* * * * *
Now in the Second Editions with added photos and vignettes.
I do not know Tim Pinks, who lives in London, is a gifted writer, a lover of things Spanish and
has been attending the Fiestas de San Fermín in Pamplona since 1984. Suffice to say, he was impressed with my book.
Tim Pinks review.
I posted an Amazon review for Gerry Dawes´s Sunset in a Glass: Adventures of a Food and Wine Road Warrior in Spain (and
we don't know each other, folks, this is all from the pleasure of the
book) but as it may take a couple of days I thought I'd pop it up here
first.
This review is especially for one Erica Messinger.
She suggested I do one for Amazon - and I was going to anyway - but
it's always nice to have some kind words and encouragement. So here it
is.
I
finished the book on Saturday. What a ride all over Spain! Talking of
riding, I wonder what a girl on a horse would look like through a glass
of Manzanilla?!
A Banquet of a Book - Sunset in a Glass: Adventures of a Food and Wine Road Warrior in Spain Volume I Enhanced Photography Edition, Foreword by José Andrés by Gerry Dawes
‘Sunset…’ Wow. I love this book. What an exquisitely expressed and wonderfully written book. I just had to invent a new word, Gerrymeandering: Travelling up and down and around Iberia enjoying the great wines, food and people of Spain.
I
love books, but I wanted to more than ‘open’ this one. I’d seen a
couple of extracts so I knew the writing was good, and I also know of
his website so knew he wouldn’t allow a bad book to go out on sale like
he wouldn’t allow a bad wine onto a table.
So
I made up a little ritual. As I took it out of the package I pretended
it was the literary equivalent of uncorking a fine wine. I let it breath
for a while, savouring the aroma of its covers and breathing in those
‘new book’ flavours of fresh pages and glossy photographs.
Having
decanted the book from the packaging as one might a wine from a bottle,
I then held it, felt it, let it breathe by running through the
pages…and it felt good. The first big test for me of a book is how it
feels, (and it has to be good inside too, of course) and this one felt,
and looked, beautiful.
Big
and bendy and literally beautiful to behold. Perhaps it was fate but
the first page I stopped at as I back-to-front flicked through the pages
was a photo in the Pamplona chapter. (I’m a huge fan of the fabulous
Fiesta of San Fermin.)
Another
big test comes from when I am first moved by the writing…be it a laugh,
a smile, even a tear…or an image painted from the words… Well, the
first laugh came before Gerry even starts writing. It came from a quote
by one D.E. Pohren: "So much for my sentimental liver, dictating little
bastard. On with the book."
And so… So much for my dubious little wine analogies, pretentious little bastard…on with the book!
The
first time I caught my breath and thought, ‘oh-my-gosh, that’s good’
was on just page three of the first chapter, describing an alternative
and romantic version of how the town Sanluca de Barrameda (Dawes
‘Shangri-La’ I reckon) got its name, and also, in a roundabout way, how
the book got its title: "Several
ships bearing treasure from the New World were wrecked and sunk after
running on to the sandbar, so maybe part of the gold leaf laid down on
the sea by the setting sun could be reflections of sunken Aztec or Inca
gold bullion…" Isn’t that beautiful?
Then
in chapter two he takes us off on a tangent and back into the past, to
when he first arrived in southern Spain with the US Navy at the end of
the sixties. It was here this young American from the south began to
expand his horizons…and his palate! And once again he moved me, informed
me…and made me laugh.
I
could write a review of every chapter but even for me that would be
going on a bit, so I’ll just mention a couple more things to provide the
slightest taster. The merest hint of the biggest and best
banquet-in-a-book you’ve ever had.
As
a regular at Pamplona’s famous Fiesta of San Fermin, talking about the
some of the folk he first met on his first visit in !970, I love this: "…the
Pamplona regulars – that international group of spiritual descendants
of Ernest Hemingway’s and Gertrude Stein’s Lost Generation who return to
San Fermin each July to revel in the light of a sun that for them still
rises." To revel in the light of a sun that for them still rises…isn’t that just perfect? This is a book to revel in.
In
chapter nine, writing about his friends at the wine firm of Lopez de
Heredia in La Rioja, pride of place doesn’t just go to the food, or
wine…but to those friends, of course. When you read about one of his
visits and the people he meets there, you want to meet them too…so a
tear comes to the eye and a lump to the throat when you find out that,
like many a fine wine…they’ve gone…