Carver creates tikis from dead palms

By Catherine Kerr
| 2:05 p.m. September 17, 2015

West Orange Times & Observer
Neighborhood

WINTER GARDEN — One recent Sunday afternoon, Melissa Adams and her son sat on their front lawn and watched as a dead palm was brought back to life. Laz Ninou and his chainsaw, blowtorch, sanders, ladder and milk crate were strewn around the yard, which had become an outdoor workshop.

Five hours later, Ninou was covered in sawdust, and everyone had gotten more than their daily dose of Florida sunshine. But a tiki-style sculpture of a mask and fish stood in the place of the dead Washingtonia palm, which had suffered from Fusarium wilt: a fungus that has been killing palms of this species in Florida for about eight years but has been particularly widespread recently. It has wiped out the entire population of Washingtonias, also known as Mexican fan palms, in some Orange County neighborhoods.

Adams had three of the palms in her yard, but when one wilted, she didn’t want to just cut it down. Instead, she asked her son to contact his friend, Ninou, who she knew carved wood and ice professionally.

“I’ve had people stop and say, ‘That’s such a great idea — I wish I had thought of that,’ because so many of the trees here have to be cut down,” Adams said. “It’s kind of heartbreaking to lose a tree that is so tall.”

Ninou estimates he has carved 100 tikis this year, but Adams said he was excited for the project at her house because it was the first time he had carved a palm that was still rooted in the ground.

LAZ’S STORY

Ninou was raised by a working single mother, so he often had to cook for himself growing up. But he enjoyed getting creative in the kitchen and was interested in the restaurant business, so when he was old enough to work, he got a job as a dishwasher.

One day in the late 1980s, a chef at the hotel where Ninou was working inspired him to pursue culinary arts.

“He stood in the main floor of the kitchen with his arms crossed, with a very confident stance,” Ninou said. “I knew that day I wanted to be a chef. I was 19 years old. As a dishwasher, I knew I had a long way to go, but I was determined.”

Ninou proved his dedication by helping the cooks and other chefs in the kitchen whenever he had a chance. The lead chef noticed and transferred Ninou to a job in the kitchen.

When the general manager of the hotel decided to take a job at Olive Garden, he invited Ninou to go with him.

“For the first time, I felt valuable coming from a broken home,” Ninou said. “Little did I know that I would carve myself out of the streets with a carving knife in one hand and a chainsaw in the other.”

Ninou stayed at Olive Garden a few years, but when he saw Universal Orlando Resort’s executive chef on the news one day, he was inspired to point his career path in that direction. He left his full-time job at the restaurant for a risky, seasonal job at Universal.

“When the season ended … a full-time position was available, and I got the job because of my time, energy and effort that I gave,” Ninou said. “It was not a lucky break. I worked for that one.”

Ninou then met a garde manger chef who worked on the cold side of the kitchen, responsible for ice carvings, fruit carvings and food arrangements. The artistic elements amazed him, so he took every opportunity he could to learn how to create these kinds of pieces from the chef.

Ninou had finally achieved his dream and worked as a garde manger chef in various hotels. But in 2005, he decided to start working full-time as an independent ice carver.

The ice sculpting industry is different now than it was when Ninou started. The hand-carver is no longer in such high demand because machines are able to do the work instead.

“In September 2014, I had to reinvent myself, and I started carving tikis,” Ninou said. “I carve palms, cypress and cedar … I incorporate my ice skill designs with the tikis.”

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