Stunning Review by Hemingway Scholar and Spain Expert Author Allen Josephs of Sunset in a Glass: Adventures of a Food and Wine Road Warrior in Spain

 

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"Gerry Dawes' "Sunset in a Glass" is a culinary and cultural treasure trove.

 

Inspired by the greatest classic writers on Spain-- Alexandre Dumas père, Richard Ford, Flaubert, Somerset Maugham, Hemingway, Michener and D E Pohren among others--Dawes has written an entirely original work (you could say sui generis) on Spanish culture, focusing on the people and the places and the deep culture surrounding Spanish food and wine, a unique culture that stretches back thousands of years. If you have any interest in that ancient and fascinating Spanish way of life, or in how and why the food and wine of culinary magicians such as Ferran Adrià or José Andrés have been made into cultural heroes, you will definitely want to read "Sunset in a Glass," which is a classic in its own time. And like Cervantes, Dawes promises a second part...."--Author Allen Josephs

 

 Allen Josephs, Author of White Wall of Spain:  The Mysteries of Andalucian Culture, On  Hemingway and Spain: Essays & Reviews (1979-2013) and Ritual and Sacrifice in the Corrida: The Saga of César Rincón.

 

Allen Josephs is a world-renowned Hemingway scholar and past president of the Ernest Hemingway Foundation and Society, Josephs was also president of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association in 2008. He has written 10 books, including “On Hemingway and Spain: Essays & Reviews 1979 – 2013” and “White Wall of Spain: The Mysteries of Andalusian Culture;” four critical editions of the poetry of Federico Garcia Lorca, and numerous articles published in the Atlantic, New Republic, New York Times Book Review and other scholarly publications.

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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.

 

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  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

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

 

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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 Photograph Edition

 

 

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.

This book is perfect for armchair travelers deprived of their ability to travel because of the COVID pandemic and those undergoing Spain withdrawal. Sunset in a Glass is a great holiday gift for those who love travel, adventure, Spain and Spanish food and wine.

The stories in this Sunset in a Glass are from decades of crisscrossing Spain accumulating adventures with the likes of José Andrés, Anthony Bourdain, James Earl Jones, Kenneth Tynan, Keith Hernandez, Thomas Keller, Ferran Adria, top chefs and restaurateurs, star winemakers and down home artisan wine producers, professional Ibérico ham carvers, bullfighters, flamenco artists, friends of Ernest Hemingway and a marvelous collection of women in Spain.

Endorsements From Chefs, Authors and Celebrities
 

“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. He has connected with all manner of people working at every level and in every corner of Spain. You can step into a restaurant in the smallest town in Spain, and it turns out they know Gerry somehow.”—José Andrés, chef-restaurateur-humanitarian, Nobel Prize nominee.

“In his decades of wandering the back roads of Spain Gerry Dawes has built up a much stronger bank of experiences than I had to rely on when I started writing Iberia...His adventures far exceeded mine in both width and depth.”—James A. Michener, author of Iberia: Spanish Travels and Reflections.

Before the golden age of food travel media, and long before Spain became the world’s most exciting food destination, there was Gerry Dawes. A walking (and eating) encyclopedia of Spanish food and culture—from tapas to the culinary innovators, from artisan winemakers and cheesemakers to the sites only the locals know—Gerry has chronicled them all. Like few others, he continues to inspire and inform a generation of food writers, travelers and chefs like me.”—Dan Barber, Chef-owner, Blue Hill New York and Blue Hill at Stone Barns, author of The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food.

 

 

“Thanks for your artistry. If I had not seen your photography, I would not have known you as well.” —James Earl Jones, during The Great White Hope filming in Barcelona.

 

 

 

“Gerry Dawes has lived, analysed, argued, savoured, prodded, tested, teased and loved his way through Spain’s extraordinary gastronomic heritage for decades. Food as friendship is at the core of this wild, passionate road trip through Spain. This is a masterclass in storytelling - delicious and addictive.”—Gijs van Hensbergen, Guernica: The Biography of a Twentieth-Century Icon and Gaudí: A Biography.

“Prowling through the bodegas, tapas bars, and markets of Spain with Gerry Dawes is an educational experience, sure, but more than that it’s an inside look at one of the world’s great gastronomic cultures, and more than that, it’s just a whole lot of fun. Gerry knows almost anyone you’d want to know in this delicious world, and those he doesn’t know, once he meets them, aren’t strangers for long. Sunset in a Glass will give you a tantalizing taste of the experience.”—Colman Andrews, author of Catalan Cuisine, co-founder of Saveur.

“Spain wouldn’t be as known to Americans without the stories Gerry tells and writes.”—Chef Ferran Adrià, elBulli.  

 

 

 

 “Most of what I know about Spain came from Gerry Dawes. Sunset in a Glass is the authoritative source for everything Spanish—people, food, wine, culture. And his diverting escapades on the road sometimes read like James Michener with Hunter Thompson in the passenger’s seat.”—Bryan Miller, former New York Times restaurant critic and author, Dining in the Dark.

 

 

Reader's Reviews

 

 Chef Norman Van Aken.  Photo by Gerry Dawes. 

This just in from the great chef of Florida, Norman Van Aken, chef-owner of Norman's in the Ritz-Carlton, Orlando, FL and author of the really great book No Experience Necessary and other books on food and cooking. 

 

Norman Van Aken 5 out of 5 Stars Jan. 29, 2022

 

 "If you love Spanish food and wine, (and who couldn’t!) do yourself a favor and learn from a gentleman named Gerry Dawes the deep dive that can be had when you read his new book, “Sunset in a Glass”.

I have had the great fortune to have gone on a tour in Spain curated and hosted in part by Gerry. He took us to places we never would have found on our own. And with his often decades long personal friendships with key member of the Spanish food and wine community doors were opened that gave us the true insider’s experience.

While you might not be doing international travel just yet ‘Sunset in a Glass’ with take you there from the comfort of your favorite reading chair. And drinking a fine Rioja is perfectly appreciated as you do!" 

 

For the Love of Spain and "Mr. Spain" 

 

Samantha (and Ed) Kamenitzer 5.0 out of 5 stars 

Reviewed in the United States on January 18, 2022

 

In praise of “Mr. Spain” for revealing and sharing his intimate glimpses of the country he knows and loves. And for Weaving together those explorations for us in the culmination of “Sunset in a Glass.”

A few years ago Gerry gave me my best birthday present when he guided four of us through the landscape, terrain, sights, smells, tastes, art, music and people of Spain! Those weeks in Spain secured a special place in my heart for Spain (and Gerry).
And this year for my birthday “Sunset in a Glass” what a great gift! Soon as Covid let’s us… I hope we’ll all meet again for more of Spain…Till then, thank you for an Excellent read.

 

Melvyn Master at a James Beard Birthday Dinner in Rockefeller Center, NYC, 1987. Photo by Gerry Dawes.

Best book ever on Spain and it’s food, wine and people.

mel master (Melvyn Master, Former owner of JAMS restaurant, wine executive)       5.0 out of 5 stars  Reviewed in the United States on December 29, 2021

No one is better equipped to write about Spain and its glorious food and wine than the irrepressible Spanish expert, Gerry Dawes. His stories about his experiences with so many fascinating people and wonderful places are an absolute joy to read. The book is not just well written but extremely informative and the photography is superb. It made me want to get in a plane immediately and head to Spain with “sunset in a glass” as my luggage! 

laura shapiro 5.0 out of 5 stars   

Reviewed in the United States on January 20, 2022

This magnificent tribute to the wine, food, and beauty of Spain is a must for those of you who love Spain and for those who want to travel but can’t right now.
Filled with beautiful imagery and great stories, few know Spain as well as Gerry Dawes. Seeing Spain through his eyes and experiences is truly magical.

Your one-stop book for learning about the wines, food, and cities of Spain

David Ramey (Esteemed Sonoma winemaker)  5.0 out of 5 stars                          Reviewed in the United States on January 3, 2022

Gerry Dawes has been a wine expert for over forty years and a frequent traveler in Spain for over fifty. In these essays and photos he shares with us his immense knowledge and love of Spanish wine, food, and the country. Pour yourself a glass of Rioja and take a tour with him of this fascinating culture.

Beautiful photos, a remembrance of Spain!   

Kenneth W. Blair 5.0 out of 5 stars Reviewed in the United States on January 25, 2022

I particularly enjoyed chapter 8, the great Barcelona market experience brought back memories of my own trip to the great market. Mr. Dawes book paints a beautiful picture of Spain, it’s food, wine, and beauty! 

 A Spanish adventure in a book!

Elena 5.0 out of 5 stars Reviewed in the United States on December 25, 2021

This book transports you through The beautiful landscape and culture of Spain. Gerry Dawes is well-known in gastronomic circles as the leading Authority in the country on Spanish food & wine. This book details his travels, the unique characters, and delicious food and wine he encounters along the way. Reading this really makes you feel like you are immersed in Spanish culture, with his Vivid writing style and gorgeous color photographs that he has captured throughout his travels. It makes you want to travel to Espana to sit on the beautiful playas, sipping Manzanilla and eating mariscos on the shores at sunset. Perfect for the traveler and wannabe adventurer in your family. 

A MUST Read if you eat, drink and enjoy life’s adventures.

 

mariarev (Philip S. Kampe, food, wine and travel journalist) 5.0 out of 5 stars Reviewed in the United States on January 11, 2022

 

Who is this guy Gerry Dawes?  After reading his epic journey and basically his life story in a couple hundred pages, I have to say that I’m in awe of his life’s saga.
Mr. Dawes is a significant traveler and educator who has focused his life on ‘everything Spanish.’ From politics to bullfighting to wine and food, this man has a significant place in Spanish history as possibly the best modern day biographer of this most interesting country. If you want to join his journey, I recommend reading this book because if you don’t you will be missing a Spanish education that only Gerry Dawes can give you.

I’m on my second reading because it’s one of those books you can’t put down.
Hopefully, there will be a second book that contains those observations of Spain that did not make it into this book.  BRAVO Gerry Dawes! 

 

Personal experiences in Spain over the past 50 years.

 

Boston Boy 5.0 out of 5 stars  Reviewed in the United States on January 14, 2022

 

I first met Gerry Dawes over 50 years ago when we were at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California. We were then assigned to the U.S. Naval Base in Rota, Spain. I spent most of my spare time playing golf at the lovely golf course on the base. One of the very few words in Spanish that I learned was "pelota de golf." Meanwhie, Gerry was immersing himself in Spanish language, cuisine and culture. He was a quick study, and when we were discharged in early 1970, he decided to stay on and live in Sevilla. The result of those fifty-plus years is this remarkable book. Not to exaggerate, but Gerry knows just about all there is on Spanish culture, wine, cuisine, history and travel. This book is is a compendium of his experiences in Spain and is filled with colorful incidents and historical background. One note: Thinking of running the bulls in Pamplona? Read Gerry's experiences from the "encierro" of 1970. You might want to reconsider! Buy this book for more exciting and informative stories of over fifty years in Spain. Definitive! 

 

Cara de Silva, author and Food Writer.

 

 

 Adventures in Spain for the reader's mind, mouth, and heart.

 

Veronica F. (Cara de Silva, author, food writer and editor of In Memory's Kitchen) 

5.0 out of 5 stars  Reviewed in the United States on January 23, 2022

 

Gerry Dawes' ability to transport the readers of this book to Spain through a rich narrative imbued with a sense of the country and its wine, food is truly inimitable. And I have to thank him for it. There are places that are part of us before we ever get there. That is how Spain was for me. On my first visit, my dreams made real lay before me: Seville, the Sierra Nevada, the Alhambra, Barcelona, flamenco, the White towns, the faces of the Spaniards and especially of the young man with whom I fell in love. But beyond those there were also the country’s flavors and they greeted and enchanted me: Jamón Iberico (some would say the greatest cured ham in the world); churros and chocolate, cochinillo (whole roast suckling pig), patatas brava, manzanilla, fino, and Asturian cider among them. So when many visits later, I left Spain for what unbeknownst to me would be decades, I felt a yearning for all of that so keen that it shocked me. I have not yet made it back, so the fierce longing continues. But when I read the first volume of "Sunset in a Glass: Adventures of a Food and Wine Road Warrior in Spain," what a “homecoming” it was. Written by the estimable Dawes, a deeply knowledgeable traveler and food and wine writer (among many other accolades he is a recipient of Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía), the book is chockablock with tales and photographs of people, places, food, chefs, wine and wine makers, traditional and modern. But it isn't just chockablock with them. It is powerfully alive with them. I knew before I had even turned the first page that "Sunset in a Glass" would soothe my heart. And how right I was. Gracias, Gerry, for setting down your adventures. No te puedo agradecer lo suficiente. I would give your book ten stars if I could And I cannot wait for the volumes yet to come. 

 

Most Comprehensive guide to Spanish food and wine

 

John Mariani (author, food writer, Mariani's Virtual Gourmet) 5.0 out of 5 stars  Reviewed in the United States on January 4, 2022

 

Gerry Dawes has given us a book that is not just the most comprehensive guide to Spanish food culture but imbues it with the passion of someone who fell in thrall with the country and its people decades ago. He is that most intrepid of reporters, asking every question an outsider needs to ask to make ancient traditions clear. I suspect he knows more about Spanish wines and food than most Spaniards who have nothing close to his intimacy with each and every region. 

 

A TASTE OF SPAIN

Jeff Cox (author and food and wine writer) 5.0 out of 5 stars  Reviewed in the United States on January 13, 2022

 

Loved the book. Gerry excels as a travel writer for two chief reasons. First, he describes in sensuous detail the sights and sounds and smells and people of the places he visits and friends he cares about; and second, he focuses on the foods and wines of the place--kind of verbal terroir--especially of the unique specialties to be found there. His book is like a diary of his experiences in Spain and offers us a rare glimpse into that country's romance and sensory wonders.

One person found this helpful

 

Gerry Dawes is the most knowledgeable guide you will ever have related to all things Spain

 

Stephen Kalt (Chef, Los Angeles) 5.0 out of 5 stars Reviewed in the United States on December 18, 2021

 

You can immerse yourself from afar, using this book as the ultimate guide and resource for wine and food of Spain. Dawes is an author, a traveler, an expert, a raconteur, a deeply thoughtful and extremely funny guy. He is the one to follow when it comes to the beauty that is Spain. 

 

Colman Andrews, Madrid, Photo by Gerry Dawes. 

 

Gerry Dawes Has Spain in His Veins

 

Colman Andrews (Author of Catalan Cuisine, founder of Saveur magazine) 5.0 out of 5 stars  Reviewed in the United States on December 23, 2021

 

Nobody else writing in English (and not all that many writing in Spanish) know the foods, wines, and gastronomic personalities of Spain like this hombre. He writes with passion and deep knowledge about what fuels the country he knows so well -- and he's a double threat, supplying evocative photographs as well. If you love Spanish food and wine, this is an essential -- and if you don't, read it anyway and you will be the time you get finished.

 

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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

 

 

 

 

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