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…
Category: Food Culture
My Kitchen Conversation with Author Monique Truong
KITCHEN CONVERSATIONS WITH NORMAN VAN AKEN© Monique Truong is a highly decorated writer. I first became familiar with her through her book, “The Book of Salt”. I have become a lifelong fan. Please visit her website at https://monique-truong.com Our Conversation: What is the very first thing you remember eating and…
Coconut Grove Arts Festival via ‘The New Times’
Note: Thanks to The New Times and to Chris Malone for this article. Coconut Grove Arts Festival Recruits Emily Estefan and Norman Van Aken for This Year’s Programming CHRIS MALONE | FEBRUARY 6, 2020 | 8:00AM For decades, Coconut Grove has been a community rooted in camaraderie. The waterfront neighborhood is the oldest inhabited…
Looking For the Pope
It all began with a conversation in an espresso house in New Orleans with my two great friends Charlie Trotter and Emeril Lagasse. They said, “You must go see “The Pope” with us”. I knew they didn’t mean the Holy Pontiff in Rome .. they meant Chef Frédy Girardet in…
Pan Con Podcast, An Excerpt
A few weeks ago I sat down for an interview for a podcast named “Pan Con Podcast”. The person that the show stars is Chef Mike Beltran of Ariete Restaurant, (as well as a few other fine places in town). I first came to know Michael when he came to…
Heading East … and Back
THE ASIAN CONNECTION AND ITS REVERBERATIONS One of the most intriguing elements in this evolving cuisine has come from the cooking of the people who came to the New World from Asia and of how the products of the New World have caused culinary reverberations throughout their countries. There are…
Why I Wrote ‘My Florida Kitchen’
WHY I WROTE, ‘MY FLORIDA KITCHEN’ I wrote my sixth cookbook, “My Florida Kitchen” because I felt it was time for an update on our rapidly changing state. The last cookbook written on the whole of Florida was an excellent book written by Caroline Stuart and Jeanne Voltz titled “The…
“Who Let the Cool Chefs Write Cookbooks”. TASTE by Andrew Friedman
To my great surprise I was offered the chance to write a cookbook in 1987. A vice-president for Ballantine Books, (a division of Random House) by the name of Risa Kessler came down to Key West for a getaway from Manhattan where she lived and worked. Fate (or providence) shined…
Books & Books, A Florida Treasure
I am very happy to read this New York Times article about Mitchell Kaplan and his beautiful bookstores, “Books & Books”. I have admired them from the small original one in Coral Gables to the others from Miami Beach to Key West and beyond. I’m also very happy that on…
My Kitchen Conversation with Edward Lee
On Thursday, April 11th I will be joining my friend and fellow Chef/Author Edward Lee at ‘Books & Books’ in Coral Gables to celebrate the publication of Edward’s heralded book, “Buttermilk Graffiti”. Our conversation will be moderated by the James Beard Award winning journalist Carlos Frias. Our conversation starts at…
Barbecue Season Is Here!
In Chicago in 1956 one of the welders at Weber Brothers Metal Works named George Stephen, made a grill by cutting a metal buoy in half. The Weber folks were already making grills. They’d begun to do that in 1952. But George Stephen made his with said buoy and a…