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36. Gerry Dawes's Spain: An Insider's Guide to Spanish Food, Wine, Culture and Travel gerrydawesspain.com

"My good friend 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. . .” - - Chef-restaurateur-humanitarian José Andrés, Nobel Peace Prize Nominee and Oscar Presenter 2019; Chef-partner of Mercado Little Spain at Hudson Yards, New York 2019

9/25/2019

Vicente Leal, the Maestro de Salazones (Salt-and-air cured Fish, a Craft as Old as Civilization in the Mediterrean) at the Mercado Central de Abastos de Alicante.



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 Vicente Leal, Maestro de Salazones, at his stand in el Mercado de Abastos de Alicante, where he sliced us samples of his exceptional mojama de atún and hueva de atún



Gerry Dawes's Geraldo-Dalí Persistence of Memory* (Salvador Dalí)  Melting Watch Awards.

Saturday morning, April 20, we kicked off another great day in Alicante. We first headed to the Mercado de Alicante in the pouring rain, much needed in Spain right now, and stopped for a chat, a drink and some mojama and hueva de atún from my long-time friend Vicente Leal, the great maestro de salazónes (salt-and-air cured fish, a craft as old as civilization in the Mediterrean). 

First, we found Vicente then went to the adjacent Aitana bar for a beer and some conversation, family catchup, etc., then back to Vicente´s stand, where he sliced us samples of his exceptional mojama de atún and hueva de atún


Kay with Vicente Leal a chunk of mojama that probably retails for nearly $400. 

 Vicente Leal slicing us samples of his exceptional mojama de atún and then hueva de atún


Vicente Leal´s exceptional hueva de atún



 The great Vicente Leal, maestro de salazones (salt-and-air cured fish, a craft as old as civilization in the Mediterrean) at market bar Aitana in el Mercado de Abastos de Alicante.



* * * * *
  Shall deeds of Caesar or Napoleon ring
More true than Don Quixote's vapouring?
Hath winged Pegasus more nobly trod
Than Rocinante stumbling up to God?

Poem by Archer M. Huntington inscribed under the Don Quixote on his horse Rocinante bas-relief sculpture by his wife, Anna Vaughn Hyatt Huntington,
in the courtyard of the Hispanic Society of America’s incredible museum at 613 W. 155th Street, New York City.
 _______________________________________________________________________________________
 Gastronomy Blogs

About Gerry Dawes

My good friend 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." -- Chef-restaurateur-humanitarian José Andrés, Nobel Peace Prize Nominee and Oscar Presenter 2019


Gerry Dawes is the Producer and Program Host of Gerry Dawes & Friends, a weekly radio progam on Pawling Public Radio in Pawling, New York (streaming live and archived at www.pawlingpublicradio.org and at www.beatofthevalley.com.)

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. 


". . .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. 
 
Pilot for a reality television series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.
 

9/20/2019

Customized Insiders' Gastronomic, Wine and Cultural Trips to Spain With Long-Time Spain Expert Gerry Dawes & Former New York Times Restaurant Reviewer-Author Bryan Miller



* * * * *

Bryan Miller and Gerry Dawes

Gerry Dawes and Bryan Miller have teamed up to offer unique, custom-designed trips to Spain.  Imagine being deep inside the real Spain with two maestros, writer-photographer-lecturer Gerry Dawes, recipient of the Spanish National Gastronomy Prize and an acclaimed expert with an insider’s perspective on Spanish food, wine, culture and history, and the legendary former (and longest tenured) restaurant critic of The New York Times, Bryan Miller, who offers a top food writer’s perspective on Spanish cuisine and has traveled in Spain with Gerry Dawes on several occasions.  



José Andrés, Gerry Dawes and Bryan Miller at Mercado Little Spain, New York

"But, for Gerry Dawes, 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 2019; Chef-partner of Mercado Little Spain at Hudson Yards, New York 2019

Gerry Dawes with Eugenio Merino in winter in the Merino family vineyards in Corcos del Valle (Valladolid) in the Cigales D.O.  Eugenio and his family produce Viña Catajarros, one of the great rosados from Spain in old vine vineyards that resemble those of France´s Châteauneuf-du-Pape.


Bryan Miller in upstate New York at work on a manuscript.

Bryan Miller reigned as the longest tenured New York Times Restaurant Reviewer for a decade and has also written hundreds of food, wine and travel articles for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Philadelphia Inquirer and other top publications and is the author of numerous books.  Among many awards, Miller has received The Associated Press and The James Beard Foundation Journalism Awards Best Feature Article Award and the James Beard Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award.  Bryan Miller lived in Spain and studied at the University of Salamanca. 
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* * * * *

We can custom design and lead trips ranging from couples and small groups of friends to larger groups such as those Gerry Dawes has designed, organized and led for the Commonwealth Club of California (twice, 25 people), graduates of the U. S. Air Force Academy (twice, 16 people each trip), The Club Managers of America Wine Society and Club Chefs of New York & Connecticut.  Dawes has also planned and led more than twenty gastronomy-wine-and-culture focused trips to Spain for star chefs Thomas Keller, Mark Miller, Mark Kiffin, Michael Lomonaco and Michael Chiarello; former U. S. Senator James Abourezk; baseball great Keith Hernandez; and Bob Simon with a Sixty Minutes television crew.  He has also led shorter excursions and/or given detailed Spain advice to such culinary personalities as Drew Nieporent, Norman Van Aken, Charlie Trotter, Danny Meyer and Ruth Reichl.  

Gerry Dawes (l) leading a tapas night out at Marisquería Rafa in Madrid that included (l to r), Australia chef Tetsuya Wakuda, Charlie Trotter's partner Rochelle Smith, Lidia Iaccarino (Don Alfonso), Janet Van Aken, the late Chef Charlie Trotter and Chef Norman Van Aken.  Photo by Don Alfonso Iaccarino, Chef-owner of Don Alfonso, Sant'Agata sui Due Golfi, Italy.


Depending upon each itinerary, the following are examples of some of the rich, culturally and gastronomically unique experiences our fellow travelers will share with us in Spain:

Join us, as we dine informally in a 19th-Century Galician bodega with half a dozen artisan winemakers and experience the magic of a quiemada, a Galician spirits filled flaming pumpkin that is supposed to ward off evil spirits;

Quiemada at Bodega Rozas, one of the top artisan Albariño producers in Galicia.
 
Go deep into the caves of a southern Rioja hillside and taste terrific artisan wines from underground tanks, then have tortilla española, ensalada and splendid lamb chops and chorizo grilled over grape vine cuttings, all accompanied by the bottled wines;

Luís Alberto Lecea draws wine from a cement tank down in the caves at Bodegas Lecea, a family winery in southern Rioja Alta.  Upstairs in a rustic dining room with a long trestle table, we will eat lamb chops and chorizo cooked over a fire of grapevine cuttings.


Follow us to legendary backstreet tapas bars in Madrid, San Sebastián, Logroño and Sanlúcar de Barrameda, sampling different small plate regional specialties at each spot;

Langostinos and Manzanilla Sherry on the beach outside Bar Bigote in Sanlúcar de Barrameda at sunset.

Learn how to make paella with a maestro in his restaurant at the edge of the rice fields on the Albufera lagoon; 


Chef-owner Rafael Gálvez of La Matandeta, a restaurant at the edge of the rice field around the Albufera lagoon south of Valencia, shows visiting club chefs from New York and Connecticut how to make authentic paella.

Dine with some of the top women chefs in Spain, eat phenomenal rice dishes and visit one of the great chocolatiers/pastry chefs in Europe, all in Alicante province;

Chef María José San Román at her Michelin-starred Monastrell restaurante in Alicante. She and her family also own La Taberna del Gourmet, one of Spain's greatest tapas restaurants.

Gerry Dawes with his great friend, Paco Torreblanca, one of the top pastry chefs and chocolatiers in Europe, at his cooking school outside Alicante.

Visit some of the greatest artisan wineries, cheese producers and Ibérico ham producers and sample their exceptional products;

Long-time friend Marino González, the godfather of artisan farmhouse cheeses in Asturias, at one of his Terra Astur Sidrería (cider house), cheese shop and grill house restaurant in Oviedo.

And have an al fresco lunch with a chef Gerry calls the Emperor of Toledo on a terrace with stunning views overlooking the chef’s family vineyards, olive groves and the city itself.  

Chef Adolfo Muñoz, the Emperor of Toledo, at Adolfo´s home-estate-vineyard-olive grove-event space overlooking the city of Toledo.

The aforementioned are just some of the kinds of experiences we offer. Many of Gerry’s contacts in Spain with chefs, restaurateurs, artisan and star winemakers, cheese makers, food producers and personalities are very intensely personal relationships, which opens doors into unique privileged experiences.  

Chefs Quim Marqués, then chef-owner of El Suquet de L'Almirall restaurant in la Barceloneta and José Andrés's classmate at this Barcelona cooking school, where José was receiving his long-delayed diploma, with Gerry Dawes and José Andrés in Barcelona.


Baseball great Keith Hernandez with a paella made for us at an olive oil producers plant in Jaén, Andalucía.
 


Two old friends, Manolo Esquivias and his wife Mari Carmen dancing Sevillanas in their caseta at la Feria de Sevilla.

And, yes, we will visit some art museums, great cathedrals, old Jewish quarters, some of the great Moorish monuments of Spain, castles, Roman ruins, fishing villages, stunning white villages, awesome mountain and coastal scenery and more (depending on each itinerary).


Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela and la Alhambra in Granada.

Roman theater at Mérida in Extremadura.

Gerry Dawes has been crisscrossing Spain for decades on extensive food, wine, fiestas and cultural fact-finding trips and knows more about the country than all but a handful of Spaniards.

In addition to our gastronomy, wine and cultural expertise, the chance to spend time with award-winning New York Times writer Bryan Miller, whose knowledge of food, treasure trove of anecdotes and insights on Spanish food, is a priceless opportunity.


Bryan Miller in 1992 at Els Quatre Gats, the legendary café in Barcelona where Picasso had his first exhibition.  Bryan and Gerry Dawes toured Barcelona as Bryan was researching and writing a New York Times article on dining out in Barcelona prior to the 1992 Olympics.  Photo by Gerry Dawes.

Bryan Miller with the famous restaurateur-priest Padre Luis de Lezama at La Taberna de Alabardero in Madrid.

Put together a group of friends, family and/or business colleagues and associates and we will custom design really special tours of Spain for you. We need a minimum of 12 - 16 travellers (will consider less people, but the trip will be priced accordingly) and will consider groups up to 26 people, like those from the Commonwealth Club of California. We offer several itineraries (see below) and the trips usually run 11 days, 10 nights*, but we can also consider slightly longer or slightly shorter duration trips. If you have a particular itinerary that you don't see here, e-mail Gerry Dawes and he will work with you to make it happen. (*Allows our guests two flight travel days and two weekends in Spain.) Contact gerrydawes@gmail.com or gerrydawes@aol.com.

Sample Itineraries
  
#1 Taste of Atlantic Spain Tour:  Galicia, Asturias, The Basque Country, San Sebastián, Navarra, La Rioja & Madrid


San Sebastián at night from Monte Igeldo.

#2 Taste of Atlantic & Mediterranean Spain Tour: Bilbao, San Sebastián, Navarra, Barcelona, Valencia, Alicante & Madrid

 Quim Marquez, Chef-owner Quim de la Boquería, Mercat de la Boquería, Barcelona.

#3 Taste of Madrid, Western Spain Ibérico Ham, Cheese, Roman Ruins; Andalucía Southern Spain & Don Quixote La Mancha Tour: Madrid, Segovia, Ávila, Salamanca, Cáceres, Mérida, Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Cádiz, El Puerto de Santa María, Jerez de la Frontera, Sevilla, Córdoba, Toledo, and Chinchón 

Gerry Dawes in an Ibérico ham-curing facility in Guijuelo (Salamanca).

#4 Taste of Andalucía & La Mancha Tour:  Madrid, Toledo, Castilla-La Mancha, Córdoba, Sevilla, Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Cádiz, Atlantic Tuna Coast & Roman Fish Factories, El Puerto de Santa María, Pueblos Blancos, Ronda, Mijas, Málaga
 
A glass of Manzanilla sherry at sunset overlooking the Guadalquivir River as it meets the Atlantic Ocean.
 
#5 Sephardic Spain (Gerry Dawes* only):  Visiting the Jewish Quarters and Villages of Spain, Former Synagogues and Other Sites Important to the Rich Jewish Historical Presence in Spain.  Depending upon which of several itineraries we chose, we may visit Ribadavia (Galicia) León (Castilla y León), Oviedo (Asturias),  Hervás (Extremadura), Burgos, Estella & Tudela (Navarra), Zaragoza, Barcelona, Girona, Besalú (all in Catalunya), Lorca (Murcia), Córdoba, Lucena, Sevilla and Toledo.  (*Gerry Dawes has been studying, visiting and photographing Sephardic Spain for more than two decades.)

Santa María la Blanca, a stunning 12th-Century Mudejar architecture synagogue that was converted into a Catholic church and is now a museum and one of most important Jewish monuments and perhaps the oldest surviving synagogue in Europe.

* * * * *
  Shall deeds of Caesar or Napoleon ring
More true than Don Quixote's vapouring?
Hath winged Pegasus more nobly trod
Than Rocinante stumbling up to God?
 
Poem by Archer M. Huntington inscribed under the Don Quixote on his horse Rocinante bas-relief sculpture by his wife, Anna Vaughn Hyatt Huntington, in the courtyard of the Hispanic Society of America’s incredible museum at 613 W. 155th Street, New York City.
__________________________________________________________________________________
 Gastronomy Blogs

About Gerry Dawes

My good friend 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." -- Chef-restaurateur-humanitarian José Andrés, Nobel Peace Prize Nominee and Oscar Presenter 2019


Gerry Dawes is the Producer and Program Host of Gerry Dawes & Friends, a weekly radio progam on Pawling Public Radio in Pawling, New York (streaming live and archived at www.pawlingpublicradio.org and at www.beatofthevalley.com.)

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. 


". . .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. 
 
Pilot for a reality television series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.
 

9/15/2019

Gerry Dawes's Persistence of Memory Melting Watch Awards (With tip of my sombrero to Salvador Dalí, whose genius persists in memory).


* * * * *


Gerry Dawes's Persistence of Memory* (Salvador Dalí)  Melting Watch Awards.


For at least three decades, I  have been wearing a Salvador Dalí Persistence of Memory pin in my lapel whenever I  wear a jacket, suit or even a tuxedo.  It invariably attracts curious responses.  To women who ask, "Is that a banana?", the response is obvious.  Men, for some reason, don't usually ask that question.

After so many years of wearing these pins, which I buy in Barcelona, they have really become a part of my public persona, so I decided to begin using representations of the pin to denote experiences, people, places, events, dishes, wines, art, buildings, fiestas, etc. that persist in my memory.

Periodically, I will rate an experience, a person (or persons), a restaurant, a dish, a wine, an event, etc. with from one-five Persistence of Memory melting watches (from the famous Salvador Dalí paintings) that are, indeed, persistently memorable.  At the end of each year, I will compile my Persistence of Memory awards.  

Below is  a series of articles on restaurants, tapas bars, chefs, dishes and experiences from around Spain that I think, from my very personal experience, deserve Five of Five Dalí POM (Persistence of Memory) Melting Watch Award pins.  I frankly don’t give a damn about Michelin ratings, Repsol or any of the rest.  I have been traveling and eating and drinking wine all over Spain for nearly 50 years and I have been to the restaurants in these articles multiples times.  Yes, I am influenced by the friendly relationships I have with many of the chefs and owners of these establishments, but I would not have built these friendships if these chefs, restaurants and establishments were not as good as they are.  And I take into consideration the downside for those who might not be connected in some of the restaurants, hotels and people I am writing about.  Nonetheless, I personally have had repeated Five Melting Watch experiences in all the places I am writing about. 

*Note: From now on, I will be awarded only the five Melting Watches as my rating system for restaurants, dishes, wines, experiences and personalities.  I have had enough five Melting Watch encounters in my decades of traveling in Spain, that for what time I have left on this planet, it will probably take me that long to write them all up. 

My criteria is as follows:
1) I will not be rating many Michelin-star awarded restaurants, because they already have Michelin rating them.  However, Chefs, whether they have three Michelin Stars are not will be the objects of my ratings. 
2) I do not really worry about what other critics may or may not think about my five Melting Watch choices.   They are mine and my judgement and I will stand by them.
3) There will be lots of unheralded places, tapas bars, wines and events that I personally believe are worthy and thus will get my five Dalí Persistence of Memory Melting Watch Awards. 
4)  There will be lots of Spaniards, some unknown or relatively unknown who will get the awards and I will give my reasons.

This was my former rating system:

*Five Watches:  Exceptional Persistence of Memory
Four Watches:  Unforgettable, excellent.
Three Watches: Unforgettable, very good.
Two Watches: Memorable, quite good.
One Watch:  Memorable, good.

Any of these Geraldo-Dalí Persistence of Memory Melting Watch ratings signifies an experience, place, person, restaurant, dish, wine or event worthy of consideration. 

*The Persistence of Memory, a Salvador Dalí painting (1931).  

Since 1934, it has been owned by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York.

6/06/2019  Valencia: Casa Montaña, One of Spain´s Greatest Bodegas & Tapas Restaurants, Five Geraldo-Dalí Persistence of Memory Melting Watches Award to Casa Montaña & Its Owners, Emiliano García Domene & His Son General Manager Alejandro García

5/14/2019 Casa Bigote & Chef Fernando Hermoso (and His Retired Brother Paco), Sanlúcar de Barrameda (Cádiz), Andalucía: Another Five Dali Melting Watch Award for Chef Hermoso and His Crew, Bar Bigote, Casa Bigote Restaurant and Unparalleled. Ambience

4/28/2019  El Torreón de Tordesillas: The Five Dalí Melting Watch Domain of "The Greatest Showman (El Gran Showman)," The Magnificent Jeremias de Lozar

4/20/2019 Vicente Leal, the Maestro de Salazones (Salt-and-air cured Fish, a Craft as Old as Civilization in the Mediterrean) at the Mercado de Abastos de Alicante. 

3/29/2019  Madrid Classics: Casa Lucio, Cava Baja Update on Lucio´s Birthday Today - Five Salvador Dalí Persistence of Memory Melting Watches 
3/12/2019 Quim de la Boquería, La Boquería Market, Barcelona. Five Dalí POM (Persistence of Memory) Melting Watches 

2/07/2019 Restaurante Campero, Barbate (Cádiz), Famous for its Almadraba, Tuna Round-up. Sensational Lunch at Camapero: Boquerones en Vinagre, Mojama de la Almadraba, Carpaccio of Zucchini, Seafood Rice and Black Rice with Basil All-i-oli, Plus 85€ per Person Almadraba-caught Tuna Tasting Menu Explained. Persistence of Memory* (Salvador Dalí) Fiver Melting Watch Awards

4/19/2018 Andalucian Journal: Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Home of Manzanilla Sherry: A Five Dalí Melting Watch Adventure with Javier Hidalgo, Producer of La Gitana Manzanilla, in Las Marismas, Lunch in a Very Secret Place (Updated)

2/11/2018  The Bar at Marisquería Rafa: A Five Dalí POM (Persistence of Memory) Melting Watch Award Experience

11/14/2017  Chinchón III: Upgraded to Five Stars! Back a La Balconada, One of My Favorite Castilian Cuisine Restaurants. Chef-owner Manuela Nieto Recio and her Husband Isidro Olivar. This time with John (Docsconz) and L. J. Sconzo

 5/03/2017 Restaurante d’Berto, O Grove (Galicia) One of the Best Shellfish Restaurants in the World

 3/07/2017 Upgraded to Five Dalí Watches: El Crucero in Corella (Navarra), Lunch with the Wines of Aliaga at One of the Great Restaurants of Navarra's Ribera Baja Wine-growing Region, Also Home to One of Spain's Finest Vegetable Growing Regions and Some of Navarra's Little-known, But Best Country Restaurants.

2/21/2017 Another Five Dali Melting Watch Award Restaurant: Casa Bigote, Sanlúcar de Barrameda (Andalucía)

7/15/2017 A Homage to Culinary Adventures with Juan Suárez, One of the Great Non-professional Cooks in Spain: Teaching Famous Culinarians How to Fry an Egg, Cocido Madrileño, Cooking in Napa Valley at Cindy Pawlcyn's, Cooking at Home for the Madrid Fusión Mejicano Contingent and a Magical Adventure at Kaia near San Sebastián

11/18/2016  Madrid Classics: Five Dalí POM (Persistence of Memory) Melting Watches to Casa González, founded in 1931, is a high quality bar-deli-gourmet food and wine shop with a wonderful old-fashioned air in Madrid's Literary Quarter.

 3/20/2014 Charcutería: The Soul of Spain by Jeffrey Weiss. Foreword by José Andrés. Highly Recommended. Five Dalí Persistence of Memory Melting Watch Awards

3/05/2014 Five Dalí POM Watches to L'Escaleta, Another Great Alicante Restaurant, One of the Best in Spain

8/15/2012  Sanlúcar de Barrameda, The Incredible Horse Racing on Bajo de Guía Beach in August Gerry Dawes's Persistence of Memory* (Salvador Dalí) Five Melting Watch Awards.

12/16/2009 To Hell with Michelin! I Have the GeralDalí 'Persistence of Memory' Watch Awards and I am Bestowing Five Watches, My Top Rating, on Restaurante Quique Dacosta (formerly El Poblet), Chef Quique DaCosta and Quique Dacosta's Staff

 More to come soon.

* * * * *
  Shall deeds of Caesar or Napoleon ring
More true than Don Quixote's vapouring?
Hath winged Pegasus more nobly trod
Than Rocinante stumbling up to God?
 
Poem by Archer M. Huntington inscribed under the Don Quixote on his horse Rocinante bas-relief sculpture by his wife, Anna Vaughn Hyatt Huntington,
in the courtyard of the Hispanic Society of America’s incredible museum at 613 W. 155th Street, New York City.
 ____________________________________________________________________________________
 Gastronomy Blogs

About Gerry Dawes

My good friend 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." -- Chef-restaurateur-humanitarian José Andrés, Nobel Peace Prize Nominee and Oscar Presenter 2019


Gerry Dawes is the Producer and Program Host of Gerry Dawes & Friends, a weekly radio progam on Pawling Public Radio in Pawling, New York (streaming live and archived at www.pawlingpublicradio.org and at www.beatofthevalley.com.)

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. 


". . .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. 
 
Pilot for a reality television series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.
 
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