Amazing things are happening at the new Spanish table. The sweet-hot pequillos of Navarra turn up in a classic potato tortilla (the beloved omelet found in every tapas bar). Purple-veined Cabrales butter melts across a thick grilled T-bone. Honey is drizzled over eggplant "fries." Chocolate meets olive oil, strawberries meet fennel, vanilla meets salmon. Mysteriously delicious savory ice creams—balsamic vinegar, thyme, saffron—garnish soups and seafoods.<br> <br> Casual, quietly inventive, steeped in regional traditions but unmistakably modern, Spain is the new France and Italy, an ipicenter of contemporary Mediterranean cooking with a wealth of alluring flavors and preparations.<br> <br> Written by Anya von Bremzen—an award-winning food writer who first fell in love with Spain in the early 1980s, introduced the Catalan genius and three-star chef Ferran Adrià; to American readers in 1997, and today spends close to half her year in the country—<em>The New Spanish Table</em> delivers all the pleasures of this exhilarating cuisine.<br> <br> It's a rustic table: Baked Fish with Romesco Potatoes. It's elegant: Rack of Lamb with Pistacchio Pesto. It's exquisitely simple: Smoky Fried Almonds with sea salt, an addictive marriage of four ingredients. It's for entertaining—dozens of tapas, paellas and cazuelas (named after the Spanish terra-cotta casseroles)—and, with its glorious comfort foods like fried eggs with crackling, crispy whites, and luscious unusual Rice Pudding Ice Cream, perfect for cozying up, alone.<br> <br> Most of all, <em>The New Spanish Table</em> is an irresistible, festive celebration of flavors from a culture absolutely passionate about food, wine, and the pleasures of an excellent meal.