Chef Norman Van Aken stars in new TV show
Norman Van Aken is an accomplished chef, recipient of a multitude of James Beard acknowledgments among other culinary honors. He is an accomplished restaurateur. He is the author of many acclaimed cookbooks, but also one heck of an entertaining memoir, one that helps showcase why adding “TV host” to his resume makes a lot of sense.
For all the potential haughtiness associated with his achievements, Van Aken is as down-to-earth as they come. And that’s what will likely make “Norman’s Florida Kitchen” shine when its 12, half-hour episodes begin streaming next month on both Amazon Fire TV and The Roku Channel.
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“I hope to have people feeling like I’m a person they want to cook with.”
Of course, that’s already been proven. Not only through the chef’s popular cookbooks, but the Instagram cooking segments fans enjoyed immensely during the pandemic. That’s likely when chef Nathan Lippy, a Florida native son, got the idea for a collaboration.
“We met years ago at the Atlanta Food & Wine Festival and hit it off,” Van Aken says of Lippy. “He’d read my books coming up and was a little bit of a fan. He said he’d like to stay in touch. Since then, his career really blew up.”
Indeed, these days Lippy, a Culinary Institute of America grad, is the brand chef for Blackstone Products and a regular contributor to today.com, among other things, including producing his own television content.
“What he wanted to do with me was different,” Van Aken says of the series, which he describes as part travel, part cooking.
“We shot down in Key West at the fish market and local restaurants; we did the same in Miami at an Asian market. Then we do the cooking segments with what we’ve bought.”
The show took nearly a year to get to post-production, mainly because one of the chapeaus Van Aken wore this year was a figurative hard hat, as Norman’s Orlando was in the process of being built.
“We’re also telling that story, too,” he says. “It was a construction site when we first started shooting. The wires were hanging out of the ceiling; the drywall wasn’t up; it was dusty. People will get a peek at the [Norman’s Orlando] creation through the baby pictures and right to the grand opening, where the restaurant is in full swing. They’ll see the side-by-side of me cooking outside on these beautiful grills and then inside at the restaurant.”
Van Aken isn’t sure how the final product will look just yet — “I’m like an actor who does the scenes and now I’m getting to see how they string it together,” he says, excited for the chance to document the many things he loves about cooking in the Sunshine State.
“It’s always been my love and my goal all along to showcase the diversity, the beauty, the flavors of Florida, the evolution of Florida,” he says, aware that fans see him as an award-winning chef and author.
“But I’m also a person who cooks at home. And I’m here as a life coach to give home cooks confidence, up their game, be a recipe whisperer and show them the mistakes I’ve made over many years and the things I’ve accomplished over many years. We’re going to cook together now.”
Find me on Facebook, TikTok, Twitter or Instagram @amydroo or on the OSFoodie Instagram account @orlando.foodie. Email: amthompson@orlandosentinel.com, For more foodie fun, join the Let’s Eat, Orlando Facebook group.
