International Cooking - General & Miscellaneous, Southwestern States Cooking

Norman's New World Cuisine

Name: Norman's New World Cuisine
Author: Norman Van Aken
ISBN: 9780679432029

by Norman Van Aken

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Overview

Norman Van Aken received the James Beard Award in 1997 for the Best Chef in the Southeast and the Robert Mondavi Culinary Award of Excellence in 1996. He was one of three nominees for the Julia Child/IACP Award for the Best Chef of the Year and was selected by Cooking Light as one of the top five chefs in America. There are over 160 recipes in this book - for everything from cocktails and sunset snacks (Machete Colada, Calypso Calamari) to soups (White Bean, Chorizo, and Collard Greens Caldo; Cracked-Hacked Conch Chowder with Saffron, Coconut, and Oranges) and seviches, salads, and paellas. Every recipe was tested at home and is set forth with great clarity by John Harrisson, a former teacher and veteran cookbook writer.

About the Author, Norman Van Aken

About the Authors:

Norman Van Aken was born and raised in rural Diamond Lake, Illinois. After a few years of college, he rambled around the country working at odd jobs--from short-order cook to carny. He moved to Hawaii in 1970 and to Key West in 1973, where he developed a passion for vibrant Asian and Caribbean flavors. A self-taught culinary genius, he now lectures internationally on New World Cuisine. Van Aken was the first chef to use the term "fusion cooking" in describing the principles of New World Cuisine. After close to two decades in Key West, Van Aken moved to Miami and opened Norman's, a highly acclaimed, award-winning restaurant in the historic section of Coral Gables.

John Harrisson was raised and educated in England and became a food writer by way of an earlier career as an academic economist. He has co-authored cookbooks with many of America's leading chefs, including Mark Miller (Coyote Cafe), Roy Yamaguchi (Feasts from Hawaii), Stephan Pyles, and John Sedlar. The cookbooks to which he has contributed have sold over three quarters of a million copies.

About the Photographer:

Tim Turner was one of three James Beard Award finalists for Best Food Photography for The Inn at Little Washington Cookbook. His other books include Charlie Trotter's, Charlie Trotter's Vegetables, and Charlie Trotter's Seafood, and his photographs have appeared in Food & Wine, Bon Appétit, and Ladies' Home Journal, among other publications, as well as in numerous advertisements.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

The sexiest of peppers flow like lava through the ingredient-intensive but well-constructed recipes proffered by Van Aken, the founder of a Miami restaurant that bears his first name. This is not a collection for cooks whose idea of heat and complexity is a slice of jalapeo atop the guacamole. Cubanelles light up Baked Clams on the Half Shell with Sausage. Scotch bonnet and serrano chiles kick at a Buttered Snapper Baked in a Banana Leaf. And in a margarita spinoff called a Hot Lolita, tequila and Grand Marnier tango with a mix of honey and crushed red pepper flakes. Beginning with such cocktails and moving through appetizers, soups, every type of entree, a bevy of desserts and a "treasure chest" of basic stocks and infused oils, the foodstuffs of Asia, Latin America and the West Indies are the stars, often beautifully photographed and sometimes stunningly mixedas in the Paella Orientale, which combines Thai chiles, arborio rice, bok choy and "32 tiny clams." Spiny Lobster basks in a pool of Exotic Tropical Fruit and Black Bean Salsa and is dressed in a revealing Spicy Drizzle made of cumin seed, honey, soy sauce and ginger. Van Aken's running narrative begins in dopey pirate talk ("So, to the decks, mates!.... Sails up!") but matures into a diary of culinary travels spiced with healthy doses of food quotes from great writers and crowned with a recommended reading list of cookbooks. (Nov.)