The AEEPP Award gala ceremony (Asociación Española de Escritores de Prensa Periódica) was held at the Real Casa de Correos in Madrid on September 30. The function was attended by Madrid Community President D. Ignacio González. In his keynote speech, Mr. Gonzalez praised the hard work, dedication and painstaking efforts that Spanish publishers are making in such tough and difficult times as these. The recipients of this year’s awards are publishers with over fifteen years of experience in the publishing business.

The seminar, this time entitled “One Hundred Years of History in Panamanian Gastronomy”, organized by the Excelencias Group’s Excelencias Gourmet Magazine with the collaboration of Panama’s Gastronomic Club and supported by Nestlé, targets executives and managers of companies linked to the tourism industry.

On behalf of the World Association of Chef Societies (WACS), international chef Claudio Ferrer handed a distinction to Jose Carlos de Santiago, the Excelencias Group’s CEO and ambassador of the Iberian-American Gastronomy Academy, for his contribution to a better management and development of Cuba’s culinary art.

The keys to be taken into account for alimentary innocuousness were revealed on Wednesday by Doctor Ivania Rodríguez, from the Food Industry’s Research Institute, during the lecture entitled Cold Chain and Food Quality.

The competition to handpick the Best 2014 Excelencias Gourmet Hors d’oeuvre gave a special touch to the Seminar. Three randomly chosen chefs – from restaurants Gourmet Cubano, Bavaria and Esto no es un café – were asked to prepare a cold starter and pair it with unlabeled wine bottles.

Objectively showing the level reached by professional sommeliers in Cuba, expressed by means of the theoretical and practical knowledge of the job, that’s the main objective of the competition to choose the 2014 Excelencias Gourmet Sommelier, which held its first qualifying round on Monday.