Another Incredible Review by London writer Tim Pinks of Sunset in a Glass: Adventures of a Food and Wine Road Warrior in Spain Volume I Enhanced Photography Edition, Foreword by José Andrés.

 

 

 

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Now in the Second Editions with added photos and vignettes.

 

 

 I do not know Tim Pinks, who lives in London, is a gifted writer, a lover of things Spanish and has been attending the Fiestas de San Fermín in Pamplona since 1984.  Suffice to say, he was impressed with my book.

 

Tim Pinks was given the "Guiri of the Year" Award by Señor Testis, the blue bull with the yellow horns, an image made famous world-wide by my friend Mikel Urmeneta* and his crew at Kukuxumusu, the Drawings and Ideas Factory that Urmeneta founded.  (Mikel Urmeneta has since moved on and now runs Katuki Saguyaki, another innovative drawings and ideas studio.)

 

 

Tim Pinks review.

 

I posted an Amazon review for Gerry Dawes´s Sunset in a Glass: Adventures of a Food and Wine Road Warrior in Spain   (and we don't know each other, folks, this is all from the pleasure of the book) but as it may take a couple of days I thought I'd pop it up here first.

 

 This review is especially for one Erica Messinger. She suggested I do one for Amazon - and I was going to anyway - but it's always nice to have some kind words and encouragement. So here it is.

 

I finished the book on Saturday. What a ride all over Spain! Talking of riding, I wonder what a girl on a horse would look like through a glass of Manzanilla?!

 

A Banquet of a Book - Sunset in a Glass: Adventures of a Food and Wine Road Warrior in Spain Volume I Enhanced Photography Edition, Foreword by José Andrés by Gerry Dawes

 

‘Sunset…’ Wow. I love this book. What an exquisitely expressed and wonderfully written book. I just had to invent a new word, Gerrymeandering: Travelling up and down and around Iberia enjoying the great wines, food and people of Spain.

 

I love books, but I wanted to more than ‘open’ this one. I’d seen a couple of extracts so I knew the writing was good, and I also know of his website so knew he wouldn’t allow a bad book to go out on sale like he wouldn’t allow a bad wine onto a table.

 

So I made up a little ritual. As I took it out of the package I pretended it was the literary equivalent of uncorking a fine wine. I let it breath for a while, savouring the aroma of its covers and breathing in those ‘new book’ flavours of fresh pages and glossy photographs.

 

Having decanted the book from the packaging as one might a wine from a bottle, I then held it, felt it, let it breathe by running through the pages…and it felt good. The first big test for me of a book is how it feels, (and it has to be good inside too, of course) and this one felt, and looked, beautiful.

 

Big and bendy and literally beautiful to behold. Perhaps it was fate but the first page I stopped at as I back-to-front flicked through the pages was a photo in the Pamplona chapter. (I’m a huge fan of the fabulous Fiesta of San Fermin.)

 

 

Another big test comes from when I am first moved by the writing…be it a laugh, a smile, even a tear…or an image painted from the words… Well, the first laugh came before Gerry even starts writing. It came from a quote by one D.E. Pohren:  "So much for my sentimental liver, dictating little bastard. On with the book."

 

And so… So much for my dubious little wine analogies, pretentious little bastard…on with the book!

 

The first time I caught my breath and thought, ‘oh-my-gosh, that’s good’ was on just page three of the first chapter, describing an alternative and romantic version of how the town Sanluca de Barrameda (Dawes ‘Shangri-La’ I reckon) got its name, and also, in a roundabout way, how the book got its title: "Several ships bearing treasure from the New World were wrecked and sunk after running on to the sandbar, so maybe part of the gold leaf laid down on the sea by the setting sun could be reflections of sunken Aztec or Inca gold bullion…"   Isn’t that beautiful?

 

 

Then in chapter two he takes us off on a tangent and back into the past, to when he first arrived in southern Spain with the US Navy at the end of the sixties. It was here this young American from the south began to expand his horizons…and his palate! And once again he moved me, informed me…and made me laugh.

 

I could write a review of every chapter but even for me that would be going on a bit, so I’ll just mention a couple more things to provide the slightest taster. The merest hint of the biggest and best banquet-in-a-book you’ve ever had.

 

As a regular at Pamplona’s famous Fiesta of San Fermin, talking about the some of the folk he first met on his first visit in !970, I love this:  "…the Pamplona regulars – that international group of spiritual descendants of Ernest Hemingway’s and Gertrude Stein’s Lost Generation who return to San Fermin each July to revel in the light of a sun that for them still rises."  To revel in the light of a sun that for them still rises…isn’t that just perfect?  This is a book to revel in.

 

In chapter nine, writing about his friends at the wine firm of Lopez de Heredia in La Rioja, pride of place doesn’t just go to the food, or wine…but to those friends, of course. When you read about one of his visits and the people he meets there, you want to meet them too…so a tear comes to the eye and a lump to the throat when you find out that, like many a fine wine…they’ve gone…

 

 

And in a book that spans over 50 years, a lot of the characters (characters to me – to Gerry, true friends) that bring personality to the pages have left us… And although like a fine wine, the next generation’s been nurtured, it can’t be replaced…

 

But enough of the sad stuff. Like the country it is set in, this is a book full of love, laughs and life. Of bars and restaurants and music and song, of long lunches and longer dinners and great company and grand times. Of Spain. And what’s more, all that aside, it’s just the most terrific of travel adventures.

 

To paraphrase a wee pair of words Dawes uses when describing the extraordinary explosion of experimental food that emanated from the Catalan kitchen of Ferran Adria of El Bulli fame – wonderfully he describes it as a ‘culinary Krakatoa’ – well this book is a literary lava flow of love to Spain’s gastronomy and the accompanying beverages.

 

 

It’s not just a heck of a trip all over Spain…it’s a trip inside it.

 

Many doors, nay portals, are opened or referenced in this book. Cellar doors, bar doors, restaurant doors and open portals to caves, hatches to magic cheeses, and even porches into the past. The band The Doors took their name from Aldous Huxley’s ‘The Doors of Perception.’ Being Huxley, it’s full psychedelic experiences due to various…substances! But this being Dawes, well…

 

We have gastronomy: the practice or art of picking and choosing, and cooking and eating good food. We have oenology for the study of not just wines, but sherries, brandies, champagnes, etc. But I’ve been looking for a word that combines the two…and one doesn’t seem to exist. So I’ve invented one. Gastronomy…Oenology…Dawesenology: The enjoyment of the great wines and foods of Spain. The Dawes of Perfection, as it were.

 

I shall leave the last words to Dawes. It just seems fitting. It comes at the end of one of my favourite chapters, ‘Soldiers On A Train’. And although not the most poetic, funny or moving line in a book that’s full of them…it hits the bullseye on what this book is about. Before you read it I shall answer his statement with this, because ‘it’ shines through on every page: Oh yes you did, Mr. Dawes, oh yes you did…

 

 

‘’I developed a passion for Spain, Spaniards and Spanish wine and food that has endured to this day.’’

 

P.s: I know, I know! I was going to leave that last line to Dawes, because when I read it way back near the beginning of the book, I thought that was the perfect way to end any review I might write. But then I read the last chapter, having thought I’d written enough for a decent review.

 

And the son-of-a-gastronomic-gun only ends Sunset in a Glass with the perfect literary…sunset! I give up… He ends Volume One back where he, and we, began this long and lovely Spanish sojourn.

 

All I can say is, he finishes it beautifully, romantically, wonderfully and poignantly. I love, love, LOVE this book. And he still gets the last line, which is also the last line from the book. Apart from what’s in the epilogue. Yes, there’s an epilogue!

 

I give up…’cos yet again he takes us away on a journey, and it is an even better ending, but I won’t even give a hint as to what’s in it as it is too good for that. Suffice to say it’s a whale of a tale.

 

Adios, enamadores de España… One day, I’m going to lift a glass of manzanilla, at sunset, on the beach at Sanlúcar de Barrameda. And, in an allusion to that sweet and sublime last chapter…maybe a beautiful girl will ride past on horseback.

 

Here’s the last line of the last chapter, on one of his many revisits to a Mediterranean town called Sanlúcar de Barrameda, surrounded by friends, as the sun goes down:  "And as we lift our glasses for yet another toast, I can still see the Sanlúcar sunset in the glass." 

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

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

 

Comments are welcome and encouraged.

 

Text and photographs copyright by Gerry Dawes©2021.  Using photographs without crediting Gerry Dawes©2021 on Facebook.  Publication without my written permission is not authorized.

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  Shall deeds of Caesar or Napoleon ring
More true than Don Quixote's vapouring?
Hath winged Pegasus more nobly trod
Than Rocinante stumbling up to God?

 

Poem by Archer M. Huntington inscribed under the Don Quixote on his horse Rocinante bas-relief sculpture by his wife, Anna Vaughn Hyatt Huntington,

in the courtyard of the Hispanic Society of America’s incredible museum at 613 W. 155th Street, New York City.

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In 2019, again ranked in the Top 50 Gastronomy Blogs and Websites for Gastronomists & Gastronomes in 2019 by Feedspot. (Last Updated Oct 23, 2019) 

"The Best Gastronomy blogs selected from thousands of Food blogs, Culture blogs and Food Science blogs in our index using search and social metrics. We’ve carefully selected these websites because they are actively working to educate, inspire, and empower their readers with frequent updates and high-quality information."  

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

 
About Gerry Dawes

My good friend Gerry Dawes, the unbridled Spanish food and wine enthusiast cum expert whose writing, photography, and countless crisscrossings of the peninsula have done the most to introduce Americans—and especially American food professionals—to my country's culinary life." -- Chef-restaurateur-humanitarian José Andrés, Nobel Peace Prize Nominee and Oscar Presenter 2019

Gerry Dawes is the Producer and Program Host of Gerry Dawes & Friends, a weekly radio progam on Pawling Public Radio in Pawling, New York (streaming live and archived at www.pawlingpublicradio.org and at www.beatofthevalley.com.)

Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles & Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià. 

In December, 2009, Dawes was awarded the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by José Andrés. 

". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts, October 2009. 

 

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

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain  

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@gmail.com