Written/Posted By Faiyaz Kara When Norman Van Aken talks, people listen. The Illinois-bred and Florida-honed chef’s influence on modern-day cookery is undeniable, but the celebrated “Founding Father of New World Cuisine” isn’t done yet. Van Aken plans to open a yet-to-be-named restaurant in Mount Dora in early 2016, an announcement…
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Interview with Norman Van Aken
What inspired you in the search of new flavors? how was your culinary style born? People inspire me. Food is about the love of people and families and the never-ceasing exploration of our globe. My style was born in my childhood in some ways but it took flower in Key…
Miso
Despite our (we thought!), carefully planned strategy for a lunch of divine sushi… we were in for a shock as we slowed to pull on to the side street off the 79th street causeway. The shock was due to the line of even more prepared folks lined outside the still…
The Egg
The summer I became a golf caddie was one filled with suddenly unfamiliar routines and the deep lows and soaring highs of messy adolescence. I was 14 years of age and not skipping smoothly along the surface of life’s waters. My childhood pals, the Harris boys seemed to suffer no…
The Foods of India
‘A Word on Food’ is done with … words … of course. Where would I be without them? Our blonde-haired, blue-eyed granddaughter Audrey is not yet two… yet she is teaching me to try more communication … with the hand language known as ‘signing’. She has been taking lessons to…
Why We Have Norman Van Aken to Thank for the Way We Dine Out Today
Witten by Shaylyn Esposito The James Beard Award winner tells us, and gives us recipes, about the early days of fusion food Prior to the 1980s, the American restaurant scene was dull. French cuisine dominated the menus of the country’s best restaurants, reigning supreme for decades, but now the varieties…
An Interview: No Experience Necessary
There are some strong words of endorsement for your book. Here’s a few. “. . . One of the most compelling and page-turning memoirs I’ve read. . . . Revealing, funny and brutally honest . . . ” —Thomas Keller, The French Laundry “Norman Van Aken is the Jimmy Page…
Sopa De Pollo
We were in the Miami International Airport joined in a shuffling line of other travelers at ‘La Carreta’ … the famously successful Miami restaurant chain that also boasts ‘Versailles’ and ‘Casa Juancho’ in its culinary stable. It is one of our common stops in that airport despite the lines. They…
Katsuobushi
The Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, wrote in “Ode to Salt” “I know you won’t believe me, but it sings, salt sings… Dust of the sea, in you the tongue receives a kiss from ocean night… in it, … we taste infinitude.” ‘Elizabeth the Beautiful’s’ face lit up. She said it…
A Table for Friends
I am recalling another visit to our restaurant at the Ritz-Carlton in Orlando. I am not recalling it from distant memory but actually from a very immediate place. I love to sit in the quiet early-morning of the grand lobby of this amazing hotel and savor a cappuccino … and…
Fried Chicken
When I was 19, 20 and 21 years of age … I seemed to be on a yo-yo between my boyhood home in Illinois and the place I was seeking. I wanted sunlight. I wanted music. I wanted good books. I didn’t know I wanted … Fried Chicken too! I…
Blood
I walked into our restaurant kitchen and I inhaled an aroma I’d known before I knew it’s name. It was blood. It spiraled me back in time to a grocery store where my mother shopped. She carried me in there before the age of three and slung me from hip…
Taco Lingo
I learn words in many ways… but the best may be in eating. The words on the menus and in the cookbooks I have from around the world have helped me conquer at least ‘parts’ of foreign languages. I have a good knowledge of French, Italian and even some Japanese…if…
Sandwiches
I was near a small sandwich stand in an open-air market. It was like many you could see almost anywhere in the world. A radio was playing a vaguely familiar tune. Soft drink cans and cigarette packs lined the windows inside the stand where a lady was stuffing soft buns…
Souse In The House!
I’ve been making Souse. Right? Got that? Know what I’m talkin’ bout? You might be confused. You might stay that way. Let me unravel a bit. Here’s souse as defined by the Wikipedia geniuses: “1. to plunge (something or oneself) into water…or other liquid. 2. to drench or to be…
Tortillas: Hecho a Mano
A Mexican boy of 20 or so … in long baggy shorts with a baseball hat is cooking my eggs while his mother rapidly peels potatoes with a curved blade flicking the peels away from her into a bowl while she giggles at the conversation she is having with him….