No Experience Necessary: The Culinary Odyssey of Chef Norman Van Aken
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.37 (540 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 1589799143 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 352 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2018-02-06 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
In it he spans twenty-plus years and nearly as many jobs—including the fateful job advertisement in the local paper for a short-order cook with “no experience necessary.”Long considered a culinary renegade and a pioneering chef, Van Aken is an American original who chopped and charred, sweated and seared his way to cooking stardom with no formal training, but with extra helpings of energy, creativity, and faith. From a graveyard shift grunt at an all-night barbeque joint to a James Beard–award finalist for best restaurant in America, Van Aken put his trusting heart, poetic soul, natural talent, and ever-expanding experience into every venture—and helped transform the American culinary landscape along the way.In the irreverent tradition of Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential,and populated by a rogues’ gallery of colorful characters—including movie stars, legend
Norman Van Aken is known as the founding father of New World Cuisine, a celebration of Latin, Caribbean, Asian, African, and American flavors. Van Aken is the only Floridian inducted into the prestigious James Beard “Who’s Who in American Food and Beverage”; his restaurant, Norman’s, was nominated as a finalist for the James Beard Foundation’s “Best Restaurant in America.&rdquo
"Five Stars" according to Amazon Customer. Great book, loved hearing about key west in the 70s. "Norman Nails It" according to Drwo. It is always interesting to read how someone who is disinterested and unqualified rises to the top of a profession. Norman Van Aken was aimlessly wandering the country with his stoner buddies in the 1970's trying all kinds of low end jobs to make ends meet: carnival ride set up and take down, roofer in the August heat. When things became desperate, he found work in a greasy spoon durin. Barney D B Woofer said Well Fed and Well Read !. This is one rollicking book ! I would hesitate to call it a "beach read" as this is one that can be read and enjoyed anytime and anywhere. The author is a gifted storyteller and offers a look at the world of restaurants in a manner that I had last read about in Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential and Jeremiah Tower's California Dish. Thoroughly entertaining, and highly recommended
Yet this might just be the book to hand to nearly every raffish, wanna-be-something male in sight—a rowdy, fist-pumped-in-the-air memoir of a guy who found his way chopping, dicing, and wreaking havoc. From Booklist This is not your mother’s cookbook, and it’s not truly a cookbook, at that, although recipes are slapped in as palate cleansers between restaurant-themed chapters detailing chef and cookbook author Van Aken’s escapades. Van Aken’s story starts in the 1970s, so there’s hitchhiking, V