One of the saving graces of quarantine was the prospect to see Andrés at dwelling, spending high quality time with his three daughters in a series of cooking movies that the chef posted to his social channels. Unbridled pleasure is just not an emotion one encounters usually in life, not to mention throughout a pandemic, however I’ve to suppose it seems to be a lot like Andrés dancing and cooking in the kitchen with Carlota and Inés, singing off-key to Bastille’s “Pompeii,” as his daughters look concurrently amused and embarrassed.
The movies had been nominally devoted to dwelling cooking, however what Andrés and his youngsters had been promoting in these early days of the pandemic was hope, and optimism. The vids had been, I’m loath to say, infectious.
The interaction between the Spanish chef and his American-born daughters was so charming, in truth, that some enterprising producer clearly realized the household can be a smash in a restricted TV series. More than two years later, right here we’re: “José Andrés and Family in Spain,” a six-part series produced by the London-based Nutopia in affiliation with José Andrés Media, debuts Dec. 27 on Discovery Plus.
The premise of the series is straightforward. Andrés serves as tour information for his daughters — Carlota, 23, Inés, 21, and Lucia, 18 — as they wander by way of the elder’s native nation. The series leans on some established fashions: It options an attractive, semi-trusty chef/host, the type perfected by Anthony Bourdain; it borrows the sweeping, painterly cinematography of “Chef’s Table”; and it maintains the single-country focus of “Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy.”
But the series has a charisma all its personal, too. It’s a protracted Take Your Daughters to Work Day, when your father simply occurs to be a well-known chef — and one of the world’s largest (non-cured) hams. I’d enterprise that there are solely a handful of individuals who can tease Andrés with out mercy, and three of them occur to be on this present.
When father takes Carlota and Inés (Lucia seems in later episodes after her college yr winds down) to the historic La Boqueria market in Barcelona, the chef gushes over the huge unfold of seafood glistening on ice. “This is like ‘Finding Nemo,’” Andrés shouts, with Homer-esque enthusiasm. “This is like being in an aquarium in your home, but you can eat it!”
Inés smiles appreciatively, then presents her father some recommendation. “Just one life lesson,” she says. “Never talk about ‘Finding Nemo,’ and then about eating fish.”
“I thought that was brilliant!” Andrés counters.
Father and daughters cowl a lot of turf in a quick quantity of time. They experience scooters and dine round Barcelona. Inés and Carlota be taught to flamenco dance in the course of the annual truthful in Jerez de la Frontera. The household samples virtually each pastry at El Riojano, the legendary Madrid bakery. The sisters compete in a paella competitors in the course of the Fallas pageant in Valencia. Andrés and associates put together a feast of conventional dishes from Asturias, the chef’s birthplace. The younger ladies be taught that their dad’s time at El Bulli, the famed temple of molecular gastronomy, ended on a bitter word.
During their travels, the siblings get in contact with their household historical past — and the meals which have fashioned their father’s well-developed palate. But simply as essential, the ladies function surrogates for viewers. We see Spain by way of their eyes. We be taught as they be taught. We watch as they expertise. Their surprise turns into our surprise. I’m unsure how anybody may watch all six episodes with out eager to e-book a right away flight to Spain, which might be half the rationale the series exists. Andrés is, and will at all times be, the nation’s prime salesman.
But Andrés appears to be a protecting father, too, which can clarify why we be taught so little about his daughters over the course of the series. We discover out Lucia doesn’t like cheese. We sense Inés is the adventurous one, prepared to strive her hand at nearly any culinary activity. We uncover that Carlota loves browsing. But we be taught subsequent to nothing in regards to the ladies exterior the confines of this Spanish journey. We have identified for years that their father goals huge. What about Carlota, Inés and Lucia? What are their ambitions exterior the lengthy shadow of their father?
Here and there, the daughters point out their mom, Patricia Fernandez de la Cruz, however she makes no look, which is a actual loss. We see the love and satisfaction that father has for his daughters. But we’ve got solely hints in regards to the ladies’s relationship with their mom, the very one that, because the siblings acknowledge in the Ron Howard documentary, “We Feed People,” is the glue that holds this household collectively.
Documentaries and actuality TV, I have to remind myself, are types of mythmaking as a lot as they’re media for truth-telling.
As heartwarming as it’s to see Andrés kiss and hug and dote on his daughters, the interactions are, actually, made for TV. They are expressions designed for public consumption, in full view of cameras and a crew. I’m not suggesting the heat is scripted or contrived, although such a factor is just not unusual for actuality TV. What I’m saying is that I hope father and daughters have moments collectively, removed from the peering eye of a digicam operator, which can be each bit as candy and playful as those captured in “José Andrés and Family in Spain.”
José Andrés and Family in Spain (six episodes) streams Tuesday on Discovery Plus.