Veneto Cookbook Reviewed by Ruth Paget

Veneto Reviewed by Ruth Paget 

Veneto: Recipes from a Country Kitchen by Valeria Necchio offers its readers recipes from the inland countryside region around Venice called the Veneto. 

The larger towns of the Veneto are Vicenza (famous for its gold jewelry stores), Verona (famous for Romeo and Juliet), and Padua (famous for its university and the Scrovegni Chapel decorated by Giotto). These towns are surrounded by cornfields, which are harvested to make the region’s equally famous corn meal polenta. 

The country cooking of the Veneto can easily be made in Monterey County California with produce that grows in the county and the State of California. Some of the delicious dishes made in the Veneto include: 

-polenta with wild mushrooms and grana padano cheese For this recipe, you make polenta using the stove-top method and stir in grated grana padano cheese. (Grana padano is made in the Po River Valley and is similar to Parmesan.) 

When the polenta is done, you sauté mushrooms in butter and serve them on top of the warm polenta. 

-rice and pea soup 

Risi e bisi (rice and pea soup) is made on April 25th for the Feast of San Marco, the patron saint of Venice. A grain with a pulse like peas is considered a protein combination, which makes this more nutritious than you would think. 

-rice and pumpkin soup 

For this recipe, the pumpkin is sautéed and then cooked stove-top in liquid till the flesh disintegrates. Then, the rice is added to the pumpkin broth for cooking. 

-bigoli with duck ragù sauce 

Bigoli pasta are whole wheat pasta that are usually associated with the cooking of the Veneto. Bigoli are fresh-made and thicker than spaghetti. 

In this recipe, a rich, long-simmered duck meat and fat sauce is served over hot pasta. 

-stir-fried dandelion leaves with pancetta 

This recipe is simple and delicious once you buy dandelion leaves. The leaves are sautéed with unsmoked Italian pancetta bacon. 

This cookbook is doubly useful for its listing of pantry items and cooking utensil listed for cooking food from the Veneto region. 

Readers interested in learning more about Italian food and culture will find Veneto: Recipes from an Italian Country Kitchen by Valeria Necchio a useful reference book. 

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Venice: Four Seasons of Home Cooking Reviewed by Ruth Paget

Venice: Four Seasons of Home Cooking Reviewed by Ruth Paget 

Chef Russell Norman, who wrote Venice: Four Seasons of Home Cooking lived in Venice, Italy for 14 months collecting material for this travel memoir cookbook, owns the Polpo Restaurant in London, England and is the author of the Polpo cookbook as well. 

I enjoyed reading about his daily visits to Venetian markets for fish and/or seafood and produce and dashing home to prepare his treasures for lunch. 

He covers the changing market fare through the seasons, but I like 5 of his autumn recipes best, because they can easily be made with agricultural products from Monterey County California. 

These recipes include: 

-Autumn Celery Salad 

This salad is made with chopped and mixed shallots, celery stalks with their leaves, fennel bulbs, and comice pear with a dressing made of lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper, and a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese on top. 

-Roasted Red Chicogy 

This recipe calls for splitting red chicory in half and brushing it with olive oil before roasting it and seasoning it with salt, pepper, and Parmesan cheese. 

-Tuna, Radicchio, and Horseradish Crostini This bracing hors d’oeuvres is a toasted slice of bread with a chopped mixture of radicchio and tuna held together with creamy horseradish on top. 

-Gnocchi with Sage and Butter

Gnocchi are what I call dumpling pasta made with flour and egg and boiled. The gnocchi are flavored with a sauce of sautéed sage and butter. 

-Grilled Polenta with Wild Mushrooms and Garlic 

This recipe calls for grilled cooked polenta bars as an ingredient. It takes about an hour to make polenta from scratch before it can cool down into bars for grilling, so be forewarned about the time to make this recipe. 

Once you have made the grilled polenta bars, this recipe is a cinch to make. The mushrooms are sautéed in olive oil with garlic with chopped parsley added at the end and then placed over the polenta bars for serving. 

Readers who like travel memoirs and cooking will find much to like in Venice: Four Seasons of Home Cooking by Norman Russell. This book also interested me in dining at his Venetian-themed Polpo Restaurant in London, England. 

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Smoked Norwegian Salmon and St. Germain Royale Cocktail Brunch by Ruth Paget

Parisian Vacation Brunch in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget  

For an après-Christmas brunch 2025, my husband Laurent, daughter Florence Paget, and I had St. Germain Royale cocktails with smoked Norwegian salmon.  

One of Florence’s Christmas gifts was a 400-page cocktails book, wo we had to let her practice a cocktail on us. She prepared a Veuve Clicquot cocktail with St. Germain liqueur made from flowery, white elder flowers. (Alone elder flowers have high amounts of Vitamin C, an antioxidants.)

I liked the St. Germain Royale cocktail and thought the sweet, effervescent flavor paired well with salty, Norwegian smoked salmon. 

Costco’s Kirkland brand uses farmed salmon from Norway that is smoked in the Netherlands the packaging relates. Laurent and I shared the package meant for four to six as brunch. (Florence had a taste and ate legs from a Costco rotisserie chicken.) 

The smoked salmon was tender and buttery in texture and had a delicate smoky flavor, which is what I like. I love fish in all its preparations including smoked. 

If you are someone who likes smoked fish, the Kirkland Norwegian salmon at Costco would probably be a welcome addition to your New Year’s celebration (price: approximately $24 per package). 

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Authentic Monterey County California Lunch at Woody's in Monterey, California by Ruth Paget

Authentic Monterey County California Lunch at Woody’s in Monterey, California by Ruth Paget 

My husband Laurent, daughter Florence Paget, and I ate an authentic Monterey County lunch at Woody’s Bar and Restaurant at the airport the day after Christmas that was healthy and delicious. 

The three of us started our meal with iodine-rich shellfish from the Monterey Bay Marine Sanctuary. Florence ate chunky, clam chowder with salty oyster crackers. Laurent ate a jumbo shrimp cocktail with piquant cocktail sauce made with horseradish. I ate a plateful of lightly fried calamari with creamy tartar sauce and tangy cocktail sauce. I squeezed lemon juice on the calamari for a zingy addition of Vitamin C. 

Seafood tastes superb in rainy, cold weather like the winter of 2025. I snuggled up in my sweater and hoody jacket and thoroughly enjoyed each bite of calamari squid. 

Laurent ate one of his favorite Monterey County meals as his main dish – sand dabs fillets sautéed in lemon-butter with mashed potatoes and steamed seasonal vegetables.

Florence ate a Cobb salad that Woody’s made with organic produce from Swank Farms and Country Store. The salad also had organic chicken and bacon from San Benito County. Florence likes Woody’s house made ranch dressing. 

I ate one Woody’s large, fork-and-knife sandwiches – the mahi mahi sandwich with citrus aioli, citrus-flavored garlic mayonnaise. Mahi mahi is fished from the Pacific Ocean and is also known as dorado and dolphin fish. 

Mahi mahi is a Hawaiian term for this predatory fish. Mahi mahi eat protein-rich prey like crab and other smaller fish. The flesh of mahi mahi is firm from hunting.  

Mahi mahi’s flesh is also white and readily picks up flavors in poaching water like onion. At Woody’s, the mahi mahi seems to be poached with water, onion, and olive oil.

The fillet is placed on a toasted Palermo bun with citrus aioli and lettuce and tomato. I added salt to the fillet along with dill pickle and red onion. 

The sandwich is too slippery to eat with your hands, but very delectable when eaten in bites with a fork and knife. I understand why the mahi mahi sandwich at Woody’s is a Monterey County classic dish. 

I ate the mahi mahi sandwich with sweet potato fries. Sweet potatoes grow in parts of Monterey County with sunny, warm weather and sandy soil. I always associate orange vegetables with Vitamin A, which is good for the eyes. 

For a terrific, authentic Monterey County lunch, the seafood and salads at Woody’s Bar and Restaurant at the airport in Monterey, California is a welcoming spot for travelers and locals alike. 

Note: With pineapple aioli instead of citrus aioli, this meal could equally be Hawaiian.

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

48th Santa Cruz Quilt Show on February 21 and 22, 2026 reposted by Ruth Paget

The 48th Annual Santa Cruz Quilt Show will be held on February 21 & 22, 2026 at the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds.  

People entering quilts have to use the online submission form for insurance purposes. 

Details about the Santa Cruz Quilt Show can be found on the Monterey County Weekly Online Community Calendar below:

https://www.montereycountynow.com/events/#/details/48th-annual-quilt-show/17696045/2026-02-21T10

Reposted by Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Parma (Italy): A Capital of European Gastronomy Reviewed by Ruth Paget

Parma (Italy): A Capital of European Gastronomy Reviewed by Ruth Paget 

Giuliano Bugialli wrote Parma: A Capital of European Gastronomy to firmly establish this small town in the Po River Valley between the Appenine Mountains in Northern Italy as a destination-worthy tour stop for outstanding food in Parma and its surrounding Emilia-Romagana region. 

Eight luxury food items assure work and healthy food for its inhabitants in this region:  

1-Parmigiano-Reggiano Cheese 

2-Prosciutto di Parma 

3-Butter from Parma 

4-Balsamic vinegar from Modena 

5-Mostarda di Cremona – fruit mustard 

6-handmade, fresh egg ribbon pasta like tagliatelle 

7-handmade, fresh egg stuffed pasta like tortellini and anolini 

8-ragù sauce made from slow-cooked meat with tomato sauce 

Bugialli intersperses the cookbook’s well-written recipes with cultural photo essays about food and the people who have influenced the region’s diet with essays on the following: 

-parmagiano-reggiano cheese production 

-Parma and Duchess Maria Luigia, who was Napoleon Bonaparte’s second wife 

-Crosetti di Bedonia – flat pasta discs that are stamped with a family’s crest for events like weddings

-prosciutto di Parma production 

-pork and its various cured meats production including a meat map to show where cured meats come from on a pig 

Bugialli states that most recipes from this region are simple, but make use of its outstanding food products to create rich flavors. 

Some examples of recipes that make great use of Parmesan cheese, for example, include:

-creamy rice soup 

-Swiss chard gnocchi 

-cardoon casserole (cardoons are related to leeks) 

-fennel casserole 

Readers interest in using a limited amount of high quality ingredients to produce healthy and delicious food would probably enjoy reading Giuliano Bugialli’s Parma: Capital of European Gastronomy along with restaurant workers. 

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Foods of Tuscany Reviewed by Ruth Paget

Foods of Tuscany Reviewed by Ruth Paget 

Giuliano Bugialli’s Foods of Tuscany provides several recipes that could be catered for large-scale events like the centuries’ old Siennese Palio Horse Race that draws Italian and European tourists to the small town of Sienna for a big financial impact. 

The Palio Horse Race in Sienna pits riders from the city’s various quarters against each other that brings money in various ways to tiny Sienna: 

-elite seating tickets 

-general seating tickets 

-hotels 

-catering 

-drivers 

-security 

-restaurants 

-bars

-transportation to and from the event via:

-taxi 

-car entals

-limousine 

-car 

-train 

-bus 

-airplane 

-souvenir sales, including: sunglasses, caps, T-shirts, programs, books, postcards, greeting cards, pens, phone covers

-advertising, including billboards, radio, internet, television, movie ads, newspaper ads, posters, coupons

Bugialli provides photo essays on other cultural events that are big money makers for the Tuscany region as well: 

-regata di San Ragieri – a yacht palio 

-sheep milk production of pecorino cheese 

Four of Bugialli’s recipes that cater well for large gatherings include: 

-herbed crostini

Crostini are usually toasted slices of bread topped with homemade condiments. In this recipe, various fresh herbs are chopped together with capers and hard-boiled eggs to make a perfect outdoor appetizer that goes well with white wine or beer

-Mugello-style Puréed Bean Soup flavored with fresh herbs 

-Orzo Pasta with Peas 

Orzo pasta looks like rice when cooked, but is double the size. 

-Pasta with Zucchini and Shrimp 

Bugialli calls for homemade spaghetti here, but you could probably use dry spaghetti for a large crowd. 

Foods of Tuscany contains well-written recipes, but Bugialli’s description of Italian festivals makes you think of the recipes in terms of catering for six to six thousand. 

Event planners, chefs, caterers, restaurant workers, and travel agents might all enjoy and benefit from reading Giuliano Bugialli’s Foods of Tuscany 

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France