The Traveling Gastronomer: A Celebration of Food, Wine, Life, Photography & Quixotic Musings

Reality Series Television Trailer on Valencia and Alicante with host Gerry Dawes and Guest Chef Terrance Brennan

2015-04-22T05:50:00.000-07:00

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

"Gerry has an extraordinary knowledge of Spain, not just the cuisine and wine but the geography (little tapas bars on tiny streets in villages up in the mountains), history, culture and people. One of the highlights of the trip for me was not a 3-star Michelin meal, but a lunch at a winery. Gerry, of course, knew the winemaker, and we dined in a large beautiful room with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the vineyard. We ate simply: tomato salad, jamón ibérico, great bread and olive oil, baby lamb chops grilled over grape vines cuttings (exquisite), ewes’ milk cheese and, of course, great wine. What was special about this was the people, who invited us into their home with warmth and genuine hospitality, their alegría de vida (joie de vivre). I don’t speak Spanish but didn’t have too, we communicated through food, wine, banter, laughter and facial expressions." - - Terrance Brennan, Chef, cookbook author, creator-owner of New York’s Picholine and Artisanal restaurants. Brennan rates this trip, which predates the film pilot, as one of the top two gastronomic experiences of his life.

About Gerry Dawes

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

He received Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) for 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.

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.

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; Tel: 914-414-6982.

A Fabulous New Year's Eve/Day at the Home of Birthday Girl Rozanne Gold and Husband Michael Whiteman in North Park Slope, Brooklyn

2012-01-10T06:35:00.000-08:00

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Rozanne Gold's birthday cake from Cousin John's Cafe & Bakery, North Park Slope, Brooklyn,

Rozanne Gold's Birthday Album, Brooklyn NY.

New Years Eve 2011 & New Years Day 2012

A slide show, all photos copyright by Gerry Dawes 2012 / gerrydawes@aol.com

(Double click on images for enlarged version of the slide show.)

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About Gerry Dawes

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

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.

Food Arts Silver Spoon Award, profile written by star chef José Andrés.

Trailer for a proposed 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

E-mail: gerrydawes@aol.com

Blue Hill at Stone Barns with Alicante Chef María José San Román, Sunday, Jan. 9, 2012 Slide Show

2012-01-09T20:40:00.000-08:00

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(Full captions to follow.)

Slide show, lunch at Blue Hill at Stone Barns.

Double click on images for enlarged view.

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About Gerry Dawes

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

Dawes was awarded the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by star chef José Andrés.

Trailer 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

Photo Opp / Beberechos (cockles) with leeks, tomatoes, garlic, cilantro, red jalapeño, white wine done stove-top on a Spanish cazuela.

2012-01-09T14:23:00.000-08:00

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Beberechos (cockles) with leeks, tomatoes, garlic, cilantro, red jalapeño, white wine done stove-top on a Spanish cazuela. Wine: Chinón Rose 2009. Casa Kay & Gerry, Putnam County, NY.
Dish and photograph by Gerry Dawes©2011 / gerrydawes@aol.com

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About Gerry Dawes

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

Dawes was awarded the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by star chef José Andrés.

Trailer 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

Photo Opp / Blue Hill at Stone Barns: A House Classic, Beet "Mini-Burgers" on a Sesame Seed Bun

2012-01-09T13:33:00.000-08:00

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Beet "mini-burgers," Blue Hill at Stone Barns.

Artistry by Chef Dan Barber and crew.

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About Gerry Dawes

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

Dawes was awarded the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by star chef José Andrés.

Trailer 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

New Orleans: A Photographic Odyssey on Decatur Ave. -- Muffulettas, Beignets and Chicory Coffee at Café du Monde, Creole Praline Candy, Joanie on Her Pony and Who Dat Nation

2012-01-04T15:31:00.000-08:00

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Muffuletta (a New Orleans Italian sandwich with cold cuts, cheese and olive relish),

Barq's root beer, Central Grocery Company, Decatur Ave., New Orleans.

Alligator Gumbo File sign, Decatur Ave., New Orleans.
Photo by Gerry Dawes©2010 / gerrydawes@aol.com

(New Orleans Decatur Ave. Slideshow, Double Click to See a Larger View.)

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com

The Very, Very True Tale of a Remarkable Pair of Tony Lama Cowboy Boots, Also Starring Three Other Pairs of Tony Lama Boots, The French Laundry's Thomas Keller and John Williams of Frog's Leap Winery

2012-01-02T16:52:00.000-08:00

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Well, Sirs, the tale of my Tony Lama boots—Teju lizard, peanut brittle color now; tan Mojave lizard, I think, when I bought them—goes like this.

Tony Lama boots, purchased at The Rusty Spur, Marion, IL, circa 1976. Note the darker area on the left-hand boot (right foot) stained by Chef Thomas Keller's reduction sauce at Rakel's in New York City.

Back in the 1970s, when I returned from living in Spain and chasing the bullfights for eight years, I went to see my Uncle Bob Minton, down in Marion, Ilinois, where there was the Rusty Spur Western Store. He took me over there, because I decided it was time for me to man up and get me a pair of cowboy boots. Wow, I didn’t know what I was letting myself in for.

Now, nearly forty years later, eight pairs of cowboy boots—including four pairs of Tony Lamas—and a slew of adventures in those cowboy boots (especially in the Tony Lamas), I realized that I had become a cowboy boot addict. The only thing that could have been worse would have been if I had been able to afford to really indulge my habit.

Now, I know that you want a story about old boots, so this one will be on the nearly forty-year old pair mentioned in the paragraph above, and not the black Tony Lama Teju lizard boots with the pretty white stitching (bought in Weird Austin) that I only wear with a tuxedo to formal events in New York.

Gerry Dawes's Black Tony Lama Teju Lizard boots that he wears to black-tie events in New York.

Nor will I enter the exceptional pair of Tony Lama shark boots with the cream-colored tops that I can wear anywhere even if it is raining (water and sharks go together); I got them at the Rusty Spur or when I came down to visit Fall Creek Vineyards (in Texas Hill Country) when I was in the wine business back in the 1980s and Susan Auler, the owner of Fall Creek, first took me to Allen’s Boots on South Congress in Austin and my friend Weird-Austinite Dennis Cole (click on the link to read that truly weird tale) has also taken me to Allen's on a couple of occasions.

Gerry Dawes's Tony Lama Shark boots.

Nor will I enter the pair of Tony Lama peanut brittle colored ostrich boots which I went and spilled some drops of Spanish extra virgen olive oil on (I cook a lot).

Tony Lama Ostrich boots with Spanish extra virgen olive oil stains.

I was thinking about writing to you about to see if you could tell me how get the olive oil stains off those tall bird boots.

Tony Lama Ostrich boots with Spanish extra virgen olive oil stains.

I believe I got them at the Rusty Spur as well, but I may have purchased them at Weird Austin Allen's.

Allen's Boots on South Congress Ave. in Austin, Texas.
Note the big Justin boot over the awning. Justin owns Tony Lama Boots.

I have this pair of Tony Lama Black Teju Lizard boots scouted out at Allen's as probable purchase to become my front-line black boots to wear to black-tie functions and also another pair of Tony Lama Peanut Brittle Teju Lizard boots to replace the rattle snake- and Thomas Keller reduction sauce-bitten original vintage boots that are the subject of this very true story.

The only time that I bought a pair of boots in Texas that I didn't purchase at Allen's in Austin was the time I went to Dallas and got a pair of light peanut brittle-colored boots that are way too pretty to wear. Not only do I rarely wear them, except under controlled circumstances (no rain the forecast, no tapas bar hopping, no possible reduction sauce or olive oil moments) because they are too pretty to ruin, they also have a very narrow throat, which means that I can only wear them if my SE (Spousal Equivalent) will be around to help me pull them off and at the risk of inducing a hernia in one of us at that. Four years after I bought them, as I was doing an in-depth full boot review so I could be informed before I entered the Tony Lama Boot contest, I looked inside for the brand and saw a stamp “For Export Markets Only,” something I have not seen inside my Tony Lama boots.

That leaves the boots in the photos that I am entering in your contest and, well, as you might imagine, there is one Hell of a story behind these boots. First off, I wore them out on the town in New York for many years. I was in the wine business and sold some of the world’s greatest wines to a slew of top restaurants. I was wearing this pair one night when I went to Rakel, where Chef Thomas Keller, now of The French Laundry, Per Se, Bouchon and God knows what other big-time restaurants in Napa Valley, Las Vegas, New York and maybe Singapore (who knows?), was cooking.

The particularly eventful night I went to Keller's Rakel wearing these Tony Lama boots (the ones in the enclosed pictures) I was out with John Williams, the owner of Frog’s Leap Winery in Napa Valley.

We were having one of Keller’s fabulous dinners and trying to talk, but there was a piano player at Rakel playing a pretty stepped up version of jazz music, so much so that we were getting a little frantic trying to have a conversation with this schizoid music going on in the background.

I looked down at my Tony Lama boots and thought, “D-mn, thse r sum gd lkin bts.” (I told you the music was making us crazy.)

Then, with my hand in time with that rapido piano music, I lifted a fork full of Keller’s food—it was a dish with a very dark, very rich reduction sauce—towards my mouth and a big drop of Keller’s sauce fell and plopped right onto my beautiful Tony Lama boot, the right one to be precise. You can imagine how I felt. I tried to wipe it off with my napkin, but it had indelibly tattooed a dark spot on my Tony Lama boot and God, I loved those boots.

Not long after that spill that stained these beautiful Tony Lama boots, I looked over at John Williams and said, “J—s Christ, I wish somebody would tell that piano player to stop!”

John Williams, Owner, Founder, Winemaker and Philosopher at
Frog's Leap Winery, Rutherford, Napa Valley, California.Photo courtesy of seacoastonline.com

Williams said, “Me, too!”

Right about then, the piano player took a break, much to our relief.

“Wow, what a relief,” I said.

John Williams said, “Speaking of relief, I going to the pissoir. (He makes wines with several French grapes, so he knew what a pissoir was in French.)

I contemplated the disaster that had befallen my prized Tony Lama boots.

After a few minutes, Williams returned, a bit red in the face I thought.

“You will never believe what happened, “ he said. “I was standing in the pissoir taking a wiz and there was a guy at the urinal next to me.

He asked me how I liked the restaurant. I said , ‘Fine, but I wish somebody would shoot that piano player.”

The guy said, “I am the piano player.”

Chef Thomas Keller's reduction sauce stain from Rakel's in New York City.

For years, I pestered Thomas Keller, who was a charter member of a club I founded for chefs—The Chefs From Hell Acrobatic Unicyclists and Winetasters Club (we didn’t allow acrobatic unicyclists at our gatherings), to buy me a new pair of Tony Lama boots to replace the pair that his reduction sauce had ruined. All these years, he has steadfastly refused. (I just saw him in northern Spain in November and he re-affirmed his refusal to buy me a new pair of Tony Lama boots.)

That reduction sauce stain was not the only thing that happened to these Tony Lama boots. There was also the rattlesnake incident, which truth be known was as much the fault of the boots (or Keller’s reduction sauce) as it was of the rattlesnake. I come from Southern Illinois, which is below the Mason-Dixon line and is full of hills, many of them made out of huge boulders pushed ahead of the glaciers back in the Ice Age, so where I came from is hilly while most of the rest of Illinois is very flat.

Now, rattlesnakes just love these hills for some reason, so much so that Southern Illinois University, home of the Saluki Dawgs, started a movement to protect the snakes down in the Pine Hills area. When I was a kid, I went fishing down there with my Grampy, Chig Minton, and Uncle Bob. On the way into the fishin’ hole, we stepped over a log that had a copperhead coiled under it (Bob killed it after me and Grampy had stepped over the log), then Grampy stepped on two water moccasins at the same time. We saw rattlers on the road and a whole bunch of other snakes swimming, sunning themselves and hanging from the trees that day down in the Scatters, which is what they call the swamps down there in the bottoms, or bottom lands, of the Mississippi River.

I was wearing my Tony Lama cowboy boots—the very ones in the pictures—when I went back home to Southern Illinios and decided to drive down there to the Scatters one day to show my ex-wife (she wasn’t my ex-wife then!)how beautiful those hills and swamps were. I really didn’t intend to get out of the car, because the area has been known to shelter snakes (see above). But, since they didn’t have the road closed through the Scatters, which they do during rattlesnake mating season!, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to get out of the car and have a look at the swamps to see if there was something interesting to point out to my ex-wife, like snakes hanging from tree branches. Mistake!

I got out of the car to have a look around to see if it was okay for my then-wife to get out and I had gone no more than a couple of yards alongside the gravel road when I heard a noise that sounded like a baby boy with hyper-tension shaking a toy rattle. Oh, boy! I figured right away what that rattle was attached to, but not before a rattlesnake about ten-feet long lunged out from the side of the road and struck at my foot. Now, I pretty well figured that my calves and shins were protected—why do you reckon I wore by cowboy boots to snake country?

That snake struck a glancing blow at my boot and just snagged a bit of the top of it on the right side, leaving a gash about an inch long. He didn’t get a second chance, because I was out of there like a bat out of Hell. I drove down to levee road, which was high enough above the swamp and didn’t have all that many places for snakes to hang out.

My then-wife said, “Are you okay?”

“I think so, but I need to see what that snake did to my Tony Lama boot.”

I got out and I asked her to help me pull off my right Tony Lama boot, being careful not to get any venom—not to be confused with Keller’s reduction sauce—on her hands. She had a little trouble getting the boot off. Since the boots had always been a little tight and the throat was a bit narrow, it was potentially hernia-inducing to get them off without a boot jacket.

Once she removed the boot, I examined it and saw the rip along the top. The boot was now a wounded lizard. But fortunately the fangs did not penetrate the boot and nail me in the foot, ‘cause by the time she would have been able to pull that boot off and suck the venom out of my big toe, I would have been dead, with just my (one) Tony Lama boot on.

Tony Lama boots, purchased at The Rusty Spur, Marion, IL, circa 1976.
Note the rattlesnake strike tear on the left-hand boot (right foot).

I got to thinking about it on the way home. I figured that that rattlesnake had one of two things on his mind. Either he had been after Keller’s reduction sauce or, more likely, he had mistaken that gorgeous lizard boot for another reptile, had taken my left boot to be a female reptile—probably the scent. I reasoned that the snake had fallen in love with my left boot --Tony Lama boots can cause more than snakes to be smitten--and had struck the right one to get rid of her boyfriend. Either way, because I feared that I might absorb some venom by osmosis, I decided to retire those boots that had tightened up further—shrunk with fright, no doubt-- after their encounter with the rattler.

Retired, rattlesnake-wounded, Keller reduction sauce-stained, Tony Lama boots.

Those boots have been in the back of the closet for at least twenty years as I went on to more boots, including those Tony Lamas mentioned above. The rattlesnake-attracting qualities of my first pair did not deter me from my long-term aficion for Tony Lamas.

When I saw that there was a Tony Lama contest on, I decided to pull out my original boots and see what kind of shape they were in. I think you can see by the pictures that these 35-year old something boots are in pretty damn good shape for what they have been through—the Scatters, a rattlesnake, New York City, a frantic piano player and Thomas Keller’s reduction sauce. And I think the rattlesnake venom must have been somewhat like a natural crazy glue, because the snake gash seems to have healed somewhat—or maybe the lizard re-generated some skin.

So, this is my story about Tony Lama boots, but if you should deign to consider my boot story a winner, I have to tell you that I need two new pairs of your boots, a replacement for the snake-bit, reduction sauce, wounded boot and a new black pair to replace the ones that I wear to black-tie events in New York City and in Madrid.

The black pair are neither snake nor sauce bit, but after twenty years they don’t look quite as new (see second set of photographs) to wear just in case I get invited to a dinner for the Queen of Spain again. But, that’s a story for another time.

New York City Tuxedo Tony Lama Black Teju Lizard boots.

Yours truly, Gerry Dawes

Gerry Dawes's Spain: An Insider's Guide to Spanish Food, Wine, Culture and Travel: English Version of Boquería Gourmand (Published in October by Viena Edicions), a New Book about Barcelona's Fabulous La Boquería Market (Foreword by Gerry Dawes)

2011-12-29T21:47:00.000-08:00

Photographic impressions made on a stroll along Decatur Ave., New Orleans

2011-12-26T10:13:00.000-08:00

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Café du Monde coffee and beignets shop, Decatur Ave., New Orleans.
Photo by Gerry Dawes©2010 / gerrydawes@aol.com

Slide show of photographic impressions made on a stroll along Decatur Ave., New Orleans, September 2010.
All photos by Gerry Dawes©2010 / gerrydawes@aol.com

Adventures on Cape Cod and at Sakonnet in Rhode Island. First in a series, The Black Cat Tavern, Hyannis, Cape Cod on July 25, 2011.

2011-07-15T10:03:00.000-07:00

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A late supper of fish tacos, crab cakes and a made-to-order margarita

at The Black Cat Tavern, Hyannis, Cape Cod.

(Slide Show)

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About Gerry Dawes

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.

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.

Weird Austin, Texas: Adventures with Dennis & Elizabeth Cole - Sixth Street, Iron Cactus, Driskill Hotel, Bat City, Guero's, South Congress Ave., Allen's Boots, The Broken Spoke, the Dry Creek Cafe and More

2011-03-13T17:00:00.000-07:00

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Photograph by Gerry Dawes©2010.

Contact gerrydawes@aol.com.

Liz and Dennis Cole at Guero's Tacos Mexican Restaurant on South Congress Ave. in Austin.

A few months ago, Kay and I stopped off in Austin, Texas to spend a couple of days with my old friend Dennis Cole, his wife Liz and his son Chriss. We were in between stops in New Orleans and Santa Fe. These three cities are an incredible trio to do on the same trip and all of them are among the most fun places in America (stay tuned for New Orleans and Santa Fe).

I love Austin and have been there maybe a half dozen times. At least four pairs of my cowboy boots are from Allen's Boots on South Congress, one of my favorite stores on the planet. The following slide shows, cheeky captions and all, are a record of what Kay and I saw and did in Austin in just two and a half days.

Dennis Cole rents a buffalo to mow his lawn in Austin. Unfortunately, Dennis's rented lawn mower chowed down on the power supply cord to his budding trailer park forcing its inhabitants--Jason Pitcock, Dennis's daughter Michelle Bjorgo and her husband Lloyd Bjorgo (all from the federal witness protection program)--to have to frequent his abode (shades of Randy Quaid on a vacation tour!)

Adventures at the Home of Dennis & Liz Cole
& Their New Trailer Park
(Note: To watch the slide shows full-screen, double click, go to Picasa and click on "full-screen" in the right corner.)

Downtown Austin: Scenes From Weird Austin, Sixth Street,
The Driskill Hotel and The Iron Cactus

As if Austin ain't weird enough, upping the ante is The Driskill Hotel, which the founder Col. Driskill--who got very rich selling beef to the Confederate Army and built the place--lost in a poker game to his brother-in-law. Apparently, the Driskill is also haunted. Two different brides on their honeymoons twenty years apart committed suicide in the bathroom of room 525 at the Driskill. Must have been some special wedding night. Hopefully the two unfortunate women did not marry the same guy. The hotel sealed the bathroom off and closed the room, but it has since been remodeled and reopened, so prospective bridegrooms who might be marrying a woman they don't like, room 525 at the Driskill may be the perfect place to book for the honeymoon. (No comments about spending one's honeymoon in Weird Austin, please!)

More Weird Austin: Sunset at the Dry Creek Cafe
and an Excursion to the Bat City Bridge

I wrote an article on the 25 best bars in America several years ago. I called Dennis Cole to ask him about the best bars in Austin and he told me about the Dry Creek Cafe. He said the owner, Sarah might throw you out if she didn't like your looks. "But, if she tolerates your being there, you can sit upstairs on the deck and drink long-neck Lone Stars while you watch the sunset over the lake."

Well, I put the Dry Creek Cafe in the Playboy article as an honorable mention, but I hadn't been back to Austin with enough time to go there. This time it was one of my priorities, so Dennis, Kay and I went out there on a Saturday night and had long-neck Lone Stars as the sun went down. Now, it was a fair-to-middlin' sunset, but you couldn't see the lake from there and we were the only customers in the place, so we had the deck and the sunset, if not the lake view, to ourselves. Crotchety Sarah, who was so famous for admonishing customers to "Bring your bottle back down!" that is printed on the back of the Dry Creek Cafe tee-shirt, had died (certainly not in room 525 at the Driskill) and one of her employees had taken over the place. We were the only ones at the Dry Creek until the owner's buddy showed up to watch a football game with him on the downstair's television.

Dennis, despite his ringing endorsement for my Playboy article, admitted that this was the first time he had ever been to the Dry Creek Cafe.

Dennis and Gerry toasting with long-neck Lone Star beer at the Dry Creek Cafe,
Dennis's candidate for one of America's best bars (not!).

Austin: Congress Ave., Guero's Tacos, Allen's Boots,Uncommon Objects and Elvis Presley Blvd.

Dennis Cole at The Broken Spoke, A Study in Black and White

A Night at The Broken Spoke: Though These Doors Pass the Greatest Country Music Dancers in The World (We were not among them!)

Gerry and Kay doing the Texas two-step (or something)
and living the High Life at The Broken Spoke, Austin.

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About Gerry Dawes

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

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.

Trailer 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

New York. Dec. 23, 2010 at Picholine with Terrance Brennan and at a Bluegrass Jam Session at The Grisly Pear in the West Village

2010-12-23T09:03:00.000-08:00

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For the past several years, I have been getting together with Chef Terrance Brennan at his flagship, Michelin-starred restaurant, Picholine, where Terrance and his chef de cuisine, Carmine DiGiovanni, are making some of the best food in New York. While Terrance was battling with a maddening visit from the food police, who are going to kill great food in this country if someone doesn't stop them, Kay and I sat at one of the bar and sipped Taittinger Brut Prestige Rosé Champagne, while our server, Tony, a veteran at Picholine plied us with a series of "tapas."

Finally, Terrance was free and the party began in earnest with the appetizers in these pictures, including a Diver scallop with pomegranate sauce (yes!!), sweetbreads and a beet and arugula salad. With a bottle of Colin-Deleger Chevalier-Montrachet 1999, which was good, but not spectacular, we had what Terrance said was the last white truffle of the season. As our server started shaving the white truffle over my risotto, I was reminded of the first time this happened to me at the '21' Club when Anne Rosenzweig invited me to lunch for my birthday. We sat at Humphrey Bogart's old table and Anne ordered pasta with white truffles. When our server arrived with the truffle, Anne said, "Say When, when you think he has shaved enough truffle on your pasta."

I was suddenly afflicted with a temporary lock-jaw condition, which may have been a boon to the people at the table, but not to the '21' Club's bottom line. Shave on, shave on, shave on!! These strange affliction descended upon me again last night. My risotto ended up covered with white truffles!! Kay began to stammer when she tried to say, "When!"

And Brennan, who is the boss, didn't say "When!," he merely took the truffle and shaver from our server and proceeded to whittle off some more over his pasta dish.

(Double click on the image to go to a large screen Picasa slide show the dinner at Picholine.)

A good time was had by all and then we headed to a dive bar in the West Village, where Terrance's novia, Jody Lipton, was playing the flute and singing with her musician friends at a bluegrass jam session held at the Grisly Pear on MacDougal street every Wednesday night.

(Double click on the image to go to a large screen Picasa slide show on the jam session at the Grisly Pear.)

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

About Gerry Dawes

2010-12-15T13:13:00.000-08:00

* * * * *

Gerry Dawes was awarded the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award (Dec. 2009)

(Profile written by José Andrés)

* * * * *

Guide to Gerry Dawes's Spain:

Customized Culinary Tours, Epicurean Ways Scheduled Tours, Photography, Articles and Archived Posts

Testimonials on Gerry Dawes's Spain Expertise

From James A. Michener, Ferran Adrià, Thomas Keller, José Andrés, Terrance Brennan, Norman Van Aken, Mark Miller, John Mariani, Karen Page/Andrew Dornenberg, Rozanne Gold
______________________________________________________________________

About Gerry Dawes

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

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@gmail.com

A Memorable Breakfast Experience at Mother's in New Orleans

2010-10-19T08:48:00.000-07:00

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A month ago (mid-September 2010), while in New Orleans (my first time back in thirty years!) to speak on Spanish wines and food at Adolfo García's Río Mar, Kay and I had breakfast at Mother's, a New Orleans institution established in 1938.

Front dinner room at Mother's, orders are placed cafeteria style, then brought to your table.

Kay and I sat up front at a communal table right next to where owner Jerry D'Amato holds court, greeting customers, answering the phone, running his business from a tall table just inside the door, which begs the question: How the Hell does Jerry survive the constant change between hot and cool from the constantly opening and closing of the front door?

Jerry D'Amato at his greeter's table-office.

We ordered shrimp Creole omelette & grits for Kay, the crayfish etouffée omelette with grits for me, along with blackened ham, slices of the "World's Best Baked Ham," fresh-from-the-oven bisquits, coffee and, at the end, what else?, a breakfast dessert of Mother's bread pudding. (Note: If you don't understand or like grits, God help you, but you don't have to eat them, even in Who Dat Nation.)

Shrimp Creole omelette & grits.

Crayfish etouffée omelette with grits.

"Blackened" ham, the ends and well done outer pieces from the baked ham.

Mother's Bread Pudding.

Stacie Robinson waited on us and she was anything but rude.

Before the bread pudding, Jerry took me on a tour of his exceptional wall hangings, a virtual museum with photographs, World War I, World War II, Korean War and Vietnam War (Police Action) posters, New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival posters, posters and photographs of New Orleans musicans such as Pete Fountain, Dr. John, Jerry Lee Lewis, etc.--several of which you can see in the slide show below.

Jerry Lee Lewis.

Mother's has survived all the major hurricanes, including Katrina, of the past 70-odd years, and will most likely survive all the negative on-line reviews by would-be restaurant critics bitching about the place being "touristy," service being "rude," lines being "too long," the place being "too small" (it has three dining areas including two huge back dining rooms) and the food being "lousy."

Is Mother's a "tourist trap?" Depends on your point of view. Since New Orleans itself is one of the most "touristy" cities in America and long has been, sure you can say Mother's is touristy. Is it down-home New Orleans? Absolutely, it has been since 1938 and all the tourists in the world haven't changed that. Is the food better elsewhere? Sure, it can be better in many other places in New Orleans, but Mother's has its own special patina, its own special ambience, even camaraderie, the food is a real down-home experience, perhaps a little dated by time, but thank God some places still preserve some of what we have lost to compare against what we may have gained or not. Besides, we all can make our own choices and judging by the lines outside the door sometimes, a lot of people are still choosing Mother's.

Five heart doctors in New Orleans for a convention. A New Orleans Times-Picayune article showed them chowing down at Mother's. One was quoted as saying, "Low cholesterol diets are for people with coronary disease. I am low-risk. I don't have to go to extremes."

New Orleans Times-Picayune article on heart doctors eating at Mother's.

And there was Michelle Obama, recently in New Orleans to promote nutrition for school children, refused requests to be photographed eating at Mother's. She did not say whether she was "low-risk," but she wasn't "going to extremes" to avoid the food at Mother's either.

I was also extremely abstemious in the amount of grits I ate at Mother's. I only ate part of what Kay didn't finish!

About Gerry Dawes: Press, Awards, Tours to Spain, Television Trailer, Contact Info

Insider’s Deluxe Taste of Northen Spain Gastronomic Tour of Bilbao - San Sebastián - Navarra - Barcelona Nov. 27 - Dec. 5, 2010

Culture: the word on cheese (Summer issue). Beyond Cabrales, an Eight-page Article with Photographs of the Cheeses of Asturias, Northern Spain's National Park of Cheeses

2010-05-30T06:38:00.000-07:00

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Check out the Summer issue of Culture: the word on cheese. I have an eight-page article with photographs on the Asturias, Beyond Cabrales, with profiles of Cabrales and six other wonderful Asturian cheeses, plus hotel and restaurant recommendations. You can find out how to get a copy on the Culture - the word on cheese website.

For information on how to get a copy of Culture: the word on cheese to read the rest of the article, plus articles by Max McCalman, Susan Herman Loomis, Janet Fletcher and an interview with Steve Jenkins, go to http://www.culturecheesemag.com

________________________________________________________________

About Gerry Dawes

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

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.

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television series
on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Abandoning Heavy Bottles for Wine, New Oak (de-forestation), High Alcohol and Other Pretenses; Plus Embracing the 500ml. Bottle For High-priced, High Alcohol Wines and Comments on Natural Cork Wine Stoppers with a Slide Show From Amorim, the Portuguese Cork Producer

2010-04-16T11:54:00.000-07:00

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Tyler Colman on his Dr. Vino's Wine Blog has a very interesting post today, April 16, Tony Soter sheds some weight [carbon footprint] on Oregon winemaker (and long-time California winemaker-consultant), Tony Soter. Soter recently decided, according to Dr. Vino, "The Oregon vintner shipped his 2007 Pinot Noirs in bottles weighing 900g, more than the 750g of wine in the bottle. But for his 2008s, which are being released soon, the bottles will weigh 600g (both bottles, pictured right). Needless to say, the reduced packaging mass greatly reduces the carbon footprint of the wine."

“The time has passed that you can try to impress people with the substance of the bottle as opposed to what is in the bottle,” he (Soter) said.

No shit, Tony (Back in the day, I used to sell Soter-made wines, which I quite liked.)! What gave you the first clue that maybe you and the rest of the winemakers in Oregon--and in California, Spain, and elsewhere--should have been considering substance and content over form in the first place?

Maybe more new wave (now old and very tired wave) Parkerista-bent winemakers from around the world should consider the words of star chef Thomas Keller (The French Laundry, Per Se, Bouchon and an original, charter member of The Chefs From Hell Acrobatic Unicylcists and Winetasters Club of New York) from the Wall Street Journal yesterday (April 15, 2010). Keller was quoted as saying, "We do what we believe in, not what our guests want us to do."

How unique! Maybe some wineries, who always telling me that their overblown, overripe, high alcohol/new oak-trashed wines--many put up in hernia-inducing bottles--are "what the market is asking for!," should hire Keller as a consultant.

This was my comment in response to the Soter "heavy bottle" piece on the Dr. Vino Wine Blog:
Amazing how people who ought to have known better in the first place change their thinking when the wind starts to blow from a different direction. Now, in addition to getting rid of super-heavy bottles (duh, the shipping costs alone for such pretentiousness!), we will soon see a massive shift away from the “new French oak” religion, not because the inexpert use of oak screws up the wine, but because new oak designer barrels cost too bloody much.

As long as we are on the subject of heavy bottles, my partial solution to the outrageously high alcohol levels in California--and in Priorat and other such wines–in addition to stopping harvesting irrigated, overripe fruit–is to put these charicature trophy wines in 500ml bottles. A half liter is about all two people can support these days, especially in restaurants (many have to drive), so that would stop leaving a fourth to a third of the bottle undrunk on the table. It would allow producers to simultaneously drop their price per bottle by about 25% and make more bottles available to the public for wineries who have tight allocations (the few left who do). Sure, they would still keep bottling in 750ml. for collectors and wine aficionados who want to cellar those wines.

And, while we are at the carbon footprint thing (Dr. Vino's Wine Blog), how about doing away with plastic stoppers, which are going to end up in those huge floating plastic trash dumps in the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean? And the carbon footprint on natural cork (News on Spanish wine and food- Qué se dice del vino y alimentos de España) is so far above that of the horrid screw-top closure that, now that TCA is under control (of the samples I am sent to taste for articles about Spanish wines, I can’t remember when the last cork-taint wine turned up), there is not real excuse for continuing the screw-top madness. (Yeh, I know they are easier to open, just don’t slice your finger on that aluminum that is going to end up in the landfill and create pollution.)

Slide show of cork harvest, production and quality control at Amorim in Portugal.

___________________________________________________________

About Gerry Dawes

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

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.

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television series

on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Cakeage Fee--A Bad Taste in the Mouth: An Unsavory Encounter at The Breslin with a Wait Person's (Waiter) Arrogance and Ignorance, a Letter by My Friend Rose Levy Beranbaum, Author of Numerous Books on Cakes and Baking

2010-03-11T09:15:00.000-08:00

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Rose Levy Beranbaum, author of numerous books on cakes and baking, notably The Cake Bible, is a nice woman, but she got mightly pissed off and rightfully so over being charged "a cakeage fee" at The Breslin restaurant for tasting a cake she had left over from a film shoot! The waiter, after admonishing Rose and her guests, brought four forks back to the table, no plates, nothing but an admonition that he was going to report them to the chef. When the bill came, Rose was charged a $25 "cake" fee. Read the rest of her letter, A Bad Taste in the Mouth . . .

Bryan Miller & Rose Levy Beranbaum at the Food Arts magazine holiday party.
Photo by Gerry Dawes©2009. gerrydawes@aol.com

____________________________________________________________________
About Gerry Dawes

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

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.

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television series
on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Crazy good. Michael Chiarello's (Napa Valley's Tra Vigne, Bottega, Napa Style) Dried Fruits and Nut Cake

2010-03-04T11:33:00.000-08:00

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Crazy good. Michael Chiarello (Napa Valley's Tra Vigne, Bottega, Napa Style, several other restaurants) dried fruits and nut cake. I found it when I returned home after five weeks in Spain and another week in snow-bound Putnam County, New York.

I cut a slice to taste it, planned to photograph the cake with the slice cut out, but ended up eating half of it over the next 24 hours before I got one of my cameras out to photograph what was left. Warning: Don't take a bite of this stuff before you take a photograph or you may end up without a picture.

(Postscript: The cake is all gone now!)

___________________________________________________________________

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television series
on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Continental Airlines: What's next? Charging for Using the Toilet In-Flight to go with Your Breaded Chicken on Bread with Potato Chips and Potato Salad?

2010-03-03T10:51:00.000-08:00

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Continental Airlines to Sell Seat Assignments Offering Extra Legroom at Check In

03 Mar 10 HOUSTON - Continental Airlines today announced that beginning March 17, 2010, it will offer customers the option of purchasing, at check in, premium seat assignments for unreserved economy-class seats that feature extra legroom.

Continental's OnePass Elite frequent flyer members and their traveling companions will be able to continue to assign themselves seats with extra legroom in economy class without charge.

"Our customers want more choices," said Jim Compton, Continental's executive vice president and chief marketing officer. "Seats with additional legroom are higher-value seats, and we want to offer them to customers who recognize that value."

Depending on the type of aircraft and row, seats with extra legroom provide customers with a minimum of seven additional inches of leg space. Customers will be able to purchase these seats at continental.com or at the airport kiosk during the normal check-in period, beginning at 24 hours prior to departure of the first flight in an itinerary. Pricing for the premium seats will vary depending on a number of factors, including the length of the flight and market.

Continental joins several other U.S. and international airlines in offering customers the option of purchasing premium seat assignments.

Continental Airlines is the world's fifth largest airline. Continental, together with Continental Express and Continental Connection, has more than 2,500 daily departures throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia, serving 133 domestic and 135 international destinations. Continental is a member of Star Alliance, which overall offers 19,700 daily flights to 1,077 airports in 175 countries through its 26 member airlines. With more than 41,000 employees, Continental has hubs serving New York, Houston, Cleveland and Guam, and together with its regional partners, carries approximately 63 million passengers per year.

Continental consistently earns awards and critical acclaim for both its operation and its corporate culture. For the sixth consecutive year, FORTUNE magazine named Continental the No. 1 World's Most Admired Airline on its 2009 list of World's Most Admired Companies. For more company information, go to www.continental.com.

_______________________________________________________________________

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television series
on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Santa Fe Journal 2009: Chef Estevan García's Superb Tasting Menu at Tabla de Los Santos, St. Francis Hotel, on New Year's Eve 2009

2010-01-16T13:06:00.000-08:00

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Chef Estevan García, Tabla de Los Santos, St. Francis Hotel, Santa Fe.

Chef Estevan García is a native of Santa Fe, who studied under the Franciscan religious order for four years. Along the way, he traded his cassock from a chef's jacket and ironically became the chef at the St. Francis Hotel.

We were staying at the St. Francis and I had asked to meet the chef and photograph some of his food. In the meantime, returning to the Hotel after dinner with my old friend, the legendary godfather of Southwestern cuisine, Mark Miller, we ran into Chef García in the lobby. Mark introduced us and opened up a fascinating insider's look into García's superb riffs on New Mexican cuisine at Tabla de los Santos restaurant in the St. Francis on New Year's Eve 2009.

Tabla de los Santos Chef Estevan García's Carne Adovado Ravioli filled with New Mexican

red chile marinated pork, served with a garlic-infused bean cream sauce.

On Chef Estevan's menu, each of his dishes is described in detail, often crediting the farms from which the ingredients come. This is the report on our wonderful New Year's Eve dinner (see slide show above). For the chef's desayuno on New Year's morning, the last of five reports on breakfasts in Santa Fe, click on the link.

For a full-screen slide show, double click, go to Picasa web album, click on slide show (left) and hit F11.

You can even turn off the captions.

____________________________________________________________________

About Gerry Dawes

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

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.

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television series
on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Goats Who Stare at Men, Men Who Stare at Goats and Rabbits Who Won't be Staring Back

2010-01-15T14:41:00.000-08:00

* * * * *

* * * * *

* * * * *

_________________________________________________________________________________

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@gmail.com

Santa Fe Journal: A Slide Show (with captions) of The Native American Artisans of Northern New Mexico--Jewelry Makers, Kachina doll makers, Musicians, Ristra stringers--plus Kokopeli, a Female Indian Saint and Indians & Cowboys (Dallas)

2010-01-14T06:33:00.000-08:00

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Indians and Cowboys. Avelino Whaler, Indian Market, Palace of the Governors, Santa Fe.

* * * * *

For full-screen slide show, double click on lower right corner,

go to Picasa, click on slide show at left, F11 for full-screen.

________________________________________________________________

About Gerry Dawes

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

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.

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television series
on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

These Emblematic Monuments to Jewish Heritage in Spain Are Very Special Places: Toledo, Segovia, Córdoba & Sevilla

2010-01-13T10:44:00.000-08:00

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Santa María la Blanca synagogue, Toledo.

Although I am not Jewish (I once was in the second half of the 15th century), I lived for parts of five years in the Old Jewish Quarter of Sevilla and I try to seek out and photograph remnants of Jewish heritage in Spain. From some of my trips, I have put together a slide show of my photographs of some of the most important, emblematic monuments to Jewish heritage in Spain, the El Tránsito and Santa María la Blanca synagogues, both in Toledo, along with photos of a Toleda wine cellar in a 9th century Jewish home; the Sinagoga Mayor (main synagogue) in Segovia; the statue in Córdoba to the great 12th-Century Jewish philosopher, Maimonides, and Sevilla's Judería, the Old Jewish Quarter, where I lived in the 1970s.

(*"El Tránsito and Santa Maria la Blanca, both in Toledo, are two of the finest examples of this Moorish architecture under Jewish influence.")
____________________________________________________________________________

About Gerry Dawes

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

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.

5 Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television series
on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Coming up in less than two weeks: MADRID FUSIÓN 2010, THEATRE OF IDEAS: Preview of the International Summit of Gastronomy Coming Up in Madrid, January 26, 27 & 28

2010-01-13T07:18:00.000-08:00

* * * * *

Ferran Adrià at Madrid Fusión.
Photo Gerry Dawes©2009. gerrydawes@aol.com

For full-screen slide show, double click on lower right corner,
go to Picasa, click on slide show at left, F11 for full-screen.

__________________________________________________________________________

About Gerry Dawes

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

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.

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@gmail.com

Santa Fe Journal: A "Second Breakfast" - Tamales at the El Molero Fajita stand on the Plaza.

2010-01-12T20:48:00.000-08:00

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El Molero Fajitas & Tamales street food cart on the Plaza, Santa Fe.
Photo Gerry Dawes©2009. gerrydawes@aol.com

Santa Fe has so many good funky down-home restaurants with great, relatively inexpensive New Mexican food, you might think there would be little demand for street, yet there are taco trucks and in the Plaza, flanked by numerous restaurants is El Molero, a fajitas stand that serves highly regarded beef and chicken fajitas and tamales.

Fajitas, El Molero, Plaza, Santa Fe.
Photo Gerry Dawes©2009. gerrydawes@aol.com

I love tamales, so after breakfast at the Plaza Bakery, I felt I still had room for just one tamale, in the interests of gastronomic research. It is a tough job, but somebody's go to do it. The tamale, which cost a dollar, was one of the best I have had in recent memory.   It had just the right consistency of corn masa and a good meat filling, delicious.   I should have tried to bring home a couple of dozen.

Tamales ($1) at the El Molero street food stand, the Plaza, Santa Fe.
Photo Gerry Dawes©2009. gerrydawes@aol.com
_________________________________________________________________________________

About Gerry Dawes

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

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.

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@gmail.com

Santa Fe Journal: Chef Estevan García's New Mexican Cuisine, Breakfast at the Hotel St. Francis restaurant Tabla de los Santos

2010-01-12T10:57:00.000-08:00

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* * * * *

Chef Estevan García, Tabla de Los Santos, St. Francis Hotel, Santa Fe.
Photo by Gerry Dawes©2009. gerrydawes@aol.com

Chef Estevan García is a native of Santa Fe, who studied under the Franciscan religious order for four years. Along the way, he traded his cassock from a chef's jacket and ironically became the chef at the St. Francis Hotel.

We were staying at the St. Francis and I had asked to meet the chef and photograph some of his food. In the meantime, returning to the Hotel after dinner with my old friend, the legendary godfather of Southwestern cuisine, Mark Miller, we ran into Chef García in the lobby. Mark introduced us and opened up a fascinating insider's look into García's superb riffs on New Mexican cuisine at Tabla de los Santos restaurant in the St. Francis on New Year's Eve 2009.

For a full-screen slide show, double click, go to Picasa web album, click on slide show (left) and hit F11.
You can even turn off the captions.

On Chef Estevan's menu, each of his dishes is described in detail, often crediting the farms from which the ingredients come. I will soon have a report on our wonderful New Year's Eve dinner (see slide show above), but for now the focus is on the chef's desayuno, the last of five reports on breakfasts in Santa Fe.

Just a quick look at the Fruit and Cereals and Breakfast Meats and Sides section of Chef Estevan's Desayuno menu at Tabla de los Santos tells you that this isn't going to be your average hotel breakfast.  Blue corn atole ("blue corn meal porridge served with honey from the Benedectine monastery in Pecos, New Mexico'), steel cut oatmeal, and whole-wheat bagels from the Plaza Bakery, plus cured ham, green chile sausage from Casa Verde Farm and home fries with red chile and cheddar cheese are just a prelude to what you will find on the "eggs" and "specialites" sections of the menu.

Cappuccino, Tabla de Los Santos restaurant, St. Francis Hotel, New Year's morning 2010.
Photo by Gerry Dawes©2009. gerrydawes@aol.com

Chef Estevan's eggs menu lists a San Angelo omelet made with farm eggs with calabacitas (little squash) and corn, served with red or green chile, papa fritas and pinto beans; a St. Francis omelet with seasonal veggies and cheddar cheese with the some accompaniments; and the Huevos Rancheros de Santa Fe, two farm eggs cooked to order and served on blue corn toritllas with the chile salsas of your choice, papas fritas, calabacitas and those great pinto beans that come from Rose Trujillo's farm in Nambe, New Mexico.

Chef Estevan Garcia's red and green chile sauces (both red and green salsas served with the same dish
is known as "Christmas," for their colors), St. Francis Hotel, Santa Fe.
Photo by Gerry Dawes©2009. gerrydawes@aol.com

But, it was two dishes on the Specialties menu that caught our attention. I opted for the fat, stuffed Breakfast burrito de San Antonio, two farm eggs scrambled wtih New Mexican chorizo from Jim Whittaker's Casa Verde farm, potatoes and cheddar, wrapped in a tortilla and served with red, green or the "Christmas" sides of both chiles.
While studying with the Franciscans, Chef Estevan encountered many recipes and techniques for preparing old traditional Native American dishes. He subsequently developed many of these dishes into his own style, simple, but sophisticated modernized versions of Native American and New Mexican cuisines that retain the essence of the original flavors. His food, as we found from a tasting menu that he personally cooked for my companion, Kay, and I on New Year's Eve at Tabla de los Santos restaurant, is the essence of great traditional New Mexican and Native food, but with Chef Estevan's own impeccable ingredient sources, his unique interpretations and artistic presentations.   And his food, although simply prepared, is some the best tasting in Santa Fe.

Chef Estevan García's breakfast burrito de San Antonio with potatoes & cheddar, served with beans and chicos (roasted corn, native style), green & red chile salsas (New Mexican “Christmas style” salsas). Restaurant Tabla de Los Santos, St. Francis Hotel, Santa Fe, New Year's morning 2010.
Photo by Gerry Dawes©2009. gerrydawes@aol.com

Kay chose Inger's Swedish pancakes, three thin, rolled pancakes with a delicious ligonberry butter.   A morning cappuccino for me an a Mexican hot chocolate for Kay completed the picture.

Chef Estevan Garcia's Inger's Swedish Pancakes, St. Francis Hotel, New Year's morning 2010.
Photo by Gerry Dawes©2009. gerrydawes@aol.com
___________________________________________________________________________
About Gerry Dawes

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

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.

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@gmail.com

Santa Fe Journal: Number Four in a Series on Breakfasts in Santa Fe - The Plaza Bakery and the North American Indian Photographs of Edward Sheriff Curtis

2010-01-11T21:52:00.000-08:00

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Plaza Bakery, Santa Fe.
Photo by Gerry Dawes©2009. gerrydawes@aol.com

After three days of "serious" breakfasts in Santa Fe at Tía Sophía's, Café Pasqual's and the Plaza Café, I decided to try the Plaza Bakery, also on the Plaza. Don't be put off my the big, incongruous Häagen-Dazs signs (three of them) on the wall inside, the place has an H-D ice cream concession.

Plaza Bakery, Santa Fe.
Photo by Gerry Dawes©2009. gerrydawes@aol.com

Just beyond the Häagen-Dazs signs is a collection of photographs of the controversial photographer of North American Indians, Edward Sheriff Curtis (died in 1952), who was patronized by President Theodore Roosevelt and J. Pierpont Morgan. Curtis's images protray a romantic, idealistic images of the Native tribes of Western America as noble indigenous tribes at the beginning of the 20th Century. Curtis's life's work was The North American Indian, twenty volumes of text with 1500 photogravure prints, comprising 20 complete portfolios The New York Herald newspaper called Curtis work, "the most gigantic undertaking in the making of books since the King James edition of the Bible."

Serious, expensive collector's photographs by Edward Sheriff Curtis
line the walls at Plaza Bakery, Santa Fe.
Photo by Gerry Dawes©2009. gerrydawes@aol.com

The only trouble was that the Indians were not living in quite a pristine natural state as portrayed by Curtis, they had already been subdued, were relegated to reservations and were often living is miserable poverty. There is plenty of evidence that many of his photographs were staged, complete with historically inaccurate dress and situations that would have made a movie producer proud (he subsequently worked as an assistant cameraman to Cecil B. Demille on The Ten Commandments).

However, Pamela Michaelis, founder of The Collector's Guide, wrote, "Today, Edward Curtis is recognized as a pioneer in visual anthropology and as a sensitive artist of photography whose poignant portraits of American Indians are among the most remarkable and recognizable ever made."   Several galleries in Santa Fe offer (understandably quite expensive) Curtis prints. To find some of them on the walls of the Plaza Bakery is astonishing.

Good Morning, Santa Fe special, Plaza Bakery.
Photo by Gerry Dawes©2009. gerrydawes@aol.com

But, enough of Edward Sheriff Curtis and his photos, what does the Plaza Bakery offer for breakfast?

Blackboard partial menu at Plaza Bakery, Santa Fe. Breakfast is served anytime.
Photo by Gerry Dawes©2009. gerrydawes@aol.com

The bakery case is filled with goodies. I settled on a cheese-apricot Danish, which turned out to be huge. "Would you like it heated?" the young woman behind the counter asks. She returns after a few moments with the microwave Danish, which makes the pastry a bit soft. Nonetheless it was very good and only cost $3.25. I ordered a cappuccino (they had Sugar in the Raw available) also very good and Kay had a big orange- cranberry muffin and a hot chocolate. The total bill before tip was $13.75.

A warm cheese-and-apricot Danish and a cappuccino, Plaza Bakery, Santa Fe.
Photo by Gerry Dawes©2009. gerrydawes@aol.com

The Plaza Bakery is one of the best deals in town. Some of the pastries are huge and a bargain at the prices being charged. We got the booth in the back under the menu, where the people watching is primo in the morning. We struck up a conversation with a couple from Cincinnati, who graciously allowed me to photograph them and, in turn, photographed Kay and I.   And that man who sits in the front window: Is he homeless? A Santa Fe eccentric?  Yet another piece in the fascinating kaleidoscope of Santa Fe. The Plaza Bakery is Santa Fe institution and a truly wonderful place to have breakfast.

__________________________________________________________________________

About Gerry Dawes

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

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.

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@gmail.com

Santa Fe Journal: Breakfast at the (famous) Plaza Café Founded 1905 - With Karen Webb, One of the Most Famous Waitresses in America

2010-01-11T15:13:00.000-08:00

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* * * * *

* * * * *
Although the sign out front says the Plaza Café (on Santa Fe's Plaza, which would be La Plaza Mayor in any Spanish town) was founded in 1905 and claims to be Santa Fe's oldest restaurant, they say on their website that it "has been serving highly acclaimed, authentic traditional dishes since 1918." The restaurant was taken over in 1947 by a Dionysi Razatos, a Greek immigrant, and the breadth of the menu resembles one of those Greek diners in New York or New Jersey.

Kay Killian Balun peruses the Plaza Café breakfast menu.
Photo Gerry Dawes©2009. gerrydawes@aol.com

However, Santa Fe has a way of changing anyone who spends any time there, so it was inevitable that the menu morphed from a Greek-style diner into the bastion of great old down-home New Mexican and American comfort food cuisine that the Plaza is today. You can still get Greek dishes like Greek salad (with feta cheese and kalamata olives), gyros (with feta), Greek spaghetti (with feta), moussaka (with a small Greek salad, feta) and souvlaki (Greek salad, feta), plus a "Comfort Food" section with a grilled steak plate, spaghetti marinara, chicken fried steak, Plaza meatloaf and more, along with burgers, BLTs, a tortilla burger and an aged prime rib hoagie.

But the real stars on this menu are some of the breakfast offerings, including New Mexican dishes such as huevos rancheros (two eggs on a corn tortilla topped with red and green chiles and cheese, served with beans, hash browns and a sopaipilla), huevos divorciados (two eggs on a corn tortilla with chipotle and tomatillo salsa, served with the same three sides), huevos con nopalitos (scrambled eggs with cactus, chopped steak, tomatillo salsa, jack cheese and Mexican sour cream) and a chile relleno omelet (a four-egg omelet filled with two roasted green chiles stuffed with jack cheese and your choice of red or green chile sauce, or both "Christmas."). Then, for a real breakfast, New Mexico steak and eggs, a breakfast burrito, blue corn enchiladas, chilaquiles, carnitas, menudo (tripe) and posole (hominy stew) are available for serious eaters. Did I say that no one goes away hungry?

Chilaquiles for breakfast at the Plaza Café, Santa Fe.
Photo Gerry Dawes©2009. E-mail: gerrydawes@aol.com

Don't want a full-bore New Mexican breakfast? How about piñon (pine nut) pepita granola or a Santa Fe smoked salmon bagel loaded with cream cheese, a load of smoked salmon, sliced tomatoes, pickled onions, capers and, whoops! (this is New Mexico), chopped green chile!! Now that's a bagel with attitude.

But the cooking here--by with-it founder descendant, Chef Andy Razatos, who says his food "is hand crafted and made only of the freshest ingredients" and who is particularly proud of such desserts as Coconut Cream Pie, Apple Cajeta Pie and Red Velvet Cake--is just part of the story. The combination of Santa Feans, visitors and passing tourists for seats in this very popular restaurant creates a lively, friendly convivial ambience, as does the decor with old photos of Santa Fe, a Santa Fe movie poster (starring Randolph Scott) and a huge Southwest wall map with New Mexico outlined in Blue Neon.

Plaza Café's Ester Najarro, a 27-year veteran waitress.
Photo Gerry Dawes©2009. gerrydawes@aol.com

At the Plaza Café even the wait staff are minor celebrities. Ester Najarro has been there for 27 years and Karen Webb was featured in the documentary, American Waitress.

Karen Webb, "American Waitress," at the Plaza Café with Mexican hot chocolate.
Photo Gerry Dawes©2009. gerrydawes@aol.com

Coming back to the Plaza Café on the Plaza each visit is like coming home. You are immediately made to feel comfortable and the food here is indeed comforting, some of the best comfort food in America. Highly recommended, this is a no-miss spot for visitors to Santa Fe.

Plaza Café
54 Lincoln Ave. (on the Plaza)
Santa Fe, NM 87501
505-982-1664
505-982-8791
(E-mail for Andy Razatos: andy@thefamousplazacafe.com)

Plaza Café Southside
3011 Cerillos Road
Santa Fe, NM 87505
(505) 424-0755

____________________________________________________________________________

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

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.

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@gmail.com

Hoping You All Had a Very Merry Christmas, a Happy Chanukah, a Great New Year's Eve, a Féliz Día de los Reyes Magos and Wishing You a Happy, Healthy & Prosperous 2010.

2010-01-08T05:18:00.000-08:00

* * * * *

Gerry Dawes & Kay Balun in Barcelona's famous Boquería market toasting with cava (Catalan sparkling wine) a small group that Gerry was leading around Spain. Photo by Tyler Schwartz.
____________________________________________________________________________
About Gerry Dawes

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

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.

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@gmail.com

Santa Fe Journal: Sky Redhawk and His Native Sounds on the Old Santa Fe Trail

2010-01-06T21:31:00.000-08:00

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On New Year's Eve afternoon, on the way back from Canyon Road, we had a remarkable encounter with Sky Redhawk at Native Sounds just across from the Inn at Loretto.   I had seen Redhawk standing outside his Native Sounds store on the Old Santa Fe Trail on our way to Canyon Road. When we returned a couple of hours later, Redhawk was still standing outside. We almost walked on by, but something told me I should go in and see what Redhawk's place was all about. What we found when we went in were some beautifully finished and decorated Native instruments, especially flutes.

* * * * *

Sky Redhawk plays on a Native flute.
Photo by Gerry Dawes©2009. gerrydawes@aol.com

There were also drums, Indian baby rattles, paintings and other native crafts, along with CDs of the music of Redhawk and others.

We had no intentions of buying a Native instrument, but I asked Redhawk about his flute music and told that my maternal great grandfather was a Native American (he was orphaned in Oklahoma and raised by whites).   Redhawk began to talk about the flutes and his music. I asked which was this favorite among his CDs and he showed me his Songs From Spirit album, which I started to pay for, but Redhawk wanted to play some music for us first, which he first did by playing a flute, filling the room with the haunting sounds that were indeed sounds from the spirit of Native Americans.

Then he put on the CD and explained Indian flute tracks that he had mixed with naturally occurring sounds, like the call of his friend's wolf-dog (he showed us a photo of the magnificent animal), birds, cicadas and crickets, the last of which had been chirping away in the next room as he had been doing a recording session in his home. He laid down tracks of these natural sounds and layered his flute sounds in harmony with them. The howling of the wolf-dog, birds songs, the sounds of the cicadas and crickets, even thunder and wind, become instruments in Redhawk's ensemble of the spirit. He told us that he did not begin playing the Native flutes until he was 50 years old and says that the sounds he produces come from within. Redhawk seems truly moved by the spirit of his ancestors and his music indeed moved us.

Hear samples of Sky Redhawk's Native Sounds flute artistry.

Native Sounds
228 Old Santa Fe Trail (On Alameda)
Santa Fe, NM 87501
(505) 983-2897
____________________________________________________________________________

About Gerry Dawes

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

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.

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@gmail.com

Santa Fe Journal: Roy Flynn's Boots & Boogie, One Hell of a Boot Shop, Doin' the boot scootin' boogie. . .

2010-01-06T13:54:00.000-08:00

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Roy Flynn's Boots and Boogie custom boot shop,
Historic Santa Fe Village, 227 Don Gaspar Ave., Santa Fe.
Photo by Gerry Dawes©2009. gerrydawes@aol.com

* * * * *
On the afternoon of New Year's Eve, Kay and I walked out past the Inn at Loretto, strolled along Santa Fe's great concentration of art galleries on Canyon Road and taking scores of photographs. We thought we might wander in for a late lunch at Mark Kiffin's The Compound. Little did we know that this old Spanish town of Santa Fe doesn't really observe Spanish dining hours. We arrived at The Compound at 2:15 p.m., only to find out that the kitchen closes a 2 p.m., so I decided to see if Mark Kiffin, who was on a trip to Spain with me and who cooked for me and my friends on New Year's Eve back in 2004, was in. Not only was Mark in, he made us fell welcome, had us seaten for our late lunch and came back to spend some time chatting with us (more on this, Mark and lunch at The Compound later).

On the way back, we had two remarkable encounters, one with Sky Redhawk at Native Sounds just across from the Inn at Loretto. I will devote a post to Redhawk and his superb Indian flute music mixed with naturally occurring sounds, like the call of his friend's wolf-dog, cicadas and crickets.

But, on the way back to the St. Francis Hotel, where the Hotel's Executive Chef, former Franciscan seminary student, Estevan García, was going to cook a degustación menu of his New Mexican, native-inspired food for us for New Year's Eve, a dinner (and subsequent party and breakfast) about which I shall also have a full report soon.

After lunch, on the way back, just before we reached a hotel, there is a small center with a number of artisan shops in it. Roy Flynn's Boots and Boogie shop immediately caught my eye. I have eight pairs of cowboy boots, but number nine is always looming anytime I get near a boot shop and that number would have been at 10, 11 or 12 after I saw Roy Flynn's incredible and incredibly well-made boots and unique designs, but there was just one minor problem: I didn't have the mere $2,500-$12,500 to shell out for these masterpieces of the boot maker's art.

Roy Flynn, owner-boot designer, Boots and Boogie custom boot shop,
Historic Santa Fe Village, 227 Don Gaspar Ave., Santa Fe. Photo by Gerry Dawes©2009. gerrydawes@aol.com

Roy Flynn's custom-made boots, which are hand-made for him by two of the top boot makers in Texas--Roy says they are among the top four in the United States--and, in the last couple of years, he has developed his own designs for Eddy Kimmel in Comanche, Texas and for Stallion Boots in El Paso, Texas.

Blue Bonnet design, Roy Flynn's Boots and Boogie custom boot shop,
Historic Santa Fe Village, 227 Don Gaspar Ave., Santa Fe.
Photo by Gerry Dawes©2009. gerrydawes@aol.com

Since I am planning to hit either (or both) the Spanish lottery or Mega-Milliones for some odd $153,000,000, I plan to be back to Boots and Boogie and one pair in particular, the one with raised bluebonnet design, is mine, even though the effect of this magnificent boot design is lost unless you tuck your jean's into the top of your boots, which is tacky, but I would do it to show off these babies. I guess you can wear them to bed if you want to really make a serious impression on your significant other.

If you think I am exaggerating about these boots, check out this YouTube video of Roy Flynn's Boots and Boogie, whose background music is Brooks and Dunn's Boot Scootin' Boogie. The lyrics go like this:

The bartender asks me, "says son what'll it be."

I want a shot at that redhead yonder lookin' at me

The dance floors hoppin' & it's hotter than the fourth of July

I see outlaws, inlaws, crooks & straights all out makin' it shake

Doin' the boot scootin' boogie. . .

Man, would I love to have a pair of Roy Flynn's boots to go "boot scootin'" in!

Roy Flynn's Boots and Boogie custom boot shop
Historic Santa Fe Village
227 Don Gaspar Ave.
Santa Fe, NM 87501
505.983.0777
roy@santafebootsandboogie.com
________________________________________________________________

About Gerry Dawes

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

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.

Gerry 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@gmail.com

¡Féliz Año Nuevo y Féliz Día de Los Reyes Magos! Un Regalito Modesto (Part Primero) para Todos Mis Amigos Españoles desde Santa Fe, New Mexico, La Capital Mas Vieja de Los Estados Unidos y Fundada por Un Madrileño Don Diego de Vargas Zapata en el Siglo XVII

2010-01-06T10:55:00.000-08:00

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(Haz click en el simbolo del derecho abajo, llegais al Picasa Web Album,
tocais F11 para ver las diapositivas en pantalla entera.)

______________________________________________________________________
About Gerry Dawes

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

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.

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@gmail.com

My Friend Doctor John Sconzo Profiled in the Albany Times Union Magazine

2010-01-06T08:29:00.000-08:00

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There is a very good, well-deserved article, The Doctor is In and He's Cooking up a Storm by Steve Barnes, on my food road warrior buddy, Doctor John Sconzo, in The Albany Times-Union.
!Enhorabuena, Juanito!

Dr. John Sconzo, Photographer, at the StarChefs Conference 2009 in New York City.
Photograph by Gerry Dawes©2009.

Legendary Basque-Spanish Chef Juan Mari Arzak & John Sconzo at Star Chefs 2009.
Photograph by Gerry Dawes©2009.

Thanks to DocSconz, I have a number of good photographs of myself at such places at Madrid, the Madrid Fusión Conference and at StarChefs, including the one published with my Silver Spoon Award from Food Arts magazine in the December 2009 issue. ¡Mil gracias, Doc!

________________________________________________________________
About Gerry Dawes

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

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.

Gerry 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@gmail.com

The Traveling Gastronomer's Journal: Santa Fe, New Mexico Dec. 29, 2009 Another Great Breakfast, this time at Café Pasqual's

2009-12-29T14:22:00.000-08:00

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Dec. 29: Breakfast #2 at Café Pasqual's in Santa Fe.

Santa Fe, Café Pasqual's Favorite: pancakes, eggs and Mexican chorizo.
Photo Gerry Dawes©2009.

I love breakfasts in Santa Fe. They are unique, delicious, often convivial, usually memorable and relatively inexpensive. To me New Mexican traditional cuisine, modernized traditional cuisine and new-wave cuisine is some of the best food on the planet. Do not make the mistake of being put off by what you may perceive as "Mexican" aspects of this food, including the liberal use of spicy chiles in a lot of the food. This New Mexican food, especially as it has evolved in Santa Fe with Spanish, Mexican and Native American elements, is as distinguished (and incredibly delicious) as any of the widely respected cuisines of Japan, China, India, Thailand, Vietnam, India, Peru and my beloved Spain, etc.

Santa Fe boasts the highest concentration of art galleries outside New York City. And, on Canyon Road, I dare say there is probably no greater concentration of truly fine art gallery in any one spot anywhere. The same might be said for the food of Santa Fe. New York has an incredible variety of cuisines to choose from in its thousands of restaurants; Madrid and San Sebastián have dense concentrations of excellent tapas bars; and Chinatowns of New York and other cities have loads of good restaurants packed into relatively small areas, but even those legendary places would be sore pressed to match the sheer concentration of great, unique and colorful restaurants packed into such a small, walkable area.   This from someone who has been some 25-30 times to San Sebastián, which has the highest concentration of bars, most of them serving tapas, in Europe.

This year, I set out to do a different place everyday for breakfast in Santa Fe, so I have five places, plus a street food stand to share with my readers. (There will be more installments on my lunches and dinners).

Yesterday, Dec. 28, it was huevos rancheros with sopaipillas at Tía Sophía's; today we breakfast at Café Pasqual's, right across from our hotel, the St. Francis; on Dec. 30, the classic Plaza on the Plaza; on Dec. 31, we began our day with breakfast at the funky, wonderful old-time Plaza Bakery, followed by a "second breakfast," a sampling of the irrestistible, first-rate tamales on the Plaza street food cart, El Molero; and winding up our breakfasts on the morning of Jan. 1 by trying the St. Francis hotel restaurant, Tabla de los Santos's breakfast from the kitchen of our new-found friend, Chef Estevan García, who cooked us one of my most memorable New Year's Even meals ever.   Then Chef Estevan stuck around to celebrate the ringing in of 2010, sharing a bottle of Pol Roger Champagne that I brought from New York.

__________________________________________________________________________

About Gerry Dawes

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

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.

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@gmail.com

Traveling Gastronomer's Journal: Santa Fe, New Mexico Breakfast at Tía Sophía's & Renewing My Friendship with Santa Fe Musician Alex Maryol

2009-12-28T13:10:00.000-08:00

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We arrived in Santa Fe by rental car from Albuquerque (after an hour's flight from Phoenix). We checked into our hotel, just a block from the Plaza, Santa Fe's famous epicenter, and walked a short three blocks to an old favorite, Tía Sophía's. On the way to the restaurant from our hotel, the venerable, but recently remodeled Hotel St. Francis, I shot a number of photographs on San Francisco Street, where Tía Sophía's is located. Santa Fe is a photographer’s paradise, especially for this trigger-happy photographer.

At the counter Tía Sophía's, we were given number 33 and joined the crowd waiting at the door. In Santa Fe during the busy season, it is common to join other diners in front of restaurants as they wait for their numbers to be called (you meet new friends because of this system!)

While we were waiting, I asked one of the people taking down names and passing out numbers, if Alex Maryol was around. Alex is a Santa Fe rock-and-blues musician, whom I met several years ago at Tía Sophía's. I went to a couple of his gigs out on Canyon Road during two of my stays in Santa Fe. The woman at the counter told me "he is right there!"

Santa Fe musician Alex Maryol, grandson of Tía Sophía's.
Photo by Gerry Dawes©2009. gerrydawes@aol.com

Alex was back from Chicago, where he had moved, for the holidays, and had cut his long blond ponytail, so I didn't recognize him right away. I was surprised that he actually remembered me. We chatted a bit, he filled me in on his career, his new girlfriend in Chicago and his potential move to Nashville. I bought his 2008 CD, "Cry." Alex is a very talented musician. This YouTube video not only shows his talent and style, it is also a tour of his hometown, Santa Fe. It is a segment from the Television Show "New Mexico Southwest Sounds" and features The Alex Maryol Band performing his original songs "You and Me" and "Cry," as well as an interview juxtaposed over scenes from Santa Fe.

At one point in this video, Alex says one of the things that he loves about his hometown is the food. No wonder, his grandmother was Tía Sophía, whom I had met on one of my earlier trips to Santa Fe. I was sad to hear that she had died five years ago, shortly after my last vist.

Breakfast at Tía Sophía's, Santa Fe.
Photo by Gerry Dawes©2009. gerrydawes@aol.com

After a ten-minute wait at Tía Sophía's (around the holidays, there is often a take-a-number line for breakfast at the most popular spots), we were seated in time for a late breakfast. I ordered the huevos rancheros with red and green salsas (known as "Christmas" in Santa Fe, for the combination of red and green colors), Tía Sophía's sopaipillas (fried bread “pillows), and Kay had the chile rojo. The breakfast menu goes out at 11:00 a.m., but they still serve huevos rancheros and sopaipillas all day.

____________________________________________________________________________

About Gerry Dawes

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

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.

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@gmail.com

Traca Savadogo Profiles Gerry on Her Popular Seattle Tall Poppy Blog

2009-12-22T09:29:00.000-08:00

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Monday, December 21
In the Words of "Mr. Spain," Gerry Dawes

This post is part of a series called: Books That Paved the Way, highlighting culinary luminaries and the books that influenced their careers.

In the days leading up to The Worlds of Flavor Conference, I received a note from Gerry Dawes. A hearty welcome followed a congenial, “Stop and say hello!” Little did I know, that generous nod was from the foremost authority on Spanish food & wine. Gerry has a long list of accolades--including the first to introduce American readers to maestro of molecular gastronomy Ferran Adrià--but industry folks call him simply, “Mr. Spain.”

At the conference, Gerry led a compelling discussion on Spanish street food. Through images and stories, he artfully crafted a culinary sense of place, taking us on an insider’s nosh through Barcelona’s largest indoor market, Boquería. Gerry drove home the importance of both terroir and the people, leaving little to wonder why Spanish cuisine is one of the hottest culinary trends.

When I approached Gerry about his most influential books, his response revealed a wealth of information…and more than a few surprises. Generously peppered with autobiographical insight, Gerry’s words read like an arm wrapped around your shoulder, guiding you to the good stuff.

Influential Cookbooks for a “Self-taught” Cook

by Gerry Dawes©2009

First off, I rarely use cookbooks, I fly without instruments most of the time. Between the Korean produce market five miles away in Ramsey, NJ, which also has fish and shellfish, and the local supermarkets around Suffern, NY, where I live, I cook from the lay of the land, picking out what vegetables, etc. look best, then I put them together in ever-changing combinations, even when I am alone and not cooking for Kay Killian Balun, my SE (Spousal Equivalent).

Breakfast might include scrambled eggs with chopped scallions or leeks, red peppers, little cubes of eggplant, jalapeño and/or habanero peppers and the finished dish will be topped with grated cheese and freshly ground black pepper. I often accompany this with Mexican salsa, Spanish chorizo and cherry tomatoes quick-sautéed with jalapeños, garlic and cilantro or Italian polenta on the side. When I make my own salsa (like gazpacho, in season only), I use Rick Bayless’s basic salsa recipe (I add cooked corn, fresh-cut from the cob) from his excellent Mexican Kitchen cookbook, but that salsa is for margarita time–my World’s Best Margaritas require a signed disclaimer and the recipe [self-developed from Taxco, Mexico; from a Mexican doctor friend from Morella and from Maria’s Mexican Kitchen in Santa Fe and using Torres Licor de Naranja from Spain]. The recipe is so secret that I would have to kill you if I told you all of it. For the civilian version of my margarita recipe, see the book Peace, Love and Barbecue--written by Mike Mills and his daughter, Amy Mills Tunnicliffe–with some authentic down-home barbecue recipes for dishes to keep your drinks company.

Dinner might be Spanish rosemary-and-thyme-and-olive oil basted, grilled rib lamb chops with all-i-oil or roasted chicken breasts with sherry, leeks, lime juice, cilantro, garlic and Spanish extra virgin olive oil, served with a melange of quick-sautéed vegetables (last night it was cherry tomatoes, red peppers, scallions, eggplant and parsley) and Yukon gold fingerling potatoes boiled Canary Islands style with lots of salt in the water so they come out like papas arrugadas. But, since I couldn’t want to make the classic Canarias mojo (I was out of fresh cilantro), I used yogurt mixed with Dijon mustard, black pepper and drained Spanish capers as a sauce for the papas. That and a glass of Casal Novo Mencía, a delicious red wine from Galicia with moderate alcohol and no oak, was dinner. Lunch is often leftovers or a can of Progresso soup doctored up with sherry, grated cheese and sometimes Oriental chili sauce.

Tio Diego: Shrimp with mushrooms, red peppers, garlic and Maestro Sierra Palo Cortado Sherry,
served with toasted Panera Three-cheese bread and Casal Novo Godello wine from Valdeorras.

Several cookbooks influenced me and helped me develop my shoot-from-the-hip style. One in particular was Elizabeth David’s French Provincial Cooking, which I first encountered in the early 1970s when I was living in Southern Spain and just learning how to cook on a counter top, Butano gas-fired, two-burner affair at our fairy-tale apartment ($56 a month) in Sevilla’s jasmine-, orange blossom- and dama de noche-scented, sound-of-Sevillanas-permeated, Barrio de Santa Cruz (The Old Jewish Quarter), where I spent parts of almost six years and in Mijas, an artist’s village overlooking the Costa del Sol, where I lived for nearly three years more.

When I first opened Elizabeth David’s book, I wondered, “Who is this crazy English woman?” She was often imprecise in her measurements--which I was to discover is only of deadly importance in pastry cooking--so she left one guessing just how big a glass of wine, etc. to add to a dish. But, by cooking a few of her recipes–her beurre blanc is still my benchmark–I realized that I was getting a feel for what the dish should be like and that the rules were not that rigid. It was indeed cooking a bit intuitively with Ms. David as your guide (when you try to teach children how to ride a bicycle, you don’t hold on to the seat of the bike, you hold onto the child’s shoulders, so they soon learn to keep the bike balanced–cooking is much that way, learning balance that does not come from rigidity.) I made a number of recipes from French Provincial Cooking, but it was the lessons the book taught that stayed with me longer than the Daube Provençal.

Also, when I was living in Southern Spain in the early 1970s, my former wife, Diana and I, acquired Julia Child’s The French Chef Cookbook with that awful television photo on the front. I was very skeptical at first until I began cooking whole fancy meals from that book and found out that Julia was indeed the real deal. (I had several memorable casual enconters with Julia years later at food events, but one of the best was having drinks with her at Ducasse in Manhattan and having her autograph that now tattered, dog-eared, well-used copy of The French Chef Cookbook and telling her how she had helped teach us to cook.)

Still in the French vein, Waverly Root’s marvelous The Food of France, was an excellent overview of French regional food, fine writing and a very good read. Although in the intervening years, I have come to believe that Spanish modernized regional cuisine is on a par with that of France, writing about Spanish food in English has seldom reached the level of Elizabeth David or Waverly Root.

The American cookbooks that influenced me most and contributed to my modest cooking style, once I moved to New York, were The James Beard Cookbook and James Beard’s Fish Cookery, both of which have great recipes and teach the user good fundamentals. And The New York Times 60-Minute Gourmet cookbook, spun out of columns written by Bryan Miller with recipes developed by Pierre Franey, not only had great appeal because of their time frame for cooking a complete meal, the recipes were often exceptional.

Since I am supposed to be a Spanish food freak, I should get on to the Spanish cookbooks and food books that have had the greatest influence on me. First off, kudos to Penelope Casas, whose The Foods and Wines of Spain; Tapas: The Little Dishes of Spain, etc. were for years the benchmarks in English in the United States for anyone seeking to learn about Spanish Cuisine. And, if you can find a copy, The Cooking of Spain and Portugal (Time-Life Series), which Peter S. Feibleman did an excellent job editing and putting together, was (and still is) superb for authentic, quintessential recipes for such Spanish classic dishes as gazpacho, paella, cocido madrileño, etc.

One monumental influence, the impossible-to-find, self-published classic, Adventures in Taste: The Wines and Folk Food of Spain will always be near the top of my list. In 1972, Donn Pohren, a Minneapolis-born American who lived in Spain for decades and was the world's greatest foreign expert on flamenco, published this idiosyncratic underground classic, which outlined wine-and-food trips all over Spain and included specific restaurants and tapas bars, mentioning specific dishes, for which he often included the recipe obtained from that establishment.

I was living in southern Spain when I first encountered Pohren's book (privately printed in Spain) soon after it was published and it had a profound effect on me. At first, I merely wanted to have some of the wine and food experiences that Pohren had described, but I soon found myself cooking from his authentic regional recipes, including pollo or conejo al ajillo (garlic chicken or rabbit), pochas con perdiz or codorniz (white cranberry bean-like bean stew with partridge or quail) and the inforgettable, undoubtedly Moorish-influenced, Málaga mountain-village dish, caldereta de chivo (a kid [goat] dish with kid’s liver, garlic and the juice of two lemons). In the early years, I never traveled without Adventures in Taste. Soon, I was having new experiences of my own, using Pohren’s book and James A. Michener’s Iberia as my compass, which led me to a multitude of adventures that provided me with the platform from which I eventually became a widely published writer on Spanish wine and food and a recognized authority in the field.

And, when I was living in Mijas, I came to know Janet Mendel, who wrote a food column for Lookout magazine and subsequently published a number of books using recipes obtained from the regional cooks she encountered, most of them in Andalucía. Her Cooking in Spain; Traditional Spanish Cooking; Great Dishes From Spain; and My Kitchen in Spain are an important body of work on the traditional cuisines of Spain. In the early years, her books were not available in the United States, but now they are and I highly recommend them for anyone who seeks to understand the basics behind good Spanish regional cooking.

Anya Von Bremzen’s The New Spanish Table also should be on anyone’s bookshelf. And, if you can find remaindered or used copies of Könemann’s Culinaria Spain, buy every copy you can lay your hands on and give them as gifts. The articles (by several authors) and photographs are exceptional. Just the chapter on the little-known cuisine, cheese and wines of the Canary Islands is worth the cost of the book alone.

The last two books on my “short” list come from my dear friend, Teresa Barrenechea, who for nearly a decade cooked at her Marichu restaurants in New York, the Spanish restaurants that I frequent most in this country. Barrenechea’s The Basque Table, her first book (which also contains classic Spanish recipes common to other regions of Spain), and her The Cuisines of Spain: Exploring Regional Home Cooking are musts for anyone serious about Spanish cooking.

Though some of my cooking style came from cookbooks in the early years, most of what I picked up comes from cooks like the great chef, Raúl Aleixandre, of Valencia’s Ca Sento, who taught me how to cook shellfish; Doña María (my Spanish “mother”), whose gazpacho recipe is still tops; and people like Manolo Pérez Pascuas of Viña Pedrosa in Ribera del Duero and Basilio Izquierdo in La Rioja, who taught me that the only real way to have baby lamb rib chops is grilled over grapevine cuttings.

And there are a multitude of restaurants and tapas bars around Spain, working with impeccable, locally available products that are so good that it is futile to try to duplicate them by using their recipes at home. Nothing done out of a cookbook can duplicate the terroir of rodaballo (turbot) grilled whole over coals on an outdoor grill at Elkano or Kaia in Getaria (Basque country); arros con conejo y caracoles (thin-layer rice cooked in a paella with wild rabbit and wild snails that having been put with fresh rosemary branches) at Casa Elias in a tiny Alicante pueblo; or Albert Asín’s addictive mongetes (beans) with a squirt of balsamic vinegar at Pinotxo and Quím Marqués fried artichokes at Quím de la Boquería, both in Barcelona’s sensational Boquería market. To have these dishes, it is preferable to beg, borrow or steal to get back to these places–and many more around Spain–to have the “real thing” and let those cooks who have mastered these dishes do what no cookbook can really do: Make you believe in magic!

!Buen Provecho!
____________________________________________________________________________

About Gerry Dawes

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

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.

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@gmail.com

Association of Food Journalists "Best Food Feature in a Magazine" Second Prize for "Over the Foaming Wave" in Food Arts Magazine

2009-12-22T08:53:00.000-08:00

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Food Arts Over the Foaming Wave Article on Ferran Adriá
____________________________________________________________________________

About Gerry Dawes

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

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.

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@gmail.com

Hoping You All Had A Merry Christmas, Féliz Navidad, Féliz Día de Los Reyes, A Bright Chanukah & Wishing A Very Prosperous New Year

2009-12-21T12:51:00.000-08:00

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¡Féliz 2010!

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La Castañera (en la nevada), "The Chestnut Seller" in the snow.**
Statue by Bruno Cuevas
Burgos, Castilla y León, España
Photograph Copyright by Gerry Dawes,October 2007

*Hoping you all had a Very Merry Christmas, Féliz Navidad (vea abajo mis amigos de habla castellana), Happy Chanukah (For my Jewish friends see the slides from Toledo below), Best of Luck, Love, Prosperity and The Time to Escape the Winter Outside and Pass a very Agreeable Hour or two in the Café España in Burgos Having un Carajillo España, Reading a Newspaper and Listening to Koko Taylor Sing "I Got What It Takes."**v

(*!Claro, right after having hit the big Christmas lottery, of course!)

(**And don't forget the leave the chestnut seller a tip!")

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These greetings are a version of the ones I did last year, but with many more photographs and some new additions.

In November, 2008, my companion, Kay Killian Balun, and I found ourselves in a snowstorm as we approached Burgos on our way to Madrid from San Sebastián.   The snow began to intensify, I had no intentions of braving the Puerto de Somosierra, a mountain pass still and hour and a half to south and between us and Madrid, Burgos is one of my favorite cities in Spain. I got on my Spanish cell phone and called the NH Hotel Palacio de la Merced, got a reservation and headed into Burgos.

(Double click on image to go to larger image,
once in Picasa web album push F11 for full screen view.)

The snow made things a bit slick and was just enough to coat the city with a thing blanket of white and allow some kids to have a couple of snowball fights. The effect of the snow on this wonderful Medieval town was magical. We stayed two nights and made forays out to eat and we bundled up and went out on forays to explore the historic old quarter about which I had written in The Penguin Traveller's Guide to Spain and then the Berlitz Traveller's Guide to Spain.

The photos I have spent several hours putting together are my modest post-holiday, Happy New Year greeting and present to my friends and acquaintances. I hope that these photos bring you good feelings and I wish you the very best for a terrific 2010.

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And for my Jewish friends, I hope you all had a Happy Chanukah and for you I have put together some photos of the two great synagogues in the Jewish, Christian and Moorish city of Toledo--El Tránsito and Sta. María la Blanca (I know, it's a Christian church now, but it is also one lovely temple.) Way back when, the Jews of Toledo made major, indispensable contributions to advancement of knowledge in Europe--at a time when Europe was still very primitive--by translating the scientific and philosophical texts of the Greeks and the Moors into Latin. I have also added photos of the Synagoga Mayor in Segovia and scenes from the Old Jewish Quarters of Córdoba (statue of the philosopher Maimonides) and of Sevilla, where I live for parts of five years.

(Double click on image to go to larger image, once in Picasa web album push F11 for full screen view.)

A Day at Arthur Avenue with John Mariani just after Christmas

2009-12-20T21:51:00.000-08:00

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One of the best things you can do in New York City anytime, but especially around the holidays is spend a few hours in the Arthur Avenue area. It is the next best thing to a ticket to Italy. I had the good luck to go there for the very first time three years ago with the great John Mariani, who grew up not far from Arthur Avenue and lead me and my friend, Dr. Patricia Hanratty on a superb guided tour.
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(Double click on image to go to larger image, once in Picasa web album push F11 for full screen view.)

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About Gerry Dawes

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

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@gmail.com

Escaping the Snow in New York by Fleeing to Images of Summer: A Slide Show of El Encontro de Viño de Autor (Artisan Signature Grower-Producers) in Galicia This July

2009-12-20T17:59:00.000-08:00

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Slide Show of El Encontro de Viño de Autor (Artisan Signature Grower-Producers)
(With captions and photos of winemakers, regional dishes, a pizza maestro who sings, and more.)

(Double click on image to go to larger image, once in Picasa web album push F11 for full screen view.)
____________________________________________________________________________

About Gerry Dawes

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

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.

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@gmail.com