Spain

On June 6, 2007, HERBERT J. "Jerry"; of Catonsville, MD; son of Carolyn and the late Herbert J. Spain, Sr.; brother of Suzanne Ryan, Donna Casady, Thomas and John Spain. Also survived by his nieces Megan and Sarah and nephews Patrick, Kevin and Connor. A memorial visitation will be held on Sunday 3 to 5 P.M. at the Donaldson Funeral Home, P.A., 313 Talbott Avenue, Laurel, MD 20707. A graveside service will be held on Monday 9:30 A.M. at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Silver Spring. Memorial donations may be made to the American Diabetes Association, PO Box 11454, Alexandria, VA 22312.

Into the stainless-steel mixing bowl goes liquid nitrogen, so cold it's below minus-320 degrees. A witch's caldron of wispy vapors spew as a mixture of ordinary olive oil and clear tomato juice is sprayed in. Then the extraordinary begins. Whoever thinks oil and water don't mix has never seen them combine like this to create "popcorn." From this brew, fluffy kernel-like pieces emerge. They are cold and weightless on the tongue, melt into a slick of buttery fat in the warm confines of the mouth, and taste of delicate gazpacho.

Janet Mendel has one of those stories that arouses either vicarious delight or itchings of imminent life crisis. The American journalist and her husband quit their jobs in Chicago, pack a few essentials and leave for Spain, figuring on a year's hiatus from their workaday lives. Need we go on? Naturally, it's splendid, as the Mediterranean tends to be, the sort of place where lovely scents "waft." Naturally, the intrepid couple faces the hardships of Spanish village life ("Country people trekked to town by donkey ... ")

Royal Ahold NV, the Dutch food giant that is buying Landover-based Giant Food Inc. for $2.7 billion, said yesterday that it is in talks with Spanish supermarket company Dialco SA over a possible joint venture and agreed to buy another supermarket company, Dumaya, to expand its Spanish operations.Dialco, Spain's oldest supermarket company, had 1997 sales of nearly $200 million, Ahold said, adding that Dumaya, a smaller family-run food retailer, had 1997 sales of $75 million.Cees van der Hoeven, Ahold's chief executive, has said previously that the company is looking to the western United States for more growth and also needs more "critical mass" in Europe, particularly in Spain.

MADRID -- Sixty years ago the Spanish civil war began. The argument in Spain this summer is whether what one writer calls "the willed amnesia" of the nation about that war should continue.Francisco Ayala, who fought in the government's forces in the war, wrote in the newspaper El Pais that "a kind of general armistice, tacit and reciprocal," has existed, which can be seen "as an expression of generalized good sense, contrasting happily and admirably with the stupidity which in the past launched a fratricidal conflict."

WASHINGTON -- The region's soccer fans will get their first peek at Spain and Switzerland today, but they aren't at a disadvantage in predicting an outcome. Loyal followers of the two teams are just as clueless as to how their heroes will perform.Will Spain trot out the team that played defending champion Germany even, or the one that blew a two-goal lead to South Korea in the last seven minutes? Will the Switzerland side that dominated Group A winner Romania show up, or the shaky group that allowed one-time favorite Colombia to regain some respect?

NOTTINGHAM, England -- Mary Joe Fernandez outlasted Jana Novotna, 6-4, 0-6, 9-7, in an error-dominated match yesterday to lead the United States into the final of the Federation Cup.The U.S. team will meet top-seeded Spain today.Fernandez's victory and Jennifer Capriati's earlier 6-3, 6-1 defeat of Radka Zrubakova clinched victory for the U.S. team in its best-of-three semifinal with Czechoslovakia.Zina Garrison and Gigi Fernandez then completed a 3-0 sweep with a 6-2, 6-3 defeat of Eva Sviglerova and Regina Rajchrtova in doubles.

PHILADELPHIA - When Salvador Dali thought about food, he frequently made art. When chef Tracey Hopkins looks at art, he also sees food. So it was only natural that once the Philadelphia Museum of Art began planning for the first comprehensive U.S. retrospective of the surrealist's work, Hopkins, the museum's executive chef, would head to Spain - Dali's homeland - in search of inspiration. The exhibition, which runs through May 15, features art on the walls and Hopkins' twist on Catalan cuisine in the museum restaurant and its adjacent cafe.

MADRID, Spain - Even the freezing rain lashing the old stone city of Segovia could not dampen the singing in its streets Friday as residents celebrated "El Gordo," the fat one, the huge lottery bonanza that marks the true beginning of Christmas in Spain. The Christmas lottery draw, broadcast live on three television stations and on radio, is said to be the world's richest, with the equivalent of $1.14 billion in prizes - a jackpot divided among thousands of winners in a country where the minimum wage is just under $400 a month and the average salary perhaps three times that.

A Mass of Christian burial for Joseph Ares Sr., a native o Spain who worked at Bethlehem Steel Corp.'s Sparrows Point plant for 45 years, will be held at 10 a.m. today at the Holy Redeemer Roman Catholic Chapel, 800 Oldham St. in Highlandtown.Mr. Ares died Thursday at Johns Hopkins Hospital from complications following a fall. He was 87.Born in a small village outside La Coruna in Galicia, Mr. Ares was the son of a tavern owner. After the early death of his father, Mr. Ares was apprenticed to a bricklayer and left home for Cuba in 1920 while still a teen-ager.