Book cover of My Key West Kitchen

Book description

Award-winning chef Norman Van Aken has been cooking in Florida for 40 years. My Key West Kitchen is his love letter to Key West, where he first found the passion to cook, and where the unique cultural makeup of the island influenced his cuisine today. Follow Chef Van Aken as…

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Why read it?

1 author picked My Key West Kitchen as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Chef Norman Van Aken is one of the first chefs to celebrate South Florida’s delicious mix of cultures and cuisines and bring that party to the plate. He’s also an exuberant, wild writer and raconteur (I mean, the guy started out as a carnie, okay?).

While he’s perhaps best known for his seminal cookbook New American Cuisine, I prefer this more recent book, written with his son. Here Norman doesn’t go for cheffy, elaborate recipes—he presents Key West living and eating in all its laidback, sweaty, and slightly wacky splendor.

Recipes like Five Bros. Black Eye’d Pea Bollos, and…

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