Pasteleria Mallorca, Madrid, Croissant con Cangrejo (a croissant stuffed with crabmeat [and some surimi])

 

* * * * * 

 

 Seven weeks in Spain and a week in Madrid, but I did not get close enough to Pasteleria Mallorca again to score one of these for breakfast: a croissant con cangrejo (a croissant stuffed with crabmeat [and some surimi]), wonderful.

Sunset in a Glass: Adventures of a Food and Wine Road Warrior in Spain Volume I Enhanced Photography Edition by Gerry Dawes.  Available on Amazon.com.

Kass and Eric Mencher

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book and a fantastic trip through Spain!

 

Reviewed in the United States Verified Purchase

 

For those who have travelled to and fallen in love with Spain, “Sunset in a Glass” is for you. For those who have never travelled to Spain, well, this book is definitely for you, too!

 

Gerry Dawes is a master story-teller, with a keen eye for detail in both word and picture. Through a series of in-depth and diverse stories, he captures and beautifully conveys El Alma de España, The Soul of Spain. His love for the Spanish people, their traditions, their talents, and their passions shines brightly on every page. This book is a trip through Spain like no other.

 

From the comfort of our home, we travelled with Mr. Dawes as he sipped manzanilla on the beach at sunset. We felt his exhilaration (and terror?) as he ran with the bulls in Pamplona. And we were with him through a dozen other adventures, too, exploring the famed Barcelona market, La Boquería, or tasting the famed flavored foams of Ferran Adriá at elBulli, or watching the expertise of the Maestros Cortadores so skillfully slice the melt in your mouth jamón Ibérico de Bellota.

 

But the book is more than just expert story-telling. It’s an education in history, in tradition, in language, in life. We are among those who have travelled to and fallen in love with Spain and after just finishing “Sunset in a Glass”, we are also now confirmed lovers of this book.

 

Comments are welcome and encouraged.

 

Text and photographs copyright by Gerry Dawes©2021.  Using photographs without crediting Gerry Dawes©2021 on Facebook.  Publication without my written permission is not authorized.

* * * * *

  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.

 _______________________________________________________________________________________________

 

In 2019, again ranked in the Top 50 Gastronomy Blogs and Websites for Gastronomists & Gastronomes in 2019 by Feedspot. (Last Updated Oct 23, 2019) 

"The Best Gastronomy blogs selected from thousands of Food blogs, Culture blogs and Food Science blogs in our index using search and social metrics. We’ve carefully selected these websites because they are actively working to educate, inspire, and empower their readers with frequent updates and high-quality information."  

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

 
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. 

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. 

 

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

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain  

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@gmail.com

"An instant classic and an absolute beaut of a book." A Stupendous Review by London writer Tim Pinks of Sunset in a Glass: Adventures of a Food and Wine Road Warrior in Spain Volume I Enhanced Photography Edition

 

* * * * * 

 

 

I have never met Tim Pinks, who was born in Tripoli (Libya), lived in Scotland, now lives in London, is a gifted writer and has been attending the Fiestas de San Fermín in Pamplona since 1984.

 

 * * * * *

 

Tim Pinks running with the bulls at Pamplona.
 

Tim Pinks wrote this stupendous review of Sunset in a Glass: Adventures of a Food and Wine Road Warrior in Spain Volume I in a post on the Amigos de Pamplona FB page.

 

SUNSET IN A GLASS – by Gerry Dawes

 

"Dear Soulsters of Spain, Adiskideak of Euskadi, and Enamorados de Navarra…

 

Covid has kicked the cubo! For the last few days I’ve travelled the length and breadth of Spain, and seen and tasted things the like of which I have never experienced in my life.

 

A bit like the famous old Hank Snow, ‘I’ve been everywhere’ song – of which Johnny Cash does a great version - I’ve been to Sanlucar de Barrameda, Sevilla, Chinchon, Ribera del Duero, Pamplona, Roncesvalles and Barcelona too… And La Rioja and Granada and the Cradle of Castille and many other places also… Heck, I even travelled back in time and joined Gerry and some soldiers for many trips on a train in late Franco era Spain…

Yup, all from that book by a certain Señor Gerry Dawes!

 

I was going to wait until I’d finished the book…but I just can’t. When I have I’ll write a review for Amazon…but Amigos gets the world exclusive!

 

To all who love Spain, to aficionados of its wines, lovers of its food, and revellers in its regions…or just those who like a terrific travel tale…this is the book for you.

 

 

Sunset In A Glass. Isn’t that just one of the best titles ever?

 

I so, so wanted to like this book…but I don’t. I love, love, LOVE this book. Now I haven’t finished it yet as I’m only up to chapter twelve, a little over halfway but I know enough now that I will love the whole thing. Actually, I knew that after just a couple of chapters.

 

Oh my goodness what a beautifully written, wonderfully told and hugely entertaining book this is. The prose is so easy to read yet as poetic as it comes and the words slip by like the proverbial fine wine slides down. And I don’t mean to gush or sound sycophantic here…it just really is a superb book.

 

It’s also informative, funny and packed full of superb photographs. Gerry recommended I get the ‘enhanced photography edition’ so I did, and although not cheap at 25 Guineas in old money, old things, it is very much worth it. It’s a beautiful book to feel, hold, open and read…pure quality. And big, too, at eight and a half inches by eleven.

 

I could write a review of each chapter and pick out poetic quotes from the beautiful writing, but here are just a couple. From chapter one, where the book gets it title from. Describing an alternative and romantic version of where the Mediterranean town Sanluca de Barrameda gets it’s name from:

 

‘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?

 

Or this, Amigi, from the Pamplona chapter, talking about some of the people he met on his first visit to the fiesta capital of the world in 1970:

 

‘…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.

 

He takes us from the Franco era of the country where he wonderfully evokes an ‘old’ Spain that so many people fell in love with, to the modern Spain we all know today. He even mentions, in a nano typing of brevity, the country of my birth, Libya.

 

It’s funny to think that as my brother and I were playing at the Tripoli Yacht Club while mum and dad shared drinks with friends at the bar…Gerry Dawes could have been in one of those US military planes flying off the coast. (Did you ever land at Wheelus, Mr. Dawes?!) Well I never…

 

Now, it is time to bring James Michener in here, because it was thanks to him that I first went to Pamplona in ’84. A few years later the fantastic Ike del Rosario, who I met in the square that same first year, (and who died way, way too young in October) gave me a copy of Michener’s Iberia. And I don’t care what anyone says about Michener, his writing, or indeed Iberia…I love that book.

 

And do you know what? In a strange, yet very fitting way, this wonderful book in some way compliments Iberia. In a completely different way it somehow comes across to me as an updated – but very different – version of Michener’s classic. And that is a huge compliment.

 

Actually, I’ll include another classic in this little set – Hemingway’s ‘The Dangerous Summer.’ All three criss-cross Spain in very different ways…but all three are classics. Because Gerry has already written a classic with ‘Sunset’ of this I am in no doubt whatsoever.

 

Like Ernest’s grandson John Hemingway did with his modern take on The Sun Also Rises, with ‘Bacchanalia’…these books go with their illustrious predecessors like, well, wine and cheese. Actually, wine and anything…

 

Hopefully this is the first in five of a trilogy. (Don’t worry, GD and I know what that means!) It’s actually volume one, folks, so we know there is more to come. Like at a fine dinner when you know that when one bottle is done another one will be coming along…

 

I’m now over half way through ‘Sunset’ but it’s great to know that like a departing excellent wine another one will be arriving…

 

Honestly, Fiesteros, it is just the most fantastic book. After every chapter I’m either smiling, laughing, saying something to myself like, ‘’It’s just so brilliantly bloody good!” or all three at the same time.

 

I do waffle on so now it’s time to shuffle off. If I was to attempt a super-shortened ‘back blurb’ style version of the above it would be this:

 

At one point, describing Ferran Adria of El Bulli (I’m using the original spelling) and his internationally influencing, cuisine changing inventions, he uses the term ‘a culinary Krakatoa.’ Well this book is a literary love letter. Literally a love letter to a land that Gerry loves. Thanks to him I’ve travelled the length and breadth of Iberia. I’ve drunk it, tasted it and even travelled back in time to it. To a Spain long gone…but also wonderfully still here.

 

Congratulations Gerry, you have written an instant classic and an absolute beaut of a book."--Tim Pinks, London.  

 

Tim Pinks was given the "Guiri of the Year" Award by Señor Testis, the blue bull with the yellow horns, an image made famous world-wide by my friend Mikel Urmeneta* and his crew at Kukuxumusu, the Drawings and Ideas Factory that Urmeneta founded.  (Mikel Urmeneta has since moved on and now runs Katuki Saguyaki, another innovative drawings and ideas studio.)

 

(*I am currently in conversations with Mikel Urmeneta about translating into Spanish, designing and publishing Sunset in a Glass in Spain.)

 

 

* * * * * 

 

Sunset in a Glass: Adventures of a Food and Wine Road Warrior in Spain Volume I Enhanced Photography Edition

 

(Available at Amazon, Despana (NYC), LaTienda.com, La Boca Restaurant (Santa Fe, NM) and at Kitchen Arts & Letters bookstore (NYC). 

 

Comments are welcome and encouraged.

 

Text and photographs copyright by Gerry Dawes©2021.  Using photographs without crediting Gerry Dawes©2021 on Facebook.  Publication without my written permission is not authorized.

 

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 $100 or more will be acknowledged on the blog.

Please click on this secure link to Paypal to make your contribution.

 

* * * * *

  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.

 ______________________________________________________________________________________

 

In 2019, again ranked in the Top 50 Gastronomy Blogs and Websites for Gastronomists & Gastronomes in 2019 by Feedspot. (Last Updated Oct 23, 2019) 

"The Best Gastronomy blogs selected from thousands of Food blogs, Culture blogs and Food Science blogs in our index using search and social metrics. We’ve carefully selected these websites because they are actively working to educate, inspire, and empower their readers with frequent updates and high-quality information."  

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

 
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. 

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. 

 

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

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain  

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@gmail.com

La puesta del sol en mi copa: Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Donde nació Dios: Prólogo por José Andrés

 

* * * * * 

Este libro surgió a partir de los capítulos dedicados a Sanlúcar de Barrameda que figuraban en la versión en inglés de mi libro *Sunset in a Glass: Adventures of a Food and Wine Road Warrior in Spain*. En esta edición se han añadido numerosos textos y fotografías nuevos. Cuenta con unas 25 páginas más que los capítulos originales.

Sunset in a Glass es una recopilación de relatos de no ficción sobre las aventuras de Gerry Dawes, reconocido experto español en gastronomía, vinos y viajes, galardonado con el prestigioso Premio Nacional de Gastronomía de España. Sunset in a Glass está ilustrado con más de 160 fotografías en color y en blanco y negro que narran las aventuras de décadas de vida y viajes por España. El prólogo corre a cargo del famoso chef José Andrés. La primera edición cuenta con 50 reseñas de cinco estrellas en Amazon, muchas de ellas escritas por importantes figuras culinarias, autores y expertos sobre España.

«Gerry Dawes, el entusiasta y experto desenfrenado de la gastronomía y el vino españoles, cuyos escritos, fotografías e innumerables viajes por la península han contribuido más que nadie a dar a conocer la vida culinaria de mi país a los estadounidenses —y especialmente a los profesionales de la gastronomía estadounidenses—. Ha conectado con todo tipo de personas que trabajan a todos los niveles y en todos los rincones de España. Puedes entrar en un restaurante en el pueblo más pequeño de España y resulta que, de alguna manera, conocen a Gerry». —José Andrés, chef, restaurador, filántropo y nominado al Premio Nobel.

«España no sería tan conocida entre los estadounidenses sin las historias que Gerry cuenta y escribe». —Chef Ferran Adrià, elBulli.

«En sus décadas de recorrer las carreteras secundarias de España, Gerry Dawes ha acumulado un bagaje de experiencias mucho más sólido que el que yo tenía cuando empecé a escribir Iberia... Sus aventuras superaron con creces las mías, tanto en amplitud como en profundidad.» —James A. Michener, autor de Iberia: Spanish Travels and Reflections.

«Inspirado por los más grandes escritores clásicos sobre España —Alexandre Dumas père, Richard Ford, Flaubert, Somerset Maugham, Hemingway, Michener y D. E. Pohren, entre otros—, Dawes ha escrito una obra totalmente original (se podría decir que sui generis) sobre la cultura española, centrándose en la gente y los lugares y la profunda cultura que rodea a la gastronomía y el vino españoles. Si te interesa ese antiguo y fascinante estilo de vida española, o cómo y por qué magos culinarios como Ferran Adrià o José Andrés se han convertido en héroes culturales, sin duda querrás leer Sunset in a Glass, que es un clásico de su época». —Allen Josephs, autor de White Wall of Spain y de numerosos libros sobre España y Ernest Hemingway
.
«Gerry Dawes ha vivido, analizado, debatido, saboreado, indagado, probado, provocado y amado a lo largo de décadas el extraordinario patrimonio gastronómico de España. La comida como amistad es el núcleo de este viaje por carretera salvaje y apasionado a través de España. Se trata de una clase magistral de narración: deliciosa y adictiva». —Gijs van Hensbergen, autor de Guernica: The Biography of a Twentieth-Century Icon y Gaudí: A Biography

«Recorrer las bodegas, los bares de tapas y los mercados de España con Gerry Dawes es una experiencia educativa, pero más que eso, es una mirada desde dentro a una de las grandes culturas gastronómicas del mundo, y más aún, es simplemente muy divertido. Gerry conoce a casi todo el mundo que querrías conocer en este delicioso mundo, y aquellos a quienes no conoce, una vez que los conoce, no son extraños por mucho tiempo. Sunset in a Glass te dará una tentadora muestra de la experiencia». —Colman Andrews, autor de Catalan Cuisine.

 

 

 

Comments are welcome and encouraged.

 

Text and photographs copyright by Gerry Dawes©2021.  Using photographs without crediting Gerry Dawes©2021 on Facebook.  Publication without my written permission is not authorized.

* * * * *

  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.

 _______________________________________________________________________________________________

 

In 2019, again ranked in the Top 50 Gastronomy Blogs and Websites for Gastronomists & Gastronomes in 2019 by Feedspot. (Last Updated Oct 23, 2019) 

"The Best Gastronomy blogs selected from thousands of Food blogs, Culture blogs and Food Science blogs in our index using search and social metrics. We’ve carefully selected these websites because they are actively working to educate, inspire, and empower their readers with frequent updates and high-quality information."  

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

 
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. 

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. 

 

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

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain  

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@gmail.com

Sephardic Spain: Update on My Search for Jewish Historical Sites in Spain Part II of III The Call, Barcelona's Former Jewish Quarter with Barcelona Expert George Semler

* * * * * 

Barcelona: The Call, Former Jewish Quarter

George Semler in front of the Synagoga Mayor in the Call, the old Jewish Quarter, of Barcelona. 

 The ancient Synagoga Mayor in El Call de Barcelona is open everyday, but Saturday, the day we were there.

At the end of the first ten days of the trip, I said adios to my traveling companions, Gil Avital and David Spell of Elevation Wine Partners, when we finished our wine mission in Montsant.  Then my long-time friend Catalan wine maestro Agustí Torelló, producer (with his son Agustí Torelló Roca) of AT Roca wines, drove me to the Barrio de Sarrià, in northern Barcelona, where I spent two delightful days and nights with my very old excelentisima friends, writer George Semler and his wife, Lucie Hayes Semler, both of whom I have know for some fifty years.  

 George Semler with a bottle of AT Roca Rosat Reserva Brut sparkling wine from my long-time friend Catalan wine maestro Agustí Torelló Sibil, producer (with his son Agustí Torelló Roca) of AT Roca.

 

My long-time friend Catalan wine maestro Agustí Torelló Sibil, producer (with his son Agustí Torelló Roca) of AT Roca tasting red wines in Montsant, Cornudella de Montsant.

I first met the hiking, hunting and fishing enthusiast George in Pamplona during the Fiestas de San Fermín on the outdoor terrace of the famous Bar Txoko on the Plaza del Castillo.   George, who had been fishing for trout  in the cold streams of the Pyrenees above Pamplona, the streams Ernest Hemingway fished and wrote about in The Sun Also Rises, had caught some trout and was cooking them for breakfast under a table on the Bar Txoko terrace.  This is no fish story, I have a photo of George cooking the trout.  I just have to find it and the negatives, which are buried in fifty years of personal detritus somewhere in the depths of our basement in Putnam County, New York. 

 Trout fishing in the Pyrenees in Navarra, Spain.

Now, George Semler is a bonafide expert on a lot of stuff.  He a graduate of Yale and a Vietnam veteran, who has lived with Lucie  in Spain for more than fifty years.  Lucie taught school in Barcelona and George coached hockey, then made his way as a writer.   He has written several books on Spain (and contributed to multiple guidebooks) that I know of, Madridwalks and Barcelonawalks (HENRY HOLT WALKS SERIES) and has published articles in Saveur, The Wall Street Journal, The LA Times and many others.  

 

Barcelonawalks by George Semler.

When I say that George knows Madrid and Barcelona, stone-by-stone, I am not exaggerating.  Walking through Barcelona with him is like being with a walking encyclopedia.  He knows EVERYTHING and in-depth.   Which, brings us to George giving me (and Lucie) a marvelous tour of Barcelona’s relatively small Call, or former Jewish quarter.  He even pointed out a stone door frame with a niche where a mezzuzah might have been placed (except the niche was vertical, not slanted with the top inclined towards the interior).   (George also took me inside a jewelry shop that a glass interior panes covering a stretch of the old walls of the city.)  

 George Semler showing his wife Lucie and me el Call, the old Jewish Quarter of Barcelona.

 George even pointed out a stone door frame with a niche where a mezzuzah might have been placed (except the niche was vertical, not slanted with the top inclined towards the interior).

We tried to visit the Synagoga Mayor, thought to be the oldest synagogue in Europe and found that Saturday is the only day that it is closed.  But, we were able to visit part of MUHBA El Call (the Museum of the History of Barcelona - Jewish Quarter), which via glass floors allows visitors to see the foundations of the 13th-14th Century Jewish home belonging to veil weaver Jucef Bonhiac and has displays with other Jewish memorabilia found in the old quarter.  Compared to other Jewish quarters that I have known in Spain, this one in Barcelona is relatively small, but nonetheless it was important, up until 1391, when the Jews in the Call were either massacred or forced to convert to Christianity, a century before Queen Isabel and King Ferdinand issued the expulsion order. 

 George Semler pointing out something on the map of Barcelona's Jewish Call to his wife Lucie Hayes Semler at MUHBA El Call (the Museum of the History of Barcelona - Jewish Quarter) in Barcelona.

Hebrew inscription of Proverbs 11.25 at MUHBA El Call (the Museum of the History of Barcelona - Jewish Quarter) in Barcelona.

 English translation (enlarged).

Painting of Jews in the Middle Ages at MUHBA El Call (the Museum of the History of Barcelona - Jewish Quarter) in Barcelona.

 
I have been to Barcelona dozens of times, but this is the first time that I visited the Call with any purpose, but with George Semler as my guide, I made some discoveries to add to my knowledge of Jewish Spain. 

More on Sephardic Spain:
  
4/01/2019 Sephardic Spain: Update on My Search for Jewish Historical Sites in Spain Part I of III Return to Ribadavia (Galicia) & La Tafona de Herminia's Sephardic Recipe Pastries 
 

3/10/2019 Jewish Spain: Ribadavia (Ourense), Galicia, Restored Jewish Quarter (Active from the XII-XVI Centuries) with La Tafona de Herminia, A Bakery with Pastries from Recovered Sephardic Recipes Plus Galician Octopus Cookers

  

2/05/2019 Jewish Spain: Iglesia de Santa María de las Nieves, Popularly Known as Santa María la Blanca, at the Edge of The Barrio de Santa Cruz, The Ancient Jewish Quarter of Sevilla 

  

2/04/2019 Susona: The Legend of the Beautiful Jewish Girl in Sevilla Whose Betrayal Led to Implementation of The Spanish Inquisition in the 15th Century (My article In Madrid's Guidepost Magazine, May 25, 1974)

  

9/09/2018 Jewish Spain: The Incredible Remnants of Jewish Culture in the Old Jewish Quarters of Spain: Segovia, Toledo, Cordoba, Sevilla, Ribadavia (Galicia), Tudela (Navarra), Girona (Catalunya), Hervás (Cáceres)

 

5/21/2018 Jewish Spain: Toledo Santa Maria La Blanca 12th-Century Ibn Shushan Synagogue

  

 * * * * *

  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.

 _______________________________________________________________________________________

 

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. 

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. 

 

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

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain  

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@gmail.com