When one of your favorite theme park friends shares the news that she's written a book all about two of your favorite things (Disney and Food) you get really excited. When that same friend sends you a copy of said book for you to preview and perhaps make some recipes you get ecstatic. 

So what else were we going to do in between spending days upon days during Halloween Season at Halloween Events? Why make some Disney food of course! 

Normally if we were simply going through a Disney cookbook to try some recipes it would be a pretty straightforward thing. We'd get the ingredients, go through the steps and that would be it. 

But this is different. 

What Carly Caramanna and Julie Tremaine have created isn't just a simple cookbook. This is a history of the parks as told by food. 

As soon as I got to the recipe for the Tahitian Terrace at Disneyland the memories came flooding back. As a kid we'd make our 1 visit to the parks every year, maybe every couple of years. Typically it was on a park buyout by the company my Mom worked at. 

But inevitably, every year we'd end up eating at the Tahitian Terrace. I don't know if it was something that was planned or if we just ended up there. I'm sure the fact that it was an actual affordable sit-down restaurant inside Disneyland helped. But it was at the Tahitian Terrace that I fell in love with Disneyland. 

So when I took that first sip of the Tahitian Terrace Punch it took me right back. To a time before Indy. Before Aladdin took over my favorite Disneyland restaurant. And it was magical. 

But as a Southern California kid who didn't visit Florida until my early 30's I was so excited to try out some Florida treats I never got to experience. We decided to stick with the Adventureland theme and recreate the Teriyaki Hamburger. 

Sure, you can get a Teriyaki burger at many burger places, but recreating this Florida classic was sure fun on burger night. We cannot wait to take a deeper dive into more Florida recipes when we've got a bit more downtime. Some of these recipes are definitely for the weekend. Especially the desserts. 

Did somebody say dessert? We definitely had to try one for our review so we went with the Coffee Crunch Ice Cream. It was something we could easily do on a weeknight (as I was grilling burgers actually) and it turned out fantastic. 

It was even better the next day after a full night in the freezer. 

While you can still pick up Hills Brothers Coffee in your local supermarket we all know coffee just hits different at the parks. Today you can enjoy a Starbucks or Joffrey's Coffee. But this ice cream treat is a nice substitute. 

We have also decided we're going to make a sorbet using the Tahitian Terrance Punch at some point in the near future. We'll let you know how that one turns out. 

I'm not a breakfast person. But I'm a weekend breakfast person. So it should be no shock that our next recipe was The Tonga from the Polynesian. 

I have used Alton Brown's French Toast recipe for years and it's a favorite around our house. But this is definitely the French Toast I'm making the next time I have all my (now grown) kids in the house for breakfast. And maybe it's a way to entice them to come for a visit. I can't wait to try this with some pure Canadian Maple Syrup.

And I'll of course be sharing the extensive history of this meal from the book. 

Not only does this cookbook give you the chance to recreate some spectacular pieces of culinary history from the parks but it's really a conversation starter that allows us to relive some fond memories, or create some new ones around the table. Something we don't do as often as we should these days. 

And that's really the magic of this book.

Sure the food is great. The recipes recreated with meticulous love and care. The history and background of each recipe is fondly created. 

But to sit down with your loved ones and share why these things mean so much to you and why they bring back so many great memories is truly magical. 

Thank you to Carly and Julie for giving us a preview of your amazing book and we can't wait to dive even deeper into the book, the recipes, the stories and relive even more past memories or create new ones. 

And now we can actually eat something from the Soap Opera Bistro.

Maybe the next edition can include something from MaliBurittos so we can finally eat there too. 

The Unofficial Disney Parks Retro Cookbook is now available for Pre-Order and will be released on October 13th. Click here to Pre-Order. 

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