* * * * *
Noel Chandler, The Champagne Count of Pamplona's San Fermín
Hemingway was a great lover of Champagne and he often referred to it in his writing. In The Sun Also Rises,
three of Hemingway’s characters - - the free-spending, Champagne-loving
Count Mippipopolous, the protagonist Jake Barnes, and the unforgettable
femme fatale Lady Brett - - polish off three bottles of Mumms in a
single session.
The Champagne drinking scene took place in the opening chapters just
before Jake Barnes, Lady Brett, Robert Cohn, Mike Campbell, and Bill
Gorton - - fictional charter members of Gertrude Stein’s “Lost
Generation” - - headed down to Pamplona, Spain for the Fiestas de San
Fermín, sans Count Mippipopolous. At the beginning of Fiesta,
Hemingway’s characters, now minus the Count’s generous Champagne
contributions, switched to cheap red wine in the peasant bars of the old
quarter of Pamplona.
The Sun Also Rises, published in 1926, became a classic and spawned a cult-like devotion to San Fermín, especially among English-speaking foreigners. It would be several decades before the modern-day incarnation of the Count surfaced at San Fermín in the person of a generous Welshman named Noel Chandler. Chandler, like Count Mippipopolous, has drunk his share of Champagne in Paris (where he celebrates New Year’s Eve).
Although he neither holds, nor claims a title, with his rugged
countenance, polished manners, and mysterious air, Chandler is clearly a
worthy spiritual descendant of Hemingway’s Champagne-loving Count and
his annual San Fermín Champagne party, until a few years ago when it was
decided that the well-aged timbers of Chandler’s lofty walk-up
apartment above the calle Estafeta could not safely support the many
scores of people who were ascending each 6th of July to party with Noel.
El Adios - Sevillanas Rocieras (video)
Algo se muere en el alma cuando una amigo se va
Cuando una amigo se va
algo se muere en el alma
cuando una amigo se va
algo se muere en el alma
cuando una amigo se va
cuando una amigo se va
y va dejando una huella
que no se puede borrar
y va dejando una huella
que no se puede borrar
No te vayas todavia,
no te vayas por favor
no te vayas todavia
que hasta la guitarra mia llora
cuando dice adios
Something dies en your soul when a friend leaves
When a friend leaves
Something dies en your soul
when a friend leaves
Something dies en your soul
when a friend leaves
when a friend leaves
and it leaves a wake
that cannot be erased
Don't go yet
please don't go
don't go yet
Even my guitar cries
when you say adios.
Noel Chandler (d. Oct. 14, 2015, Madrid) Que decanses en paz.
Photo by Gerry Dawes©2018
* * * * *
“Most
of what I know about Spain came from Gerry Dawes. Sunset in a Glass:
Adventures of a Food & Wine Road Warrior in Spain is the
authoritative source for everything Spanish—people, food, wine, culture.
And his diverting escapades on the road sometimes read like James
Michener with Hunter Thompson in the passenger’s seat.” --Bryan J.
Miller, Former New York Times Restaurant Critic; author, Dining in the Dark: A Famed Restaurant Critic's Struggle with and Triumph over Depression * * * * *
Sunset in a Glass Volumes I & II will be published this Fall. Stay tuned.
Constructive comments are welcome and encouraged.
If
you enjoy these blog posts, please consider a contribution to help me
continue the work of gathering all this great information and these
photographs for Gerry Dawes's Insider's Guide to Spanish Food, Wine,
Culture and Travel. Contributions of $5 and up will be greatly
appreciated. Contributions of $100 or more will be acknowledged on the
blog. Please click on this secure link to Paypal to make your contribution.
Text and photographs copyright by Gerry Dawes©2021. Using photographs without crediting Gerry Dawes©2021 on Facebook. Publication without my written permission is not authorized.
* * * * *
Shall deeds of Caesar or Napoleon ring
More true than Don Quixote's vapouring?
Hath winged Pegasus more nobly trod
Than Rocinante stumbling up to God?
More true than Don Quixote's vapouring?
Hath winged Pegasus more nobly trod
Than Rocinante stumbling up to God?
Poem
by Archer M. Huntington inscribed under the Don Quixote on his horse
Rocinante bas-relief sculpture by his wife, Anna Vaughn Hyatt
Huntington,
in the courtyard of the Hispanic Society of America’s incredible museum at 613 W. 155th Street, New York City.
__________________________________________________________________________________
In
2019, again ranked in the Top 50 Gastronomy Blogs and Websites for
Gastronomists & Gastronomes in 2019 by Feedspot. (Last Updated Oct
23, 2019)
"The Best Gastronomy blogs selected from thousands of Food blogs, Culture blogs and Food Science blogs in our index using search and social metrics. We’ve carefully selected these websites because they are actively working to educate, inspire, and empower their readers with frequent updates and high-quality information."
36. Gerry Dawes's Spain: An Insider's Guide to Spanish Food, Wine, Culture and Travel
About Gerry Dawes
"The Best Gastronomy blogs selected from thousands of Food blogs, Culture blogs and Food Science blogs in our index using search and social metrics. We’ve carefully selected these websites because they are actively working to educate, inspire, and empower their readers with frequent updates and high-quality information."
36. Gerry Dawes's Spain: An Insider's Guide to Spanish Food, Wine, Culture and Travel
About Gerry Dawes
My
good friend Gerry Dawes, the unbridled Spanish food and wine enthusiast
cum expert whose writing, photography, and countless crisscrossings of
the peninsula have done the most to introduce Americans—and especially
American food professionals—to my country's culinary life." --
Chef-restaurateur-humanitarian José Andrés, Nobel Peace Prize Nominee
and Oscar Presenter 2019
Gerry Dawes is the Producer and Program Host of Gerry Dawes & Friends, a weekly radio progam on Pawling Public Radio in Pawling, New York (streaming live and archived at www.pawlingpublicradio.org and at www.beatofthevalley.com.)
Dawes
was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía
(National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on
Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural
tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's
Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava
Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004,
was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles &
Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 2009
Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a
Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan
star chef, Ferran Adrià.
In December, 2009, Dawes was awarded the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by José Andrés.
".
. .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià
in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow
narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish
correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food
journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a
self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings
us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry,
Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts,
October 2009.
Pilot for a reality television series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.
Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain
Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@gmail.com
Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@gmail.com
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