Sunset in a Glass: Adventures of a Food & Wine Road Warrior in Spain: Master Florida Chef Norman Van Aken, Godfather of Fusión Cuisine, Who Wrote: "One of the most knowledgeable people I’ve ever known on the gastronomy of Spain, Gerry Dawes."

 

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“No one knows the world of food and drink of Spain like Gerry Dawes!” Having Gerry guide you around Spain as my wife Janet and I have done is one of the greatest ways imaginable to take in what is white-hot or classic regarding all things gastronomia. Treat yourself and those you love to the real insider's tour and read Sunset in a Glass!"--Norman Van Aken, Chef, Restaurateur and author of Norman Van Aken’s Florida Kitchen and No Experience Necessary, the Culinary Odyssey of Chef Norman Van Aken. (From the quotes for Sunset in a Glass: Adventures of a Food & Wine Road Warrior in Spain (Volumes I, II, III & IV; publication of the first two volumes in Fall 2021.)

 

Jose Andrés shows Norman Van Aken how he fries at egg in Juan Suárez's kitchen, after a doay at Madrid Fusión 2006.  Photo by Gerry Dawes©2006.

 

Madrid Jan 12-15-06 Chef Norman Van Aken, Juan Suárez, Janet Van Aken, Chef José Andrés, Chef Mark Miller, culinary historian and scientist, author Harold McGee and Esmeralda Capel at the home of Juan and Esmeralda, when Juan showed all of them how to properly fry an egg Spanish style in Spanish Extra Virgen Olive Oil.  Photo by Gerry Dawes©2006.
 

Chef Norman Van Aken normanvanaken on Instagram "Happy #tbt! Here we were in Madrid for @MadridFusion2006. We had been invited to a small but memorable gathering at a private home. Along with us were Chef Jose Andrés @chefjoseandres, Chef Mark Miller and among others Harold McGee @mcgee.onfood.onsmells. (Juan Suárez and Esmeralda Capel, one of the directors of Madrid Fusion, were our hosts).  Photo by one of the most knowledgeable people I’ve ever known on the #gastronomy of Spain, Gerry Dawes."

 

In 2006, the Bar at Casa Rafa Marisquería legend began to kick into high gear, when the likes of Charlie Trotter, Norman Van Aken, Tetsuya Wakuda and Don Alfonso Iaccarino were all at Madrid Fusión.  That year, I arranged to meet them all–three of the chefs with their significant others with them, along with star Spanish food journalist, Juanma Bellver–at the Bar at Rafa for some stellar shellfish tapas, a bit of bubbly and some conversation. 

 

  Gerry Dawes, Tetsuya Wakuda, Rochelle Smith, Livia Iaccarino, Janet Van Aken, Charlie Trotter and Norman Van Aken at Rafa.  Photo by Don Alfonso Iaccarino.

 

 

 

 Chefs Charlie Trotter and Norman Van Aken at Casa Rafa Marisquería in Madrid during a evening break from Madrid Fusión 2006.  Note Norman´s reflection in the mirror as he looks at his "brother" Charlie.  Photo by Gerry Dawes©2006.

 

 

Chef Norman Van Aken contemplates a whole rodaballo (turbot) at Kaia restaurant in Getaria, Spain on another outing with me in 2005.   Photo by Gerry Dawes©2005.

 

Chef Elena Arzak, Restaurante Arzak, San Sebastián with Chef Norman Van Aken on another adventure with me in 2005.  Photo by Gerry Dawes©2005.

 

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Sunset in a Glass: Adventures of a Food & Wine Road Warrior in Spain (Volumes I, II, III & IV; publication of the first two volumes in Fall 2021. 

 

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 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.

 

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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.

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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

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

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

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Text & Photographs by Gerry Dawes©2010

gerrydawes@aol.com

Juan Suárez and his grandson, Borja, in a photo in Juan's kitchen in Madrid.

Juan Suárez, husband of Esmeralda Capel, one of the Directors of the  annual Madrid Fusión Gastronomy Summit, is one of the most accomplished non-professional cooks in Spain.  For several years, I have been following the cooking exploits of Suárez, a retired lawyer, avid golfer, one Hell of a culinarian and one of my great friends.  Even calling Suárez “non-professional” chef is stretching the point.  Technically, he does not get paid for cooking, but he is so well thought of by the great Chef Juan Mari Arzak that he has been invited to spend a week cooking in Arzak’s kitchen on several occasions.

Juan Suárez and Juan Mari Arzak at Arzak, where Juan has spent whole weeks cooking.

Read the rest of the article by clicking here 

The Great Harold McGee on High Alcohol in Wines

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 "We do not represent wines that conform to the conventional canon, i.e.,  wines so dark that you can't see the bottom of the glass; wines with jammy, overripe fruit; wines low in acid; "dry" red or white wines with pronounced residual sugar; wines that taste more of oak than wine; or wines with high levels of alcohol  higher that 13.5%.   We prefer 13% and lower, but will consider wines of 14% and, on very, very rare occasions 14.5%, but only if they seem particularly well balanced, which is a sleight-of-hand performed by very few maestros." - - From The Spanish Artisan Wine & Spirits Group Mission Statement.

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Harold McGee on High Alcohol in Wines

Harold McGee at the book party at Per Se for Ferran Adrià's A Day at El Bulli.
Photo by Gerry Dawes ©2008. gerrydawes@aol.com.

"High-alcohol wines, those that exceed about 14 percent alcohol, are often described as “hot” and unbalanced. Alcohol’s irritating effects account for the heat. And flavor chemists have found that high alcohol levels accentuate a wine’s bitterness, reduce its apparent acidity and diminish the release of most aroma molecules. Alcohol particularly holds down fruity and floral aromas, so the aroma that’s left is mainly woody, herbaceous and vegetal. 

I couldn’t find any recent trials of wine dilution, but it’s been practiced since the days of ancient Greece, so I went ahead and tried it on a California zinfandel with 14.9 percent alcohol. I poured a partial glass of the wine and added about a quarter of its volume in water, to get it down to 12 percent.

A glass of the full-strength wine tasted hot, dense, jammy and a little sulfurous, while the diluted version was lighter all around but still full of flavor, tarter, more fruity than jammy, and less sulfurous. . ." -- Harold McGee, aka Curious Cook and author of On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, on High Alcohol in Wines in his article, To Enhance Flavor, Just Add Water in The New York Times (July 7, 2010).

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(Note:  These quotes from Harold McGee, who is a friend of mine, are in no way meant to construe or imply that Harold in any way endorses the wines or philosophy of The Spanish Artisan Wine Group.  His conclusions on high alcohol in wine speak for themselves.  It was about time that someone with a scientific background said what many people have been thinking for a long time.  High alcohol is an albatross around the neck of a fine wine, in fact I believe it keeps many wines from being truly great. -- Gerry Dawes, Gerry Dawes's Spain: An Insider's Guide to Spanish Food, Wine, Culture and Travel.)

Spain's Chemical Reaction Food Arts October 2009

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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.

". . .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.

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television

series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Culinary 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@hotmail.com