawes was awarded the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by José Andrés.
". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran 
Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow 
narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish 
correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food 
journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a 
self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table.  Gerry once again 
brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane 
Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, 
Food Arts, October 2009.  
   
 
 Mr. Dawes in a reality television series
pilot 
on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.
 
 
 
Help Support Gerry Dawes's Spain & Its Content
If you enjoy these blog posts, please 
consider a contribution to help me continue the work of gathering all 
this great information and these photographs for Gerry Dawes's Insider's
 Guide to Spanish Food, Wine, Culture and Travel. Contributions of $5 
and up will be greatly appreciated. Contributions of $500 or more will 
be acknowledged on the blog. 
Please click on this secure link to Paypal to make your contribution.
 
 
 
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