What’s Cooking on the Hill

Two iron chefs dominate CSM’s 1994 faculty/staff cookbook: Trustee Tullio Bertini and language arts Professor Jim Bell. We share some recipes.

In 1994, CSM’s Events Committee gathered faculty and employees’ favorite recipes into a small, spiral-bound cookbook that opens a window on the changing American foodways of a quarter-century ago.

What’s Cooking on the Hill includes dishes that were retro even then, like Waldorf salad made with Cool Whip and instant pudding. But in both quantity and quality it spotlights the contributions of two very different but equally beloved CSM people who were also master chefs: district Trustee Tullio Bertini (1930-2011) and language arts Professor Jim Bell (1930-2013).  

Bell taught at CSM from 1963 to 2001. He co-authored two widely used English textbooks, hosted a literature talk show on KCSM and advised the campus Unicorn creative writing journal.

“He enjoyed helping students understand how to write a paragraph, a paper, knowing that it would help them throughout their lives,” recalled his former wife, Joan Bell. Cooking was something Jim and his two brothers learned in childhood. 

“That was plain Texas cooking,” Joan said. “He did pretty good gourmet cooking, also.”

Jim Bell said he got the Chasen’s Chili recipe, below, circa 1965 from Jack Carney, a DJ at KSFO.

Tullio Bertini was mayor of Millbrae in the 1970s and served on the San Mateo County Community College District Board of Trustees from 1989 to 1997. A member of CSM’s Class of 1950, Bertini taught industrial technology at the college and at San Bruno’s Capuchino High School. He spent much of his childhood in Fascist-occupied Italy, where he marveled at being liberated upon World War II’s end by a unit of African-American soldiers. He gave What’s Cooking on the Hill several Italian recipes including the one below for buccelato, an anise-flavored cake.

Soon after What’s Cooking’s publication, Bertini underwent open-heart surgery and with it a desire for lighter cuisine. He put out his own 2007 collection of his father’s Tuscan home recipes revised with less butter and other animal fat. They are downloadable here in accordance with Bertini’s wish “to provide some of my favorite, simple, and healthy recipes for my two boys, for my friends, and for people who are interested in simple Italian food.”

Jim Bell’s Chasen’s Chili

½ lb. pinto beans
5 cups canned tomatoes
1 lb. chopped green pepper
1 ½ Tbs. salad oil
1 ½ lbs. chopped onions
2 cloves crushed garlic
½ cup chopped parsley
½ cup butter
2 ½ lbs. coarsely ground beef chuck
1 lb. ground lean pork
1/3 cup Schilling chili powder
2 Tbs. salt
1 ½ t. pepper
1 ½ t. cumin seed
1 ½ t. Accent

Wash beans. Soak overnight in water. Simmer, covered, in same water until tender. Add tomatoes and simmer 5 minutes.  [In separate pan,] Saute green pepper in salad oil 5 minutes. Add onion. Cook until tender, stirring often. Add garlic and parsley.

[In a third pan,] Melt butter and saute meat 15 minutes. Add meat to onion mixture. Add chili powder and cook 10 minutes. Add this to beans and add spices. Simmer, covered, for 1 hour. Uncover and cook for 30 minutes. Skim fat from top.

Tullio Bertini’s Buccelato

1 c. sugar
1 cube butter
3 eggs
1 c. milk
1 Tbs. vanilla
1 c. raisins
1 c. candied fruit
1 tsp. anise seed
1 ½ tsp. baking powder
3 c. flour

Place the sugar in a mixing bowl. Soften butter to room temperature, or place in microwave on “defrost” for 30 seconds. Using the mixer paddle, blend the sugar and butter first by hand, then turn on mixer until mixture is smooth. Place the three eggs in the mixing bowl, mix at medium speed until smooth. Add vanilla, anise and milk. Mix until blended.

Presoak the raisins in water. When softened, squeeze out all water and add to the mixture along with the candied fruit. Mix well.

Gradually add the flour and baking powder.  When mixed well, remove from the bowl and place in a buttered Bundt pan or other round ring-mold pan. Bake at 350 degrees F. for approximately 50 minutes or until top is light brown in color. When done, allow cake to sit in the pan for 15 minutes before removing to cooling rack.

Tullio Bertini’s cookbook download and YouTube cooking videos