Chef Norman Van Aken

MY LITTLE TOWN

2010-12-22T11:00:00.003-05:00

See my Twitter page for a picture of the American Flag snapping in the Illinois December wind.

Stark, blackish telephone and utility poles punctuate the somber white fields. Snowplow cleared highways frame those fields in another geometric manner. Heavy trucks create a sonic corollary of this quiet morning pageant.

Yesterday we fulfilled nostalgic childhood flavors stopping for a much fantasized about Italian Beef Sandwhich from Portillos, a place much grander than our typical place for such cravings but good all the same even so.

After more icy driving, a favorite pub stop and visiting we rejoined family for a "never fail to visit when in Lake County"; Bill's Pub in my hometown of Diamond Lake. 12 of us gathered around the famous, flat, thin-crust crispy pies.
My wife, Janet is from this same place and she is the ultimate arbiter of how Bill's measures over the years. She was only willing to give one thumb up last night... but we will try again in three nights or less I'll bet!

Now it is time for a look at some of what Chicago has to offer us that may be new to us!

CHICAGO, SWEET HOME CHICAGO

2010-12-21T07:24:00.002-05:00

My Mom's city was NYC but for Daddy it was CHI TOWN! We are heading there from the relatively steamy provinces of South Florida this morning. Soon I'll report on the City of Big Shoulders and what my "Cousins" have to offer.

Yesterday on Flagler it was Nicaraguan "Carne Desmenuzada with Pinto Gallo and Maduros". (See
my Twitter post for picture).

On the Road!

WOLVES AT BAY

2010-12-19T12:08:00.003-05:00

I'll have to put a picture of the Egg, Chorizo and Potato Tacos I had at "Antojitos" of Homestead, Fla on my Twitter page, @normanvanaken
I can't upload it here as of yet.

This family run place has been a favorite of ours since chancing across their Food Truck version first 3 years ago. The "Mama" is an absolute bruja of all manner of soups. Her Chicken Soup is soulful. Her Beef Soup will make a Man out of you and her Menudo will heal the sick/raise the hungover! Dios Mio!

The family is a wedding of Mexico and Salvador and their menu embraces both country's flavors with equal gusto. Those eggs? (See Twitter) were great and she makes her Tortillas "to order" my friends!

As I was leaving my Brother in Law called me. He said, "Are you at Antojitos?"

I had left before he'd risen but everyone who knows me knows when I'm in Homestead I'm going there.

"Yes I am Largo". (His nickname).

"Great! Could you bring back a 'large' of her Seafood Soup?"

ROAD TO CHRISTMAS

2010-12-19T07:18:00.002-05:00

Over the next week plus we will journey to our birthplace in Northern Illinois to catch up with Family and Friends as well as celebrate Christmas. Along the way I know we will indulge our passions for foods not part of the "chain mentality". I'll faithfully keep reporting. I might be doing it from my iPhone so some posts will be postcards from the road style.

Today there will be barbecue as rendered by my Brother in Law, Johnny "Largo". He keeps the Amsler Family tradition that "Pa" Irv Amsler ignited back in Mundelein, Illinois in the 50's and 60's.

But surely we need to find something to calm the belly wolves first!

LOUIE’S BACKYARD REMEMBERING

2010-11-08T11:21:00.002-05:00

Part of the reason we were able to prevail, (see the last quote in the story), was due to the fact that the three owners of Louie’s Backyard were gutsy enough to back my wild notions. One of them, Ms. Pat Tenney passed away this week at the too young age of 66. We had our bouts back then she and I but Pat gave her all to making sure Louie’s paid the bills and kept on getting prettier each passing year. There will be a memorial for her soon and I hope to be back for it.
~~~
As soon as I was nineteen, old enough to do what I wanted, I hitched down to South Florida. Oh, there were a couple of detours along the way -- a moment of college in Hawaii, a bit of manual labor in Colorado and Kansas, work as a short-order cook in an Illinois diner -- before I made my way to Key West and settled into cooking as a vocation for good. It was the early Seventies, and I was exposed daily to the cuisines of the Caribbean and Latin America, which soon became, after my mother's lasting influence, the other culinary influence in my life as a chef.

When I eventually decided to become a professional chef, however, I naturally gravitated to classic French cuisine -- that was what one did. Back in the Seventies regional American cooking had few proponents. (It would be ten years before Alice Waters and Paul Prudhomme kindled that fire.) While I didn't have the money to attend cooking school I did have the will to teach myself. One by one I bought the books that would form the foundation of my education. I read them like a jailhouse lawyer, sensing they were my only hope of escaping the rough lives of the cooks I encountered during the wild and wooly days and nights in the first kitchens I knew.

Originally, I was deeply influenced by France's "three-star chefs" -- Roger Vergé, Alain Chapel, Alain Senderens, the Troisgros brothers. Yet my day-to-day eating experience was of vibrant New World flavors -- West Indian chutneys and Central American plantains, Bahamian conch salad and Cuban steak a la parrilla -- in the cafés and open-air market stalls of Old Key West. Slowly but surely the magic of those foods and their special language came to define me as a chef.

There was, in fact, a defining moment in my decision to become the chef that I am today; it was one morning in 1987, as I sat on the deck behind Louie's Backyard. At this point I'd cooked in a lot of joints, and I use that word purposefully. I'd been frying eggs and barbecuing ribs even as I was venturing into the Cuban and Bahamian shacks and cafés around Key West for lunch or a cafe con leche. By the Eighties I had become a chef and I was running Louie's, long considered one of the best restaurants in Key West. Louie's is situated where the Gulf of Mexico meets the Atlantic Ocean. I was studying a stack of cookbooks -- French, Middle Eastern, Southwestern, Italian -- in pursuit of dishes for my menus, when I looked up to see a sailboat drifting southward. I too drifted with it for some time, wondering where it might be going and what the sailors would see, touch, and taste when they got there.

And just like that, I realized that it was time for me to put away my books on the dishes of other places. It was one of those moments of complete clarity: As much as I had drawn from the wisdom and artistry of hundreds of years of European cuisine, it was now time for me to express where and what I was living, and that was Florida. South Florida, in particular.

I thought about how North America's music had evolved, how its literature and architecture and dance were amalgamations of cultures bumping up against one another. Key West was a place where Spanish, African, and Anglo influences converged, yet the foods we were eating (including at my own restaurant) seemed almost frozen in time. No one had yet imagined what kind of fusion cuisine -- a phrase I coined -- might result if those cultures were expressed in food the way the cuisines of New Orleans, California, and the American Southwest were the gastronomical expressions of those who inhabited these places. Latin America and the Caribbean too are guided culinarily by a vast range of histories and cultural influences -- and an ever-shifting present tense. And like us, they take great pride in their differences. Perhaps the biggest revelation for me in writing this book was learning first-hand just how significant a role food plays in every culture.
My moment of clarity then became one of resolve. I closed up my books and put away my notes. The sailboat was beyond the horizon now. I could feel Cuba just 90 miles away. The answer had been around me all along. I ate it and drank it almost every day. My new teachers were going to be in the cafés and homes of South Florida, not in the books of France.

In next the weeks and months I went back to some of the same joints I'd eaten in many times since I had settled in Key West in 1973. I went to a restaurant called B's and another called La Lechonera, to El Cacique and some places that had no names at all. I sat on stools at counters and ordered the Cuban-Bahamian fare. I pestered cops and fishermen and house painters and housewives about what they were having. Often I asked them if they wouldn't mind translating a menu item for me. I earned the suspicion of many a waitress as I quizzed them and took notes on a little spiral pad. It got very exciting -- I felt like I was cracking a case or solving a puzzle. I envisioned how each meal was cooked and how I would adapt it to the dishes I loved from my own life experiences.

Less than a year after my epiphany on Louie's deck, I opened up an addition to Louie's Backyard. It was on the second story and we called it, simply, The Café. Underneath that name we made up a sign that said Nuevo Latino Cuisine. Inspired by The Café at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California, I wanted an informal restaurant. But instead of Alice Waters' rustic, delicious Mediterranean-style food, I was offering then-unheard-of constructions like "Mojo Marinated and Roasted Chicken with Saffron Rice and Rioja Essence" and "Seared Tenderloin of Beef on a Bed of Crispy Vaca Frita" and "Grilled Florida Snapper with Mojo Verde and Plantain Curls." Diners at Louie's would come up when they heard I was now cooking at The Café, eye the menu, and typically head right back down the stairs to the more "cosmopolitan" food I had created in the original restaurant. Before they departed, however, they offered their opinions, and for a long while they went something like this: "What, are you crazy? I'm not paying 20 bucks for black beans and yellow rice."

That was then, and we not only survived, but in the words of William Faulkner: we prevailed.
~~~
Norman Van Aken, 2010. All rights reserved.

COOKING OLD KEY WEST

2010-11-07T12:27:00.003-05:00

I walked into shack of a restaurant (even by Key West standards) on a late morning in the spring of 1971 and was handed a sea-water damp menu with items like Turtle Steak, Jewfish Chowder, Fried Bollos, Tostones, Guava Milkshakes, a meat dish that translated as "old clothes", (Ropa Vieja). Coffee was served in plastic thimble-sized cups and called buches. They must have been about 50% sugar.

A mix of customers sat around me as a parked my worn jean covered butt down at a stool by the scruffy counter that morning;
two rummied out shrimpers eating large steaks piled high with onions and drinking Budweisers;
a triple-tinted sun-glassed, stiletto-thin, tense young Latin man eating nothing;
a "hippie-till-I-die" Janis Joplin twin Earth Mama with a baby feeding on her nipple;
a few dead to the world cats;
a woman (?), bearing multiple tattoos and a shaved head;
a rock-solid, leather and laced police sergeant finishing a Marlboro and a cafecito;
a grand old "Miss Havisham" type gal, replete with a conch pink colored parasol who offered to read my palm.

I sat down next to a bearded, mountain of a gent that I came to know later as "Bud Man". He read his paper a bit and then spoke up.

“Hey kid. You want a job?”

“Doing what?”

“Cooking ribs, Brunswick stew, conch chowder and such in an all-night, open-air barbeque joint about 4 blocks from the Gulf of Mexico”.

“Sure”.

He said, “Good. Come around 11 p.m. Just ask everybody where ‘The Midget’ is.

I had am image that didn’t fit with a job. He smiled with a mouth missing a few teeth.
“The joint is really small”. He finished a goblet of Burgundy and waltzed out in the sunlight.

Once I got started there "Bud Man" introduced me to "Bicycle Sammy". Sammy had a voice raspier than Louis Armstrong's and he was as black as ‘Old Satchmo’ too. Sammy was trim, almost muscular, with a bantam fighters grace. Despite his 70 years of age and he did not suffer fools or foolishness gladly. Sammy had a bike that was his statement. The basket was large enough to hold a box of plantains or shrimp from the market. The horn was the size of a trumpet and could be heard from some distance. I worked the graveyard shift; Sammy's followed mine. Every morning he would arrive, sound his horn, park his "steed" and, dressed in freshly bleached and starched chef whites, take over his kitchen.

Sammy taught me how to say things like "Adam and Eve on a raft, float 'em!" for poached eggs on toast or "Shipwreck!" for scrambled eggs. The thing I appreciated most was when he showed me how to make the side orders of sweet plantains we served with the pork sandwiches. He explained that the bananas had to get very black to turn sweet, not just yellow-black like regular bananas. Then it was simple. You'll find recipes for plantains in various stages of ripeness in the next recipe as well as recipes for many of the other tubers, rices and fruits that I first tasted back in the "Cooking School of Bicycle Sammy".

Years passed and I moved to Miami. I was getting all kinds of inspiration, instruction, flavors from the big town. I met many folks including a scholar who would become my friend in a short time. Her name is Maricel Presilla. Maricel is a fountain of information regarding Latin-Afro cooking, language, and food his¬tory. I love to hear her talk and to watch her eyes dance as she describes the flavors of dishes prepared by the descendants of Arawak Indians along the Orinoco in the Amazon basin, or how the wild guaguao chile, native to Cuba, was prevalent in dishes from that country in days when Cubans ate much spicier food than they do today. Their tastes, she explained, gradually came to resemble the more conservative palate of northern Spain. As a restaurant consultant and restaurant owner, Maricel has figured prominently in putting the spice back in Cuban foods. I’m also proud to have joined her and other for the CIA’s Latin Cuisine’s Advisory Council which is based out of the new CIA campus in San Antonio, Texas.

The Cuban dishes, plátanos enchilados, are not the same as the enchiladas we find in Mexican cooking, but the words and foodstuffs moved rapidly back and forth between Havana and Veracruz on the Spanish galleons that linked the economies of these two cities in the post-Columbian era. Maricel tells me that enchi¬lados/enchiladas always mean chilies, bell peppers, onions, and tomatoes.

In the recipe below I call upon such ingredients. I also call upon the memory of Bicycle Sammy.

CUBAN COOKSHACK LOBSTER ENCHILADA
WITH CRIOLLA TOMATO MAMA
Norman Van Aken, 2010. All rights reserved.

Yield: 4 servings.

4 Cups ‘Criolla Tomato Mama’ (recipe to follow)

‘Annatto Red Rice’ (recipe to follow)

The recipe calls for the Florida Keys lobsters known as “Spiny Lobster”. Feel free to use shrimp.

4 Spiny lobster tails, cut in half through the shell lengthwise and de-veined, (or 24 or so shrimp)
Salt and black pepper to taste
1 lime, cut in half
2 tablespoons blended olive oil
2 tablespoons butter

Prepare the ‘Criolla Tomato Mama’ and the ‘Annatto Red Rice’, and keep warm.

Season the lobster tails with salt and pepper and squeeze the lime over them. Heat a large, heavy sauté pan and add the olive oil and butter. When the butter begins to foam, add the lobster, flesh side down, and sauté over medium-high heat until it turns golden brown.

Turn over and sauté until cooked through, about 3 to 4 minutes.

Add the ‘Tomato Criolla Mama’, reduce the heat to medium, and cook for 1 to 2 minutes longer.

Place the ‘Annatto Red Rice’ in the center of each serving plate, and the lobster on top.

Spoon the sauce around, and serve.

TOMATO CRIOLLO MAMA
Yield: 3 Cups

1 ounces bacon, diced
1 Tablespoon pure olive oil
1 Tablespoons butter
1 scotch bonnet chile, stem and seeds discarded, minced
2 cloves of raw garlic, minced
½ small red onion, peeled and diced medium
1-tablespoon sugar
1 large stalks celery, cleaned and diced medium
1 red bell pepper, stem and seeds discarded, diced medium
1 Tablespoon Spanish sherry wine vinegar
1 Cup Chicken Stock
1 bay leaf, broken
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
1 teaspoon Tabasco
1 Tablespoon fresh thyme leaves, chopped
1 Tablespoon fresh basil leaves “
1 1/2 Cups tomatoes concassé
Kosher salt and black pepper to taste

Heat the bacon and the olive oil in a large heavy saucepan on medium heat until the bacon is almost cooked. Now add the butter, scotch bonnet, garlic and red onion. Turn up the heat to high and cook for about 3 minutes and the onions are lightly caramelized. Now add the sugar, celery and bell peppers. Cook until the bell peppers just begin to soften, another 3 minutes. Add the vinegar, bay leaves, cayenne, Tabasco, thyme, and basil. Add the stock and tomato and reduce the heat to medium, stirring frequently. Cook about 8-10 minutes. Adjust the seasoning to taste. Puree, reserve until needed.

ANNATTO RED RICE

Yield: About 31/2 cups.

This all-purpose side dish is a simple rice pilaf with the addition of some annatto-infused olive oil.

The rice can be kept warm for 20 to 30 minutes before serving, if necessary.

2 tablespoons Annatto Oil (steep Annatto or Achiote seeds in oil on a simmer 5 minutes and strain off, discarding seeds).
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 of a Scotch bonnet or other hot chile, seeded and minced
4 cloves garlic. minced
1/2 onion, diced small
1 carrot, diced small
1 celery stalk, diced small
2 small bay leaves. broken
1 Cup long-grain rice
Salt and black pepper to taste
1 ¼ Cups Chicken Stock

In a saucepan, heat the annatto oil and the butter. When the butter has melted, stir in the chile and garlic and sauté for 15 seconds over medium heat. Stir in the onion, carrot, cel¬ery, and bay leaves, and cook until well glazed, about 10 minutes, stirring frequently.

Stir in the rice, salt, and pepper. Add the chicken stock and stir once. Bring to a boil and immediately reduce the heat to low. Cover the pan and cook for 12 to 15 minutes, or until all of the stock has been absorbed. Serve.

FAIRCHILD TROPICAL BOTANIC GARDEN

2010-11-01T09:48:00.005-04:00

It has been a busy time with travel but I wanted to share the great time we had cooking together and doing a demo at the always blissful Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden just off Coral Way in Coral Gables. We had been asked to participate in the 'Edible Garden Project' and we could not have been happier! I first came to know of the life work of Dr. David Fairchild when my wife, Janet, and I began a publishing project for Ten Speed Press/Celestial Arts that would become our "Exotic Fruit Posters". We spent days and weeks there and at "The Kampong" in Coconut Grove learning all we could about the fruits that grow so amazingly well in our temperate climate. My knowledge was aided by many folks then and it was my pleasure to share some back along with my son, (and Chef) Justin. (That's him in the cowboy hat).

Janet worked in the background as is her preference setting up all of our mixing bowls, cutting boards, knives etc. while Justin and I prepared our dishes. He made a stellar Key Lime Cheesecake with key limes that we picked right from our tree, (or the ground underneath it!) from our yard in Key West. I could see the eyes rolling look of ecstatic class members as they dug in.

As for my end I was lucky with local too. When we were planning the class Fairchild's own Annie Stamps offered me some of her newly arriving of her trees avocados so I taught a version of Guacamole made with Key West Shrimp that Whole Foods Market donated to the event.

We worked under the sunlit tent for a standing room only crowd on a fabulous Sunday early afternoon. Near us farmers, growers, cheesemakers, honey gatherers and artisans of all sorts shared their passions too! I can't wait to go back to Fairchild again. Its one of my all time favorites. If you have not been you really will be amazed by the beauty of it. It is a treasure for all of us who are lucky enough to call Florida home.

A note on the recipe. If you don't have great avocados this "Bajan Shrimp Paste" is a fine stand alone marinade for shellfish, pork or chicken.

BAJAN SPICE PASTE
Copyright © by Norman Van Aken, 2010. All rights reserved.

This spice mix can be used on chicken, shrimp and pork. For our class we marinated 1 pound of shrimp to one half cup of the Bajan Spice Paste mixture. The remainder will keep covered in the refrigerator a week and can be used elsewhere.

Yield: 1 ½ Cups

½ Cup extra virgin olive oil
3 Tablespoons juice of freshly squeezed limes
1 teaspoon Spanish Sherry wine vinegar
2 Tablespoons packed freshly picked thyme leaves, chopped
1 Cup fresh Italian parsley leaves, cleaned and roughly chopped
2 Tablespoons of garlic, (after being peeled and roughly chopped)
1 Scotch bonnet or Habanero chile, stem and seeds discarded
6 scallions, trimmed, removing half the green and roughly chopped
3 inner stalks celery
1 teaspoon smoked Spanish pimentón
¼ teaspoon, freshly ground allspice
1-teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon toasted and ground black pepper, to taste

Place all of the ingredients in a food processor and pulse to make into a fairly smooth paste.

Reserve until needed.

SAVOR NASHVILLE 2010

2010-10-25T11:45:00.007-04:00

We were invited up to "Music City" also known as Nashville, USA. What a great town! The weather was perfect as we arrived to do a dinner at The Watermark Grill. The dinner was kind of a "prelude" to a big city-wide celebration Nashville is having called "Savor Nashville". The event is going to morph into something much bigger come Spring of 2011 but for starters it was very cool.

My old restaurant friends Louis and Marlene Osteen, (long time champions of Charleston dining) had moved up to Nashville about six months ago and they were already joining others to make Nashville famous for their dining scene too. There is a small but dedicated, energetic committee to get this rolling and we met and fed a key core of them. I admire their vision and it is something that others around the country have done in smaller and grander forums. Lee Shrager for the South Beach Wine and Food Festival is one of the country's greatest examples of that!

We were on a tight schedule but that didn't stop us from having dinner the night we arrived at Louis' "Fish & Co.". I highly recommend it! We had met with our host Chef James Lohse at The Watermark Grill before dinner and he and his team had matters well in hand. We knew that the following day we would be in for a long day and night but we also could not be in his kitchen in the middle of service so off to dinner we went. Our travel weariness evaporated in the company of Mr and Mrs. Jerry Powers, Louis and Marlene. They have an excellent cocktail specialist behind the bar. Just tell him what kind of booze you like and let him shake and stir. I had pristine oysters and a fantastic trout dinner.

We learned that Bob Dylan has an apartment in the same building that The Watermark Grill is in. I didn't see him but the Nashville Skyline was a thing to behold the night of our dinner. About 100 guest came and had a menu that included 4 passed hors d's and then:

Tuna Tiradito with Soy Spice Paint and Hearts of Palm Slaw
Seared Sea Scallops with Roasted Fingerling Potatoes, Braised Lobster Mushrooms and Sauce "Mer Noir"
Eye of Rib Steak with Cuban Vaca Frita and "A-1, My Way"
Pecan Caramel "Bites" with Dark Chocolate Sorbet and Espresso Anglaise

We chilled out after for a bit but had to hit the road the next day for more cooking in more places. It gives me a great pleasure to join the young chefs in America like James and his hard working crew at The Watermark Grill.

THAI FRIED RICE

2010-05-22T10:05:00.002-04:00

One of our guests asked our new Chef of 'NORMAN'S at The Ritz Carlton, Grande Lakes, Orlando' for a recipe for our Thai Fried Rice and if I would email it to him. I said to Chef Brandon. "I'll go you one further and share it will all of the nice folks who get my blog!". Here it is folks.

THAI FRIED RICE
Norman Van Aken © 2002

This is served at our restaurant with a wildly popular "Mongolian BBQ Veal Chop". That is what you see in the picture.

Yield: 8 Cups (4 dinner sized portions)

1 Cup raw converted rice, rinsed well
2 Cups of chicken stock
2 Tablespoons canola oil
3 Tablespoons butter
2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
1 Tablespoon chopped ginger
½ of a red onion, peeled and diced
1 red bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, julienne and then cut in half again.
12 Shiitake mushroom caps, sliced
2 ½ Tablespoons Thai fish sauce
1 Tablespoon soy sauce
2 Tablespoons dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
½ Tablespoon freshly cracked black pepper
3 eggs, beaten
2 Cups red cabbage, thinly sliced
1 tomato, concassé
3 scallions, sliced thinly
1 Cup bean sprouts
1 Tablespoon loosely packed chopped cilantro leaves

Prepare the rice by rinsing it well under cold running water until the water runs clear. Combine the chicken stock and rice in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil, immediately reduce the heat to low. Cover the rice and let simmer for about twenty minutes or until all the water is absorbed uncover fluff and reserve in a warm place.

Combine Thai fish sauce, soy sauce, brown sugar, crushed red pepper and black pepper in a small bowl. Set aside until needed.

Heat 2 tablespoons of the canola oil and butter in a large pan over medium-high heat. When the butter is melted, add the garlic and ginger and Stir. Add the onion, shiitake mushrooms, red peppers and cook until the mushroom are done. Add the cooked rice and stir.

Stir in the fish sauce, brown sugar mixture to coat the rice. You can do this ahead of time and reserve.

When you are ready to finish the rice, cook the beaten eggs in a nonstick pan with enough butter to coat the pan over medium high heat as if you were making scrambled eggs. Break them up with a spoon.

Get the remaining 1 Tablespoon of canola oil hot in a very large pan or wok over medium-high heat. Add the cabbage and cook until it starts to wilt, about 3 minutes. Now add the tomato, scallions, bean sprouts, cilantro and scrambled egg, season with salt and pepper as necessary, stir and cook another minute. Stir in the reserved rice mixture. Serve or reserve as desired.

FRIED CHICKEN; MEMORIES AND A RECIPE

2010-04-18T13:43:00.003-04:00

When I was about 19 I discovered a few very old hardcover books in my grandmother, “Nana’s” collection. They were in excellent condition unlike her battered paperback detective novels she had taken a fancy to late in life. She had always been more than happy to share any part of her boundless love of all things cultural whether it was opera, (largely lost on me), her growing up in the early 20th century New York City showbiz world of her father, (“As a girl I played with Buster Keaton in our home in Chelsea”), her love of baseball and her rapture with all things literary. When I inquired about the books written by one Thomas Wolfe she looked at me from her favorite rocking chair with both love and sadness. The books were purchased by her late son, Norman, for whom, along with her late husband, my grandfather, I am also named. Uncle Norman was only a few years older than I was that day when he died of a rare kidney disease for reasons unknown.

“Oh your Uncle Norman would be so happy to share his books with you Norman!” She brushed back a few tears from her pure blue eyes and handed me a copy of “Look Homeward Angel”. Little did I know that she would create a firestorm among my similarly hungry pack of young friends for all things in the canon of “Great American Literature.” She would also unknowingly pass along the Asheville, North Carolina’s native son amazing descriptions of food! Here is Wolfe’s persona Eugene Gant remembering…

“Spring was full of cool dewy mornings, spurting winds, and storms of intoxicating blossoms, and in this enchantment Eugene first felt the mixed lonely ache and promise of seasons.

In the morning they rose in a house pungent with breakfast cookery, and they sat at a smoking table loaded with brains and eggs, ham, hot biscuits, fried apples seething in their gummed syrups, honey, golden butter, fried steak, scalding coffee. Or there were stacked battercakes, run colored molasses, fragrant brown sausages, a bowl of wet cherries, plums, fat juicy bacon, jam. At the mid-day meal, they ate heavily; a huge hot roast of beef, fat buttered lima beans, tender corn smoking on the cob, thick red slabs of sliced tomatoes, rough savory spinach, hot yellow cornbread, flaky biscuits, a deep-dish peach and apple cobbler spiced with cinnamon, tender cabbage, deep glass dishes piled with preserved fruits---cherries, pears, peaches. At night they might eat fried steak, hot squares of grits fried in egg and butter, pork chops, fish and young fried chicken”.

Like I said, I was around 19 years old. It went to me with the flaming arrow usually reserved for girls. I wanted it and I wanted to go wherever it was! I soon discovered the road, highways, hitchhiking and a path south. I might have ended up in Asheville seeking some of those dishes if not for a friend of mine who had landed, inexplicably in the far-a-way town of Key West. I took a few methods of transport to get there (or towards there at times) during the next few years. I seemed to be on a yo-yo between “home” in Northern Illinois and the place I was seeking…which almost always meant somewhere in the South. I wanted sunlight.

I rode a bus from central Illinois toward Jacksonville, Florida on one of those sojourns with a buddy of mine. The Greyhound Bus we were on had to stop for fuel in Macon, Georgia on the way and the bus driver announced that we would have one hour to “stretch, eat or shop” in the city. We were young men and our noses led us to a kind of Southern cafeteria, which one never finds on any interstate. We were smack in the middle of a part of town we stood out in. But we were naïve and protected by some angel, (Nana?) and we headed through a heavy screened door into a large square room that smelled of fried chicken. Black women in matching service uniforms stood behind the long gleaming counter and ladled, spooned, sliced and poured food and drink for a steady line of customers. We entered the queue and I know I felt some preternatural instinct for the absolute quality of what we were about to experience. When it was time to board our bus I felt I had entered a state of grace and wasn’t sure Jacksonville could compete. But my buddy had a place near the ocean we could crash for free for ten days so we climbed aboard watching that cafeteria as long as we could through the dusty windows.

I had loved fried chicken growing up. We didn’t have it at our home. Not at least that I can recall from this span of years. It wasn’t in the repertoire of my mother’s dishes. We had it at the home of my friends, the Harris family, but it was only served cold and brought to summer days at the various beaches nearby. While good it was not right out of the fryers and possessing a textural quality that I would search for as a chef in the years to come.

Many before me have written on the heavenly powers of fried chicken and all I can do is to add one of my ways with the bird so fat and soaring…

In 1983 we traveled to New York City from our birthplace home in Illinois where I’d been working with Gordon Sinclair and Charlie Trotter. I barely knew Charlie then. He was just starting his journey in cooking and that was his first kitchen. We must have been going for “family reasons” in that Mom was along. She fired us up. New York City was her town. I hadn’t been in years and never after I accepted the fact that I was to be a Chef in this life. We hit a bunch of restaurants that were in vogue or just outright classics at that time. ‘Tavern on the Green’ was a showstopper but for timeless food, service and setting we adored “Café des Artistes” then. It was so sophisticated. We also went in a completely different direction and tried some of the “New American” places getting some press in the early days of magazines like ‘Bon Appetít’ and ‘Food and Wine’. One of them was a place called ‘Texarkana’. We’d already been to about four restaurants with Mama that day and by the time we settled into the funky charm of that place we could only sample a dish or two. One dish on the menu that I didn’t have that night stayed with me as an idea. It was called “Fried Chicken Salad”. It spoke to me on some primal level. I set out to work on it only having the title to ignite my brain. For some odd reason I reached for sesame oil when making up the dressing part of the salad. I think it is the reason it became so popular. How popular? Let’s fast forward two crucial years. I got an offer to return to work in Florida. At first it was still with Gordon Sinclair at a hotel restaurant being rebuilt on the coast of Florida in the small town of Jupiter. Within one year I was itching to get back to Key West and it happened. It was the biggest break of my career to date when I took on the job as Executive Chef of “Louie’s Backyard” in June of 1985. The ownership was divided and that is always tricky. The guy that hired me was at odds with one of the others…lets just leave it at that. She wanted, (demanded!) that I keep a salad that had been on the menu with the previous chef. It was called the “Steak Salad” and it was a big seller to be sure. I was not, (not!) going to have some other chef’s dishes on my menu. (My!)… So I presented my “Hot Fried Chicken Salad” on the menu the next night. Years passed and my career rolled into new places. After 17 years from that salad’s debut Janet and I went back to Key West and went to see our old place of toil. The “Hot Fried” was still, (still!) on the menu…

MY HOT FRIED CHICKEN SALAD
Norman Van Aken © Copyright

Honey-Mustard Dressing:
2 egg yolks
1 Tablespoon honey
¼ Cup Creole mustard
¼ Cup Spanish sherry wine vinegar
1 Cup canola oil
1/3 Cup extra virgin olive oil
2 Tablespoons dark roasted sesame oil
1 Tablespoon Sriracha

Place the egg yolks, honey, mustard and vinegar in a blender and mix until well blended. Gradually add the three oils with the blender running while it all incorporates. Add the Sriracha and blend. Chill well.

For the Marinade:
3 whole eggs, beaten
1 Cup heavy cream
¾ Tablespoon paprika
1 jalapeño, stems and seeds removed, sliced thin
¾ Tablespoon crushed red pepper
¾ Tablespoon cayenne pepper
Salt and pepper to taste
4 boneless and skinless chicken breasts, sliced across the breast into fingers

Beat the eggs with the cream. Add the rest of the marinade ingredients and mix. Add the chicken pieces and stir around to coat all the pieces. Cover and marinade overnight, (or at least four hours).

To serve the salad:
Pull the chicken out of the egg mix and drain well. Dredge the chicken pieces in well- seasoned flour and fry. (I include crushed red pepper flakes in mine).

Meanwhile have ready romaine leaves cleaned, coarsely chopped and spun dry. Dress the romaine with the prepared dressing.

Serve the warm chicken on top of a nice mound of romaine on each plate.

I garnished this often with sliced red onions and croutons.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
All rights reserved, Norman Van Aken, 2010 ©

FUSION CUISINE

2010-02-16T19:56:00.004-05:00

FUSION CUISINE
Norman Van Aken

(Written in the Summer of 1988)

In the early morning, the old Cuban men sit on the shady side of White St. in front of the Goodyear Tire Store with their long thick cigars and their short plastic cups of sugary espresso. They argue amiably about politics for a few hours and then they float away, mystically rising with the thick clouds manufactured by their own smoke only to reemerge on the other side of the street in front of the pawn shop and laundromat in the late afternoon, sipping cold "cervezas" until the long shadows finally send them to their little wooden homes.

These days are bleached white with this summer's heat and the sky is jammed with those extraordinary towering castle-like clouds known as thunderheads.

I have no idea of where or of what those men eat these days. The "Fourth of July" eating establishment, is closed and for sale. The American flags and plastic tablecloths put away. The once grand and social “Cuban Club” has burned to the foundations. Regrettably, almost all the remaining sandwich joints and restaurants that dot the Island serve pale and chemical imitations of the mother country's pre-Castro fare. It would be difficult to cook truly traditionally even in private homes without the fresh raw products commonly available in years gone by.

There are countless parallel situations that have been endured by so many cultures, through so many periods of time. As we've relentlessly seen, immigrants or refugees are washed into the mainstream of a larger populace, their variegated colorful customs and appetites fragmenting amazingly quickly into the American fabric patchwork quilt. In the beginning, they are the bright clusters of either urban or rural neighborhoods, but ultimately they slide into the muddy blurred facelessness of wall-to-mall urban sprawl. Like that once vivid bastion of macho/icon graphic Taylor St. drenched in Italian romance or the staccato sensuality of the Latino barrios of LA, the tiny Island of Key West has begun to drift her moorings.

She is spinning slowly, but ominously into the "courants".

On the other side of Key West another scene is staged at the gentle waters edge of the Gulf of Mexico.

A tight, tall cluster of new hotels and restaurants stands waiting. The huge cruise ships have now arrived and are parked regally, almost mythic, like Trojan water horses, in quiet repose a few miles out in the deeper blue.

The passengers within will soon ferry over in anticipation of what they suspect will bring some novel island flavors. Many of the menus offered now tend to reflect a type of culinary response based on our proximity to the Caribbean. What they will find, however, is what one finds all over here for now; the picturesque postcard fantasy image of tropical charm and simple fresh food sadly co-opted by fast food thinking and imported corporate greed.

But wait, hope glimmers, the fires of fusion are coming.

I am a chef. My interest and my intent is on diving deeply back down in time to salvage the golden treasures and vibrant calypso flavors of old Key West and fusing them with a contemporary sensibility and an individual personality. The foundation, must be the bedrock honesty of Conch, Black, Spanish
and Cuban regional cooking.

Like myself, other chefs across the globe are finding that there is a combined power in what (to borrow from the jazz vernacular) I now call "fusion cooking".

American Southwestern chefs like Mark Miller, Dean Fearing, Robert Del Grande and John Sedlar have done it with that region of the country. Frank Stitt, Emeril Lagasse and Elizabeth Terry are accomplishing it in the old South, while Jasper White and Lydia Shire have examined it in the Northeast. Jeremiah Tower, Wolfgang Puck and Alice Waters fused Californian produce with French ideology and gave birth to a restaurant movement that has rippled back like a wave from West Coast to East these past ten years. It is only natural that we work similarly in the Floridian-Caribbean Southeast.

I have been reading a fascinating book entitled "Culture and Cuisine ... A Journey Through the History of Food" by Jean François Revel. The work is a masterful account on many subjects. One is how civilizations routinely accept and reject naturalism. As ever, the biggest mistake is to think that there's anything new under the sun. Revel tells us of the man, Guillame Tirel a.k.a. Taillevent. He can probably be called, Revel says, the first "star" of Christian gastronomy. His cookbook, written sometime in the 1300's was considered the great document of its kind and especially noteworthy for synthesizing Medieval cuisine. (Modern readers might be startled to find a recipe in Taillevent of his calling for tuna with pears, lemon and oregano!)

"and 'round and 'round we spin in a circle game”.

Ms. Mitchell's words above could easily apply to the recent attitudinal shifts being experienced by the world of "foodies". That once possibly naive, but positively energetic circle is hardening into more of an arenalately. The cooks are like some modern day gladiators and the coliseum is packed with opposing voices shouting their deeply felt opinions. In many ways it is the best of times and the worst of times. The challenge to grow is before us, but the road is not always easily found. If more of those in the grandstands would read historically what has occurred, their sense of déjà vu would dramatically be heightened. Perhaps the most dramatic date in this cross-pollination of ideas and technique occurred in 1533 when Catherine de Medicis of Florence wed the future Henry II of France. Catherine transported her chefs with her, when moving to the throne, and French Cooking was never the same.

In broad terms we have regional food that is deeply steeped in tradition. It is, by definition, not meant to be changed or invented upon. Then we have a restaurant styled cooking that changes purposefully and even theatrically.

As a chef I have been exposed to the arguments for a return to regionalism and another applauding invention. Unlike many others that find the decision a heads or tails one, I find my interests in the spinning juxtaposition of this culinary coin.

In my cooking, I am seeking to create an interplay, a fusion, between regionalism and restaurant technical know how. My fusion cooking is the result of coupling our native regional foodstuffs like conch, black beans, plantains, mangoes, coconuts, grouper, key limes, snapper, shrimp and the folk cooking methods intrinsic to the preparation of these goods, with a selftaught type of classical cooking. One of the dishes that exemplifies this "fusion" cooking would be my “Pork Havana Nueva". The standard Cuban composition is prepared with a whole pork roast that has been marinated for a number of days in such things as sour oranges, garlic, onions and pepper. It is then roasted and served with side dishes of black beans, plantains and yellow rice. "Nueva" style the dish is served with the components synthesized. The meat can be prepared the same way but the typical side dishes are integrated instead as a sauce (black bean sauce) and a starch and vegetable combination (fried plantains). The extra starch of rice is omitted. Each foodstuff is given equal weight, so you don't end up with an excess of meat, fat or starch, which is important in light of modern dietary considerations. Also, I find there are dishes and foods with clear parallel taste affinities that cross time and distance effortlessly and work in harmony with what may be considered the typical traditional Key West flavors. They could be termed crossover flavors that bridge correctly with the tempo and temperature of our Island.

An example that demonstrates this crossover variety would be “Chilies Spiked Veal Adobo with Corn Relish, Garlic and a Spanish Sherry Wine Vinegar Reduction”. The "Adobo", which is of Mexican derivation, is a spice rub that marries chilies, cinnamon, vinegar and/or stock. Although it is not of this specific region in origination it works here in a very appealing way. The bracing power of the chilies awakens the senses when the tropic’s heat might have induced somnambulant torpor. And if you're wondering "Where's the classical?" The methodology I employ when making the sauce for the veal draws from classic Franco/Italian roots. It is called a "stratification" sauce and its consistency and flavor relies upon a somewhat complex series of separate reductions of stock, vegetables, vinegars and/or wine and spices.

Whether it is called classical, fusion or crossover is not only a matter of semantics. It is a matter of strength and precision. The gussied up fussiness of nouvelle cuisine needs the raw sensuality and primal qualities of a more time tested cuisine, yet appetites and life styles change and the cook must work to respond intelligently to change.

“out of the cradle endlessly rocking"

Walt Whitman was probably the first poet to leap forth with a distinctly American voice. To many he did not seem European enough in cadence or manner.

He sang, "Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)"

Whitman was an object of passionate scorn by these traditionalists. In the end, his mark was made, because he fused the ancient and revered body of poetry with the radically new “body electric”.

The mark will also be made for those whom are daring enough to meld the good and old cooking with the good and the new cooking.

But, of course, the disputes will rage on and I might add they should. Finally, Revel states, "there is gastronomy when there is a permanent quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns and when there is a public both competent enough and rich enough to arbitrate this quarrel”.
~~~~~~~
Copyright © by Norman Van Aken, 1989. All rights reserved. 

NO RESERVATIONS: IN THE CARIBBEAN WITH TONY

2010-02-07T10:29:00.005-05:00

“NO RESERVATIONS”

Tuesday, January 26th:

It was cool and pitch dark when the alarm rang to get us moving toward a speck of land far down in the Caribbean known only recently to me. It is called ‘Petit St. Vincent’. I learned about it from a producer of our friend Tony Bourdain’s smash hit TV show “No Reservations”. Her name is Chloe Kaplan. We had not met yet. But dozens of emails had been exchanged and now the day had arrived. We were invited to meet Tony in the Caribbean and shoot a new episode. We would tape pretty much all of two and one half days. We had a car service arranged to get us to Miami International from Homestead. We watched the sun rise through the windshield of his speeding black automobile.

It was nice to work with a show of such success. We had seats in first-class on the jet and even though we had to sit on the runway and endure a one-hour delay due to a chump, who packed his bags but didn’t get on the plane we, at least sat in comfort. I understood security’s reasoning completely this time.

In about three hours we arrived in Barbados. Tony and the crew were there. Tony came forward and we hugged one another. He looked good if pale. He wore a New York Yankees t-shirt and jeans. He had a bagged sandwich from some kiosk called “Island Spice” as well as a tiny can of very cold Heineken. A made a mental note of that for when we would be passing back through this airport in a few days.

The crew and Tony were on a chartered plane and it was packed with camera equipment. Aside from Tony there was Nick, the director, Chloe on all kinds of logistics, Todd, Tony’s long time cameraman, and “Mo” a new cameraman. Janet and I flew on Mustique Airways on a plane that held two pilots and 8 very closely packed souls that took all of seats on that plane. We had one stop at a small island with a different resort than the one we were heading to and then we landed on the island of Union. The airport there makes Key West’s look gigantic and modern. Team members of the Petit St. Vincent Resort met us. Tony was waving from inside the small terminal as we walked woozily down the tarmac in the fading light. We came to know the resort’s staff in the next days in that they were there for many aspects of our getting around and our simple comforts. They were native to the islands and had that gentle quality that one rarely sees in busy northern places.

We took a boat ride with our guides and a captain to ‘PSV’ as it is more commonly called. The craft heaved gently up and down the darkening surf. The frames where windows might have been were empty. Janet sat on a bench and Tony and stood up and I peered over the waves. The weather was fine and breezy. After about 45 minutes on the water we docked and hopped ashore with the men handling our bags. An woman brought us a wooden tray with cut out inserts in it containing tumblers of chilled piña coladas. They were delicious; the first I had consumed in a decade. We were taken directly to dinner.

We ate on the deck overlooking the ocean. The menu was pretty limited and the choice was easy. I ordered salt cod fritters with a dipping sauce and pan-cooked barracuda. The waiter told me I could be assured the fish was “safe” here in these waters and I believed him. I would be risking ciguatera toxic poisoning in many waters eating this fish but not here. It was firm like grouper and had a buttery sweetness. Janet had baked Spiny Lobster. We shared. Curried carrots seemed to be on every plate. I was asked to order a white wine for the table though almost everyone had rum punch to start. The Chef came out as the entrees were cleared. He was a big, soft-spoken and intelligent gentleman named Trevor.

We sat and talked with Tony after dinner. He’d recently done a show in Montana with former Key Westers, some of whom I’d cooked for over the years like authors Jim Harrison and Thomas McGuane as well as the amazing painter Russell Chatham.

We got a golf cart ride to our Oceanside bungalow.

At PSV there are no phones, no Internet, no TV, nada to disturb one from the noise of the recent century. Soon we were sleeping with the waves crashing softly outside our suite.

Wednesday, January 27th:

I awoke to see only sky, ocean and the stone bungalow we were to staying in. No humans were anywhere in view. The sun was just beginning to rise. I went back out a few minutes later to take in my view. There was a “double” rainbow in the sky to the west. I was feeling a special kind of luck.

We went up to the same open air dining room we dined in last night. Aside from two of the resort’s crew we had breakfast alone. We ordered bowls of mango and papaya with a container each of yogurt; one lime and one vanilla. The fruit was ripe and perfect, so beyond what we normally get in a hotel of any kind in the States. The yogurt was made just over on Union Island. A basket of breads arrived. I knew there would be a taped breakfast again with Tony so eating light made sense despite my interest in a dish named “Fish Broth”. The production crew radioed for us, as we were about to finish. A white haired-local man with a preacher’s mien drove us to the beach. Tony walked up barefoot. The crew was doing the typical things crews do which means figuring out how to make interesting television and dealing with shifting light and the sounds around us. A thin pier reached out into the surf. A table was down there under a thatched roof. Tony started quoting a line from Yeats. (“Slouching toward Bethlehem”). I surprised him and finished the quote from the old Irish bard and that always lights a candle of recognition when readers recognize shared passions.

With Tony the conversation is quick, deep, funny, informative, and even challenging. We were off camera and we conversed about the topics of our business. He is about to come out with his next book. Though he has released other material subsequent to his millions selling, “Kitchen Confidential” this one is really his next big book.

He told me one of the topics of the book is about the new “hot button” one dubbed, locavorism and “how ridiculous it is that folks in the upper peninsula of Michigan should be remonstrated with if they don’t eat “locally” in the winter. In India and Vietnam parents who have been farming all of their lives would slit their throats if their children who were almost ready to attend college due to the decades of hard work the parents had killed themselves doing if the kids announced, “Mom, Dad, I’m gonna be farmer!” Hell… the Vietnamese cover themselves up from head to foot to not look like they have been working in the sun drenched paddies. For them a tan is a sign of poverty”.

We talked about writers. We talked about restaurants. He has the ability to “hate” a certain restaurant but really like the Chef of the same place. He thinks the food truck thing is one of the most important things to happen in America. “It is going to be huge”.

We were called to move out and be ready for the “breakfast scene”. A crew from the restaurant had arrived on golf carts with plates of covered food and drinks and set them out on the table on the dock. I was to be pre-seated and wait for Tony to arrive. Tony got his cue and sauntered down the deck moving with his customary slack-limbed grace. I greeted him as directed (without standing) and he joined me at the somewhat lavish spread. I had a “soup” of barracuda. I sent up an additional prayer that the folks here were right about this fish being safe. Tony had spiny lobster and an omelet in front of him.

We were gathered up via the little transports on the island called “Mokes”. I had been referring them to as golf carts but now was more informed. The name seems to come from a British place. They are essentially golf carts with back seats. But “mokes” it is. We went to the dock and a small motorboat ferried us out to a catamaran. We boarded and Tony and I made way for the front meshed area and lay down. The sun was now finally fully out. A crew member brought us each a local beer. I looked at my watch. It was 11 o’clock somewhere…

We were taken out near a sand bar in the area about 2 miles off shore. A small boat retrieved the crew, Tony and me. Janet stayed aboard the larger vessel. We chugged through the surf to the very small patch of jutting sand. This was to become the “opening” of the show. It was as if Tony were stranded on a deserted island. I won’t spoil things by telling you what happens. See the show. See it often! We finished the scene and went back to the restaurant and had a buffet lunch. Talk centered on odd things to eat and the planning of the shooting schedule ahead.
~
We walked back to our cottage and I fell asleep for 20 minutes lulled by the hypnotic rhythms of the surf. Chloe and the crew began to gather on our porch. They wanted to take a shot of me lying in the hammock their and I happily obliged. Next I walked down the stone steps with cameraman “Mo” to the surf at the swirling at the rocks beneath our suite. I made my way into the water. It was not as warm as the water I usually would get into but after a moment I became accustomed to it and then back to enjoy stretching out and feeling the cleansing qualities of the salt. Mo had a submersible camera that they were using for the very first time. The director shouted out some simple instructions from time to time. I tried to float and relax but the surf made it challenging with the action of it there. I would have swum more and more vigorously but my old swimming trunks were too beat and stretched out and wanted to slip off my body. That I didn’t want. I finally waded back to shore with Mo and up to the deck to dry off. It was nearing 6 and our next shoot was to be at 7 so it was time for showers, a change of clothes and a walk back to the dining room once again.
~
We arrived at the bar and were greeted with a South African Chardonnay-Sauvignon Blanc blend. Tony arrived and plunked his laptop on the bar with a thud, laid his reading glasses on it and announced that he had just cyber-sent his book off to his publisher. He was nervous and excited. He ordered a Bombay Gin and Tonic and took a gulp. The Captain of our catamaran, John, was there and Tony explained to him about the process and the reason for the “nervous father” kind of emotions. Tony is a new father and his life has been redirected in this role. It is sweet and touching. As a father I remember his current state of mind but I was a much younger man when I had a 2 year old. But the bond we share as cooks and writers is also found in the “nation of daddy’s” now too.

We were all pretty red from the tropical sunlight bearing down on us most of the day. The camera crew had been getting things situated while we relaxed at the bar and now they were ready for us to head to the table. For this scene it was be just Tony and I having dinner and conversation. And we did. Tony has a propulsive mind and certain topics make him rev off in an arc. He made me laugh and like in his books he uses salty language and circumstances like a surgeon uses a scalpel. Tony cuts out the bullshit with his. Anyone who has seen his show or read his books knows the probabilities. They are never dull and his intelligence and humor make you love him and being with him. At the end of the day what is true about Tony is that he cares deeply about food, how it is made and the honesty of what it can be and should be. He is a proselytizer; make no doubt about that, and a very entertaining one. The camera and microphones faded from our awareness as the dinner went on. We were two old friends who were catching up and having a good talk over well-made Caribbean food on a hilltop perched restaurant overlooking a rolling sea and it was a damn fine was to spend an evening.

Janet and some of the other crew were seated at other tables around us to fill in the scene. When we wrapped our bit Janet joined us. She hadn’t been served so she ate a few bites of mine. I buttered some focaccia and she dabbed it into the barracuda stew. Tony checked his phone. His book had been officially received! We toasted and high-fived.

As we were leaving some of the guests of the resorts spoke up to say, “We love your show Anthony!” Tony waved shyly. We got into our little “mokes” and the driver took us to our respective cottages for another night of slumber.

Thursday, January 28th:

Coffee and a breadbasket plus a bowl of fruit arrived in our room at 7:45. We enjoyed that and packed up for the full day of sailing and taping ahead. We were driven over to the pier and boarded Captain John’s fine boat. It was not a luxury yacht but it had all we needed. Chloe, Nick, Mo and Todd alternately used other boats through the day to track us as we sailed from one vista to another. The skies were a bit cloudy but without that cover we would have either had to remain below cover on the boat or fried to a crisp. There were times the sun came out and occasionally both Tony and I headed to the webbed area between the hulls of the catamaran and basked in it. Occasionally the surf was somewhat rolling if not outright rough. Janet was fine throughout as usual remembering to follow her father’s advice to simply “stare at the horizon if you begin to get dizzy”.

We arrived at an area with a fine beach a few hours later and Tony and I took an inflatable, motorized dinghy in and took a swim. The beachgoers must have wondered why a camera crew would follow these two guys as they splashed around and swam in the Caribbean waters. Mo pulled out his submersible camera again and surprised me as I surfaced. We didn’t stay long we had other things to accomplish and we got back to Captain John’s boat.

Around 3 p.m. we took on a landing party. It was a young chef named Ian, (but with an unusual spelling) who was now cooking at “The Raffles Canouan Resort of The Grenadines”. He’d come to prepare us a lunch on the boat as part of the show. He brought two young women with him. One was a woman of part Indian heritage and a magazine owner and one was an Italian beauty that had recently had her first child. She now lived on Canouan. They were delightful. The talk turned to soccer and then Italian food. Both are passions of Tony’s wife and also of Tony’s. The camera crew went down into the belly of the boat and taped as the chef prepared his lunch for six. He was half Trinidadian as it turned out and despite working in Paris, London and New York was now back “home” in the islands seeking to offer a refined and well-informed cuisine utilizing island produce. (I could relate!)

He was telegenic, sweet natured, articulate and from the first plate of a crudo of barracuda with various tropical fruits with some tangy acidity clearly a gifted chef. We enjoyed the food while Tony took on the role of interviewer. He’s very good at it and his questions are insightful as much as the dialog is humorous. The next course was a crispy fillet of skin on snapper. It was presented sparingly which let the pristine qualities of each ingredient shine. He served it with a puree of a local citrus and another sauce made with “shadow bennie”. It was beat looking specimen he showed us from the ice chest, but I’m sure it was what we call culantro. For dessert he fashioned”ravioli of pineapple” which was thinly shaved fruit along with soursop sorbet. It was brilliantly light and refreshing; perfect for the day on the water.

We drank some simple white wine with the lunch. The sun was pretty full by then and the conversation due to Tony turned to “fusion”. He said “Hey Guys” and pointed at me with his thumb and mock complained something like, “If you ever want to know who we can blame for “Fusion Cooking” this is the guy right here”. I will say once again, just watch the show and see how that turns out.

The chef and the ladies bundled up their supplies and headed back to their island. We had another destination. It was a place an island gent fashioned as legend has it out of conch shells and concrete. He called his speck of commerce and relaxation, “Happy Island”. Captain John motored us over to it and about one hour later we were taken via the dinghy to the raffish place. Some Aussies were having a good time seated at picnic tables or on plastic chairs when we arrived. The camera crew was already there and had taped Tony and I coming in. We were taken to a table. We were actually hungry. Being on the water does that but despite the lunch you don’t really dine in the normal way when the cameras are rolling. Besides they didn’t have Janet in the scene, (her preference) so I sent half of each of mine back in hopes she’d have something to eat too. So when we arrived at Happy Island we were ready for some of the “barbeque” he reportedly made. But that was not to be. The chef-owner and his one other worker were too busy making rum punches and supplying beers to the party crowd so we drank.

We needed to get in a pod cast so Tony set up a kind of “parlor game” he likes to play at times like these and asked me to think of songs with the most idiotic lyrics. It was a good bar game and one I enjoyed playing with him.

The sun was beginning to set. We’d been on the water the entire day and it was about time to head back to our retreat at Petit St. Vincent. We said good-bye to the small crew. They would sleep on John’s boat again tonight. Tony, Janet and I were dropped at the dock. We went back to our room to get on a dry shirt and then met Tony back in the bar.

Tony asked for Chef Trevor to come out and he did. Tony sweetly and humbly asked the big man if we could possibly trouble him for three steak sandwiches. Trevor smiled. He got it immediately. He understood chefs like to eat simple food often times and he made it happen.

We moved out toward the water and had our meal. We shared some personal stories. We talked about books. I asked him his favorite American work. He replied, “Vladimir Nabakov’s Lolita”. I said, “Interesting you view that as an American work. It seems more cast in the European model”. He said, “Then no doubt I would choose “The Great Gatsby”.

We hugged goodbye with Tony giving Janet a kiss on each cheek. We went to bed happy. The waves of Petit St. Vincent seduced us one more time. The next morning we took the same ferry we had arrived on. The sun shone brightly. As we crossed the ocean toward Union Island and our upcoming plane ride to Barbados and then Miami again. I couldn’t help but think of the last line of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic, “So we beat on, boats against the current, born back ceaselessly into the past”. But it was different for us. It was all good and…going forward.
~
Norman Van Aken © 2010

EMERIL IN MIAMI

2010-01-06T14:35:00.003-05:00

http://www.miaminewtimes.com/events/emeril-lagasse-2061062/

It is a great joy to have been friends with Emeril so long already. 21 years and growing in fact. This coming Saturday I will have the role of interviewer to my old buddy. (See the Miami Times link above). I will be in the luckiest seat in the entire Arscht Theater. To see the dance that goes on in his eyes while his great mind whirs on all cylinders is pure fun. I hope I don't crack up too much with laughter myself. The Celebrity Chef series comes to the season finale with him on the top of the marquee. Fitting as far as I'm concerned.

The picture above was obviously taken some years ago. We were doing a dinner at the original Norman's in Coral Gables that evening. We were having a whole lot of fun too. You can't not have fun when you cook or hang out with Em. It is not going to happen. He has a joy for life that I've always found contagious.

If you go to my personal website at www.normanvanaken.com you will find more about "Brother Emeril".

I hope to see you in the audience.

A JULIA CHILD MEMORY

2009-12-09T17:28:00.000-05:00

It seems everyone has his or her own favorite Julia Child story. That's how well known and firmly entrenched in the American psyche the inimitably voiced gourmet goddess, (of the more Nordic sense) became.

I was fortunate to know her and perform with her and it seems that each time I was in her presence; her unwavering well, “Julia-ness”, stunned me! Whether it's a "save the liver!" faux memory or a more personal touch—such as having your cookbook signed in her finely etched, surprisingly small, way.

One of my personal memories took place back in 1990. I had been invited to go to Fetzer Winery up in Mendocino, California for a big weekend event celebrating their spectacular new organic garden. Janet and I left for San Francisco on the 12th of July. We took the chance to dine at Jeremiah Tower’s new place, “690” for dinner and Wolfgang Puck’s “Postrio” for breakfast the next morning before driving up to Mendocino. It was a blisteringly hot in wine country that July.

The Fetzers had invited quite a lineup of chefs to not only cook but to discuss the craft of cooking. I was immersed in a group of talented chefs that could not only cook brilliant food but were conversant and knowledgeable about its place and value within our culture. Chefs included Stephan Pyles of Dallas, Anne Rosenzweig of New York and John Folse of New Orleans. Julia Child was the big draw and she walked amongst us; a female Buddha of contentment and grace.

The Fetzer family threw a big opening night party for us at their “Big Dog Saloon”. The next morning Stephan Pyles and I were scheduled to appear on an early morning radio show hosted by San Franciscan KSAN radio star, Narsai David. Stephan and I joined the other chefs staying up until nearly dawn, sharing the enthusiasm chefs have for the passion of this job. We shared a fair share of wine too! Our heads were splitting as we walked down the soft path to the place in the gardens the radio folks had set up their remote “studio”. Though it was not yet 9 a.m. the heat was a force. We had not yet had coffee and the need was growing more fiercely by the moment. When we tiptoed to the table near where Ms. Julia and Mr. David were already on the air. We saw coffee cups. We mimed our needs, holding our hands in mock prayer. Narsai signaled that he was going for a commercial break. When the radio guys cleared us, I asked Julia where we might find some of the coffee. She smiled broadly to all of us, held up her coffee cup with her pinky extended and remarked merrily, “Oh no, darling, Narsai and I are drinking the Gewürztraminer!”
--- Norman Van Aken

GUAVA IS GOODNESS.

2009-12-09T11:37:00.002-05:00

When fresh this round or oval fruit is classified as a berry and is high in vitamin C. The edible skin can be white, yellow, green or pink in color; the pale yellow variety is often the sweetest. The Aztecs called them xalxocotl or "sand plums".

Our son, Justin is the best Pastry Chef in the family now. He does follow his Mom's advice on her "Guava Cheesecake with a Ginger Cookie Crust" that we have in our most recent book, "New World Kitchen". That or the recipe below are great for adding a tropical flair to the Holiday Season! I love the flavor of guava.--- Norman

GUAVA CHUTNEY
©2003 All rights reserved by Norman Van Aken

Yield: 3 Cups

6 ounces guava paste, small dice
1 Cup of Port wine
2 springs of rosemary
¼ cup red wine vinegar
1 stick of cinnamon
1 teaspoon grated ginger
½ cup currants
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon lemon zest
½ red onion, minced
1 Cup mango, medium dice
1 Cup pineapple, medium dice
1 Cup papaya, medium dice
1/8 teaspoon cracked black pepper
½ Scotch bonnet chile, stem, ribs and seeds removed, minced (optional)

Dissolve 4 ounces of the guava paste into the port by bringing them to a simmer and whisking. Add the rosemary, vinegar, cinnamon, ginger, currants, sugar and lemon. Cook for one or two minutes, until the sugar dissolves. Add the onion and fruit. Cook at low heat for 15 minutes. Add the rest of the guava paste and mix well. Let cool.

2009-12-08T14:39:00.003-05:00

Christmas Eve is an added wonder if you are able to stay at a The Ritz Carlton. I would say about ANY Ritz would be great but looking at the view from high on a balcony as in the picture above, over the majestic "Ritz Carlton, Grande Lakes" in Orlando is where I would be. Of course then come early evening you would have an easy ride down the elevator to have at the menu we are preparing on December 24th. Take a look and see if you are tempted.

All you have to do is make the reservations and come in.

We don't care if you have been naughty or nice...

CATCHING UP ON T. DAY

2009-11-26T09:52:00.002-05:00

I was temporarily cast adrift in blog posting confusion but the "Rescue Boat" in the form of Mac Joe came along, scooped me up and got me safely here. Thanks Joe! So for those of you that missed it please do drop in to NormanVanAken.com for the post on our trip out to cook at The Culinary Institute of America in Napa Valley and the trip that came just after at our friend Emeril's "Carnivale du Vin" in Las Vegas. There are some pictures and a look inside the events from a "chef's perspective".

Now we are back in the Keys and cooking for Thanksgiving.

I have "dry brined" our 22 pound bird in a mix of kosher salt, lemon salt, smoked salt and Spanish pimenton. It is actually only a small amount of salt to meat ratio but it should do the trick to keep "Tom" juicy.

Now it Level 2 Family Chaos with 3 full levels to go!

More to come.

COOKING AT THE CIA-GREYSTONE, NAPA VALLEY

2009-11-13T11:11:00.003-05:00

11.12

I woke up in the dark of the Meadowood Inn’s suite we were so lucky to be staying in. The fireplace was pre-set with crumpled newspaper, kindling and split logs. I struck a match before I even started coffee. If there is one thing I want in the home of my dreams its a functioning fireplace. Its not the only thing...but its up there...with a pool table and well stock wine cellar. The deep canopy of trees in this lush part of Napa Valley provided a comforting gauzy light from too early a jump on the day ahead.

But we had a mountain of prep to do. In retrospect I had no idea just how much work the Soy Council gig entailed when I signed us up. But there was no turning back and I had an amazing team with Janet and our Norman’s Orlando Chef de Cuisine, Joseph Burnett. With his life’s experience as an unwavering vegetarian and fully versed eating all manner of soy we were really as mentally prepared as any client group they could have probably hoped to hire. But the physical part was daunting and the “army of students” proved, thus far, to be more mythic than actual. We had a good one, a real ace actually, named Amy. The lead chefs were incredibly helpful with the shifting needs of the army of workers too.

We had shipped in over 400 pounds of prepared food for the three days of feeding the attendees and doing our cooking demos but we had nearly half that amount waiting for us at the school to process in some form or fashion to complete our dishes.

The setting of the CIA-Greystone “Hot Kitchen” is nearly surreal when its in full on cooking mode like this. I asked one of the Chef-Instructors how many folks he estimated being in the room and working on the nearly 25 cooking “suites” and he ventured 200. We guarded our assigned area as best we could but it was a battle all the way. We hadn’t realized that we were situated next to an extremely popular “Rational” brand oven that cooks from all over the vast kitchen seem to desire. Everyone was intent on having their food be tasty and beautiful and there were only so many sinks, ovens, cutting boards, trash cans and cooler space. We fought for ours using bowls and knives for place savers when we needed to.

When I had a few moments of waiting for an ingredient or a stove or water to boil I took my opportunity and went out to see what my fellow chefs were up to. The CIA has changed with the American populace. The Latin and Asians were cooking in larger numbers than ever. Even though the theme of World of Flavors is “Street Foods” this year the shift from more European to less is a constant now and not solely due to the main topic of the conference. The mood in the room is festive and the smell is rich in spices and chilies that these walls didn’t know when we first started coming here years ago.

Bahian Chefs were cooking Vatapá with dried shrimp, coconut milk and big “shakes” of dende oil. When I inquired we spoke though the mediums of pointing, tasting and miming until a bilingual chef interceded and speeded up our mutual thirst for more knowledge. They were proud of their food and happy to share their passion and traditions. I was happy to be around people that care about deep, powerful, magical flavors as much as I do. Almir is a CIA chef from Brazil I had met in San Antonion. He dipped a tiny plastic “tasting spoon” in a small pot of a red hue and handed it to me. I stuck in my mouth and he then said, “Malagueta peppers give it the heat”. I was rocked momentarily by the chilies. “No kidding, they do!” But the fire gave way to much more complexity and when I factored it in as an accent sauce to the I knew how brilliant it would be. I wanted a kilo to take home.

Mexican chefs were dipping tortillas by hand in to a sizzling pot of oil enriched with an infusion of chorizo sausage and making bean stuffed tacos and folding them neatly and placing them in round wooden baskets to keep them warm. One chef explained that back home vendors would sell these from the back of bicycles. I was ready to be there with my pesos and beer.

All around the room people from Thailand, Vietnam, Japan and the Americas were working to make beautiful food. It was hard work but I would not wish to be anywhere else. Even though the beauty of Napa Valley was right outside the doors of this extraordinary school I wished only that I could be in more places at once and learning from all of these chefs from around the world. I wished I could speak every language needed.

HOT SAUCES

2009-11-09T17:53:00.000-05:00

Hot Sauces.

I went to a food show in San Francisco where all manner of products are displayed and sampled by potential retail buyers from across the land. It's like the car show or boat show for foodies.

After having been there and seen it for myself I can state with absolute authority that they are now way too many hot sauces available in America today. I could envision households across the land facing a tough question. "Can we afford another refrigerator just to hold our hot sauces!?"

Let's get real. How widely could they vary? Well, they fall into types and the best advice I can give you is to try to sample as many hot sauces as you can and only buy the ones you are absolutely in love with or you won't have room for anything else important on your skinny little refrigerator shelves.

Where would you put the different types of olives, the mustards, ketchups, salsas, mayos, pickles, the condiment sauces, those cute little cocktail onions (that often taste very bad) for those occasional martinis...OH! The jellies, jams, chutneys and marmalades would be pinched too! So...you've got to get choosy. (I generally hate that…)

So here’e three basic types:

1. Louisiana (like Tobasco or Crystal). Thin, vinegary and potent. Measure these out in shakes.

2. Caribbean (like Matouk's). The one Habanero and Scotch Bonnet Chile drives the missiles in these. Measure these out in eye droplet portions until you know and welcome the pain threshold of your desire.

3. Mexican: They vary widely due to the broad enjoyment and understanding of chilies in general. Move from chile to chile as you seek to learn that torrid talisman.

My advice? Pick one of each type and when you run out of one of the types then, (AND ONLY THEN!), try a new type. Other wise you may end up like me. With two refrigerators.

CHICKEN UNLIMITED

2009-11-07T12:46:00.000-05:00

We live in a time of reduced economic advantages its been noted... We seemed to be mad for Kobe just a short while ago. Perhaps washing it down with very limited growth bottle of Bordeaux (which actually is probably a bad combo) but how do you show the fellow swells at the Cigar Dinner you are who you are if not through conspicuous consumption? Hmmph.

Times change and our menus and meals go the way of the hemlines.

The most desired restaurants of the day are now epitomized by New York's David Chang's growing 'Momofuku' and her descendants. The ingredients of choice are more centered around Pork Bellies and the once spurned Chicken. Fried Chicken is HOT and many of us in our kitchens are more interested in that crunchy wonderment than we are with pheasant or squab. At a dollar a something a pound might be driving that to return to the dollar and sense.

We have been testing out a variety of fried chicken methods for "Norman's 180". I can't seem to tire of them. Don't worry, my cardiologist thinks I still eat Kobe. I gave him up and took up biking. Between bites.

And if we are not frying it we are working on other punchy recipes.

It wasn't so long ago I was sitting on the verandah of a hotel restaurant overlooking Waikiki beach, I awaited a lunch menu. I’d spent hours walking in Chinatown looking for the odd and beautiful little dishes I love to use in our dégusatation menus here at the restaurant. I had very little luck and a keen hunger was rising up in me. An Asian gentleman seated near me was served a platter of chicken curry. His waiter lifted strips of shredded chicken from a porcelain serving bowl and draped them over the pristine mound of white rice. The curry orange colored rich cream was spooned over this. The intoxicating steamy aromas wafted over in my direction. It was as inviting as a beautiful woman’s perfume.

I quickly ordered the same dish and when mine arrived I was further pleased to see that the chef had included bell peppers, fennel, celery and carrots in the cream as well as an interesting spicy chutney, a mound of tiny dried currants and a mound of sweet toasted fresh local coconut. All of this was mixed together by me as I ate. I wondered. Why had I not eaten chicken curry in so long?

We all associate curry with India. It is interesting to note that the first domesticated chicken appeared in India around 2,000 BC. It was bred from the wild red jungle fowl.

“In Hawaii, European travelers found a domesticated fowl call the “moa”, a descendant of a wild jungle fowl probably brought in from Malaysia. In 1826, however, the ship Wellington docked in Hawaii, taking on fresh water and dumping its old water (remaining from its voyage from Mexico), which contained mosquito larvae carrying a bird pox that immediately infected the Hawaiian chickens and devastated the birds of the islands”.

Americans eat about 33 pounds of chicken a year. None of us will be eating the moa jungle fowl…curried or otherwise.

But many of us will be eating fried...that is if we are not eating spiced up grilled wings, Korean style. Back to you Mr. Chang.

THE BANANA BREAD MAN

2009-11-03T15:31:00.000-05:00

He used to call it out over and over again on the streets of Old Key West, "Banana Bread, Banana Bread. Get your hot Banana Bread and don't blame me when it's gone!"

His bicycle seemed like it might flip over front ward with the huge freight of banana bread that filled his basket. He pushed down steadily on the wooden pedals with old, but tautly muscled calves. His sun‑bleached eyes had dimmed in power but his instincts knew where to find the tourists like a captain knows where to find the fish long after the colors of the water and the sky slid together like a cocktail left too long to linger on a bar.

Banana trees abound in Old Town. Their fragrances intertwine with the gardenia, salt water and sweat of the days.

Imagine his kitchen! The heady smells of mashed, rich, ripe bananas, brown sugar and a hint of rum mixing in with the toasting nuts and the equally as woozy, drunken scent of vanilla. Enough to make the bees swoon!

The windowless space would trap none of this baker's perfumes! I'm sure little children would go wild thinking of ways to get some free "banana manna" from this Bahamian gentleman.

When did he cook his banana bread I wonder now? Was it in the middle of the night so as to work when the Sun would finally roll over it's heavy weight like a drowsy lover, or perhaps he would slip the yellow‑golden loaves in the ovens around noon and head over to the The Bottle Cap or Che‑Che's for a few cold "blue runners" to relax before he would go home, wrap them in paper bags and head down to Mallory or cruise Duval to make his living.

"Banana Bread. Banana Bread. Get it while it's hot and don't blame me when it's gone". See ya in the next world, Banana Man.