Putting Spain Back in Spanish Food

By Glenn Collins , The New York Times

September 10, 2012

IT seems an impossible dream, if not the one that the Man of La Mancha crooned onstage. But here it goes: Over the next decade, dozens of American cooks schooled in the authentic cooking of Spain and trained in Spanish restaurants will begin to populate the United States. In due time, hundreds, then thousands, will serve up a cuisine that is not Mexican, or Caribbean, or Latin American, but one faithful to Spain. Not only will they staff a national roster of credibly Spanish restaurants, but they will go on to create new ones. Ultimately, that will ramp up American demand for the wine and products of Spain.

To that end, the dreamer himself — not Don Quixote, but José Andrés, the best-known Spanish chef working in America — was cooking an egg in a culinary-school kitchen. He tipped a heated pan of olive oil and swirled the white as it coalesced around a gleaming yellow yolk. It echoed a classic Diego Velázquez painting from the early 17th century, “Old Woman Cooking Eggs.”

Read the full article.