Cooking with Norman

Please join me virtually for fun and informative classes

Cast Iron Roasted Sea Scallops with Citrus-Champagne Butter and Braised Spinach

Thursday November 18, 2021 | 7pm EST

I adore Sea Scallops that are 'diver harvested' and cooked correctly. I’ll share my sources for the pristine shellfish I use with all of you! We will prepare a luxurious, classic butter sauce which will be in your own repertoire for all time and then we will do a textbook sear on the beautiful scallops basting them with love as they become slightly crisp on the exteriors and properly cooked barely through on the inside. You might even make an appetizer version of this during one of your Holiday get togethers!

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Creamy Mushroom, Leeks and Truffle Soup with Parmesan Toasts for a Holiday Feast!

Thursday December 16, 2021 | 7pm EST

This is a soup that will create Holiday Memories to last a very long time. It is our good fortune that truffles begin to arrive in the market during this celebratory time of the year. This is a rich soup with flavors that just keep on coming. I’d drink a 'grower’s Champagne' with her. The first dish that I ever made that even made the waiters come and giving me a round of applause was back in my Pier House days in Key West. This soup is the DNA of that very one!

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Feature

“COOKING WITH NORMAN” Classes Online

Greetings! I have begun hosting my virtual, online cooking classes, “Cooking with Norman”. If you’d like to join in all you do is register via our website and you will be sent a link via email. So easy! I am cooking in our home with cameras that show me, my…

Feature

“COOKING WITH NORMAN” Classes Online

Corporate, Private & Group

Ment’or Virtual Cooking Lesson

Join me for this cooking class I’m doing in conjunction with the folks at “Ment’or”. This is a series that Ment’or has done with the top chefs in America and abroad. For my class I’m teaching a dish that showcases my love of Latin and Caribbean flavors: Grilled Spiced Shrimp…

Food Culture

Cooking Kahala Fish on a Blackstone Griddle

Hi All! I’m looking forward to you watching me and my friend Chef Nate Lippy of Blackstone Griddles cook some Kahala Fish with Brazilian inspirations! Let me know what you would like us to cook next time he and I are doing one of these videos!…

Food Culture

The Fishmonger & The Sea

I had the great fortune to meet a fishmonger named Kelly Probst a few years ago. He had started a fishing business and it was clear that he was going about it in a way that spoke very clearly to what I look for in any raw product. If you…

Interviews with NVA

Two Barstools & a Knife: An Interview, FIU & Norman Van Aken

Recently I was interviewed by three of the key folks at FIU. Here is what they introduced me by, “Happy Anniversary to the FIU podcast 2 Barstools and a Knife. One year of amazing guests and great stories. To celebrate this Milestone they are joined by Chef Norman Van Aken,…

Turntable

Tom Waits Reads Charles Bukowski

Many years ago it was my great luck to see Tom Waits perform in a very small venue in Chicago. He was really just becoming the star he eventually would. But back then it was an insiders group that braved a nasty Midwestern storm to see his show. A single…

Magazines & Articles

“Dear Miami”; An Open Letter from Norman Van Aken

The Editors of the New York City based company, “Star Chefs” asked me to write a letter to our city to coincide with their publication of the new issue of the Star Chefs Magazine, “Rising Stars”. It is about the emerging and vital talents of our Miami culinary community. The…

Instagram

@NormanVanAken

@normansorlando @npr

#fusion #newworldcuisine

“If the map of the world were a tablecloth, and I could choose a place at that table, I would sit at the Southern tip of Florida, at the nexus of North America and the Caribbean. My plate would touch Cuba, the Florida Keys, the Yucatan, the West Indies, the Bahamas, and South America. And, if time could tell, I would listen to the tales of voyagers, discoverers, traders and mystics who, in searching for “the Indies”, the Great Kahn and the riches of China, discovered something much more valuable and enduring, A New World of Culinary Treasures. Almost instantly, the cuisines of the Old World began to merge with foods of the new one; This evolutionary and inexorable fusion lies at the heart of New World Cuisine.”

— Norman Van Aken, July, 1993