Tummy Tuesday : Italian cooking at the Academy

Ok, so I’m doing the alphabet challenge and today is the letter I so I thought ice cream.  Well, I’ve been good so I don’t have any nor any photos. So i thought I’d look through my cookbooks to see if I had any that began with I and found two: Italian Cooking at the Academy and Iron Chef the official book.

The Iron Chef is really a fan book translated from Japanese so it only has 10 recipes among a ton of lovely food photos and information about the various Iron Chefs and the battles.  If you’re looking for a cookbook, this isn’t going to make you happy.  If you’re a fan and want to read a bit about the various chefs and the battles in the original Iron Chef show in Japan, you’ll adore this hardback.

Italian Cooking at the Academy is one of a series put out by the California Culinary Academy in the 1980s and 1990s.  In the 1980s, I bought my first one in their series brand new from an online bookstore when I was living in Japan.  The recipes were easy to follow and for me some of them were quite unique.  I remember a fruit salad with watermelon and cilantro among other ingredients.  Took me awhile to figure out the Japanese word for cilantro but I did and served it to my Japanese friends.  It was very unusual.  They called it “fushigi” which means strange, novel, or unusual.  They used to call me fushigi too so I never figured out if it was a good thing or a bad thing.  Depends on if you like unusual or not.  As they were my friends, I guess they did like the unusual, lol.

Iron Chef: The Official Book

So that’s how I started collecting the series.  While in Japan teaching English, I bought a few brand new.  You really couldn’t buy Englishbooks used there.  When I returned to the USA, any time I saw a California Culinary Academy cookbook in a thrift store, garage sale or used book store, I’d grab it.  I’m not sure how many I ended up with because my cookbooks are by category so they are scattered.  Maybe half a dozen.  I did use the 30-Minute Meals from the Academy quite a bit so the pages are marked with spill and spots — the signs of a well-used cookbook.  I just recently found the Italian Cooking at Goodwill for $1.99.

One of the things I liked about the series is that the instructions were fairly easy for me to follow. Reading through their espresso ice cream recipe, I realize that they didn’t use an ice cream maker.  They just froze it in an ice cream freezer.  I wonder if an ice cream freezer is colder than a regular freezer?  Hmmm, this sounds like something I’d like to make.  Not now.  Maybe in 6 months.  I need to lose a few more pounds.

Italian Cooking: At the Academy

Roundup of last week’s Tummy Tuesday (4/2/19-4/8/19):

Lady Manila: Homemade Hamburger, food photos

Irene: Poblano Peppers with Tuna Salad Stuffing, recipe

Cactus Catz: Hello cupcakes, cookbook review

 

This week’s Tummy Tuesday (4/9/19-4/15/19):

 

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