Tummy Tuesday : Italian cooking at the Academy

Tummy Tuesday : Italian cooking at the Academy

sea bream cracker with anzu liquor ice cream, photo from Iron Chef: the offical book
one of the many food photos from the Iron Chef battles. It’s very pretty but no recipe.

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):

Ladylee Manila Blog's photos of homemade hamburger
Lady Manila: Homemade Hamburger, food photos
My Slice of Mexico Poblano Peppers with Tuna Salad Stuffing, food photography, link to recipe
Irene: Poblano Peppers with Tuna Salad Stuffing, recipe
Cactus Catz book review of Hello cupcakes
Cactus Catz: Hello cupcakes, cookbook review

 

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

 

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11 Replies to “Tummy Tuesday : Italian cooking at the Academy”

    1. It’s fun tasting something new and trying out unexpected combinations, don’t you think? It’s really hard to go wrong with Italian though. I agree with you. I love Italian too.

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