A Tafona da Herminia, A Pastry Shop in the Barrio Judio (Old Jewish Quarter) of Ribadavia, Ourense, Galicia, Specializing in Shephardic Recipe-Inspired Pastries

 * * * * *

(Now closed, but on my last two trips to Ribadavia, I have encountered the new retired Herminia, who lives at the shop and cares for her aged, incapacitated husband.)

Herminia Rodríguez and her selection of pastries that she has been making since 1990 from Sephardic recipes from the 15th & 16th centuries, A Tafona da Herminia, Barrio Judio, Ribadavia (Ourense province), Galicia, Spain.  Photo by Gerry Dawes, Canon M3.

  

 

A Tafona da Herminia, Barrio Judio, Ribadavia (Ourense province), Galicia, Spain.  

Photo by Gerry Dawes, Canon M3.

 Types of Jewish pastries A Tafona da Herminia, Barrio Judio, Ribadavia (Ourense province), Galicia, Spain. 

_______________________________________________________________
About Gerry Dawes

Gerry Dawes is President, Founder & Jefe of The Spanish Artisan Wine & Spirits Group - Gerry Dawes Selections

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.
 

Mr. Dawes is currently working on 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@spanishartisanwine.com

Soldaditos de Pavia, battered and fried bacalao, one of Sevilla's favorite tapas explained. At Las Teresas, an excellent tapas bar in the Barrio de Santa Cruz.

 

* * * * *

 

Soldaditos de Pavia, battered and fried bacalao, one of Sevilla's favorite tapas.  "The little soldiers of Pavia" supposedly gets its name from Pavia in Italy or from a general Pavia whose soldiers wore red berets.  This tapa is often served with a strip of red pepper on top, the red "beret," so came to be called by this popular name, soldaditos de Pavia, at least that is what my Sevillano brother Manolo Esquivias Fedriani told me. 

 

This is why I sometimes go to my very long-time friend Janet Mendel, the great author of books and cookbooks on Spanish cuisine. From her My Kitchen in Spain blog: "Soldaditos de Pavía means “little soldiers of Pavía.” The “soldiers” are strips of batter-fried cod. The saffron in the batter turns the fritters yellow and they’re usually wrapped in a strips of red pimiento, so they are named, depending on which story you prefer, either for the color of the uniforms worn by the Spanish Hussars who occupied the Italian city of Pavia in a famous battle of 1525, won by Emperor Charles V, or else for the troops of General Pavía, who wore red waistcoasts when in 1874 they stormed Parliament and forced its dissolution at bayonet point, marking the beginning of the end of Spain’s first republic."

 

* * * * * 

 

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

Museo Sefardí in the Barrio de Santa Cruz, the old Jewish Quarter of Sevilla. (Now, sadly closed.) Sunset in a Glass: Adventures of a Food and Wine Road Warrior in Spain & The Pre-Post COVID 3500 Kms. Road Warrior Adventure in June 2021.

 

* * * * * 

 

"Always grazing
here in this garden--
I'm dark-eyed just
like you, and lonely.
We both live far
from friends, forsaken --
patiently bearing
our fate's decree."

-- Qasmuna bint Ismail al Yahudi

 

Qasmuna bint Ismail al Yahudi, 11th - 12th century writer and poet, prominent in the Medieval Jewish community of Sevilla.  Museo Sefardí (now closed), Sevilla.

 

Capital imbedded in the wall at the Museo Sefardí in the Barrio de Santa Cruz,  the old Jewish Quarter of Sevilla.  The museum is now closed. 

 

On this trip, continuing my exploration of Sephardic Spain sites, I was excited to find the Museo Sefardí in the Barrio de Santa Cruz, where I used to live. It was closed when I encountered it, so we planned to come back the next morning after I did my walk retracing the route of my first entrance into Sevilla in 1968. 

 

 

The next morning it was also closed and when we rang the bell to see if we could visit the museum, a woman from upstairs came to the window and told us that the museum was closed permanently. Later I found this on the Museum´s Facebook page, along with some of the pictures. The ABC piece with a photo from the Museum is the article the museum directors are lamenting about coming with too little, too late. 

 

"We have been closed for more than a year, what's more, we have just closed closed permanently and have benn evicted the premises that housed the exhibition. Now we have to continue working to move this very important collection to another municipality, some of which are very interested, but it is a pity that the exhibition finally has to leave the best place where it could be, in the Jewish Quarter of Seville.

 

We have not received any aid from the institutions, despite the calls for help, nor have we ever aroused their interest (more than from the institutions themselves, their managers, delegates, advisers, etc.), despite being a center whose cultural value was not only great but above all, necessary. 

 

Today our valuable work is echoed in this article in the ABC newspaper, assuming that we are active, alive and kicking, when it is not like that ... Like many things in Seville, it arrives very late. We always have the knowledge that our work has been useful for many people (mostly from other countries) who have seen the importance and have memories of this project, which also created jobs.

 

Here we leave you the article that has been published today on ABC ..."

 

Photo #3 courtesy of ABC newspaper, Sevilla. 

 

The photo of the Museum sign and the capital imbedded in the wall are by Gerry Dawes©2021.

 

Photo 3 is the photo that appeared with ABC article and the other photos are from the Museo Sefardí Facebook page.

 

  Museo Sefardí (now closed), Sevilla.

 

Museo Sefardí (now closed), Sevilla.

 

Museo Sefardí (now closed), Sevilla.

 

* * * * * 

 

Sunset in a Glass: Adventures of a Food and Wine Road Warrior in Spain Volume I Enhanced Photograph Edition, Foreword by José Andrés.

Sunset in a Glass: Adventures of a Food and Wine Road Warrior Volume I (of IV) is a collection of non-fiction stories about the adventures of recognized Spanish food, wine and travel authority Gerry Dawes, recipient of the prestigious Spanish National Gastronomy Prize. Sunset in a Glass is illustrated with more than 150 color and black-and-white photographs chronicling adventures from decades of living and traveling in Spain. Foreword by José Andrés.

 

 Constructive comments are welcome and encouraged.

 

 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.

 

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 Bio, Awards, Quotes from Famous Chefs and Culinarians and Custom Gastronomic and Cultural Tours to Spain

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

 

 

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

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

* * * * * 
(Note:  All text & photographs, except when otherwise indicated, are by Gerry Dawes©2019.)

Entrance to the former synagogue, earlier mosque that is now la Iglesia de Santa Maria de los Nieves,popularly known as Santa María la Blanca. Photo by Gerry Dawes©2019

After a morning jaunt across my old barrio, the Barrio de Santa Cruz, the old Jewish Quarter of Sevilla, we went to Santa María de la Nieves church, more popularly known as Santa María la Blanca, (the same name as the exceptional other former synagogue in Toledo, also called Santa María la Blanca).  This church was built on the foundations of both the original small neighborhood mosque that was converted after the re-conquest of Sevilla from the Moors in the 13th Century into a synagogue used by Jews in the Jewish barrio of Sevilla (the barrio where I lived off and on for parts of five years).   Santa María la Blanca was a synagogue until the late 14th Century, when, after a terrible pogrom, it was converted into a Christian church.   

Santa María la Blanca is also the name of the street where the former synagogue is located.

Santa María la Blanca, with its overwrought, overwhelming and over-the-top Baroque decoration, as spectacular and meticulously restored as it is, will be somewhat of a disappointment to those looking for vestiges of the synagogue. 

 

Santa María la Blanca's overwrought, overwhelming and over-the-top Baroque decoration.

Almost nothing of the former synagogue is evident, except for the front entrance to the church, which was apparently the front door of the synagogue, and the much restored and altered rounded mudéjar-designed arches that are remnants of the synagogue (surprisingly not the former mosque) supported by columns whose originals were replaced with ones of red marble from Antequera.  

 

 

The rounded mudéjar-design arches that are most re-worked remnants of the synagogue.

These arches are somewhat reminiscent of other Jewish synagogues like the sublime Santa María la Blanca in Toledo in which Jewish congregations adopted and commissioned the popular mudéjar, or Moorish-inspired architecture of that epoch, usually done by Moorish artisans, bricklayers, etc. working under Christian rule. Often the three cultures--Christian, Jewish and Moorish--overlapped, so sometimes you see a mix of influences.

 

12th-Century Ibn Shushan Synagogue in Toledo, now Santa Maria La Blanca, but used mostly as a museum site of Jewish culture in Toledo.  Notice the decorative arquillos (little arches; above the main arches).  These synagogue arquillos were also found under some Murillo paintings during restoration a few years ago of Santa Maria La Blanca in Sevilla (see below). 

 These synagogue arquillos, little arches, were also found under some Murillo paintings during restoration a few years ago at Santa Maria La Blanca in Sevilla. 

 Floor plan of the 14th Century synagogue that became Santa Maria La Blanca church in Sevilla.

Sideview of of the 14th Century synagogue that became Santa Maria La Blanca church in Sevilla.

______________________________________________________________________________________ 

 

About Gerry Dawes

Gerry Dawes is the Producer and Program Host of Gerry Dawes & Friends, a weekly radio progam on WPWL 103.7 FM Pawling Public Radio in Pawling, New York.

 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@gmail.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@spanishartisanwine.com

First Home in the ancient Jewish Quarter of Sevilla

* * * * * 

 Doorway and interior patio of our first rental home at calle Justino de Neve 3 in el Barrio de Santa Cruz (the old Jewish Quarter), Sevilla.  My late former wife Diana and I lived here for three and a half magical years. George Borrow expressed the experience pretty well. 

". . . Nothing is more calculated to interest the stranger as he wanders through Sevilla, than a view of these courts obtained from the street, though the iron-grated door. Oft have I stopped to observe them, and as often sighed that my did not permit me to reside in such an Eden for the remainder of my days. . ." - - George Borrow, The Bible in Spain (1840).

______________________________________________________________  
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. 
 

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@gmail.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@spanishartisanwine.com