Experience
2023 - 2023
Host
Norman's Florida KitchenOrlando, FL
2017 - 2017
Author
Norman Van Aken's Florida Kitchen
2013 - 2013
Author
No Experience Necessary: The Culinary Odyssey of Chef Norman Van Aken
2003 - 2003
Author
New World Kitchen
1999 - 1999
Author
Norman Van Aken's Cooking in the New World
1997 - 1997
Author
Norman's New World Cuisine
1995 - 1995
Author
The Great Exotic Fruit Book: A Handbook of Tropical and Subtropical Fruits & Exotic Fruit Postcard Book
1988 - 1988
Author
Feast of Sunlight: 200 Inspired Recipes from the Master of New World Cuisine
Education
Advice from Norman Van Aken
Quotes about career path, skills, and teamwork from an industry leader.
ON STRUCTURE - I require the Plate to be the ‘beat’ of my presentation.
I don’t want a plate to make a bunch of extra noise. I want it steady. I want it dependable. I want it to help rein in what else is going on. I want it Charlie Watts.
ON PROGRESS - If you cut the butter crooked the first time, straighten it the next.
ON LOGIC - Wipe the knife with a towel..not your tongue.
ON FLAVOR - Let the hot butter foam around the garlic and chilies… until you can smell the signal to ...
move forth.
ON COURAGE - Pepper is not a gun meant to be unfired.
Let it drop from your hand.
ON SHARING - Salt is not a sacrament for the few.
Share it... like laughter.
ON TIMINIG - There is such a thing as turning off the soup you make … too early or too late.
ON BUILDING - Better to salt early then forget to salt at all.
ON FRIENDSHIPS- My pots and pans are like my friends.
They are not "a set". All different and appreciated in a different way.
ON RIPENING - Tropical fruits no more like being in a refrigerator … than live parrots.
ON KINDNESS - Apples are hard but still...they bruise as fast as any heart.
ON ACIDITY - So many foods come roaring to life with only a squeeze of lemon and a pinch of salt.
Sensual.
ON APPEARANCES - As in apples, mangos and tomatoes...don't confuse beautiful with delicious.
ON REALITY - I keep Dream Sheets..
but I still put my food in the window.
ON VARIETY - The more cooking vessels stained w different colors from prep...
The more likely the meal will be interesting.
ON COOKING - Simmering is Smiling.
Boiling is Laughing.
ON TYRANT CHEFS - Your lack of lasting power is in direct proportion to your abuse of it.
ON THE NEW SCIENTIFIC COOKING - Technique is only the context with which we present something in cooking.
If it still doesn’t deliver a message from one’s true Heart it will never be memorable to me.
ON HOME - Food is supposed to be capable of taking you Home.
Even if its a Home you've never been to before.
Roles in Culinary
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