Baking at Home Saved Money by Ruth Paget
The $60 rye sourdough bread selling in New York has me thinking that baking more often at home is a good idea.
A tremendous resource for doing this is Mark Bittman’s 2,066-page cookbook How to Bake Everything.
It is $11.99 on Kindle today (9-25-2026). (I originally bought it for $2.99 bought the price has increased.)
Purchase information follows on the link below:
Happy Baking!
By Ruth Paget
Savory Fruit Ideas for Personal Chefs by Ruth Paget
I re-read Jane Grigson’s Fruit Book with more than 400 recipes for both sweet and savory dishes as follow-up reading to my Wisconsin 2026 Dairyland Vacation.
Wisconsin shares the same fall bumper crops with California, and I was looking up savory fruit recipes for apples, pears, plums, and cherries in Grigson’s go-to fruit recipe book featuring mostly European dishes, especially those of France.
Stand-out recipes that help deal with a surfeit of fruit follow:
*For apples
*Cauchoise Salad with Avocado Cream
-This dish comes from the Pays de Caux (chalk country) north of Rouen, France in Normandy where my husband Laurent went to business school.
-This salad is made with a topping of celery, potatoes, apples, lemon juice, walnuts, and cubes of smoked country ham that is served over lettuce. The dressing is based on vinegar and oil with avocado blended in.
*Normandy Pork with Apples and Cream
-This dish is made with pork tenderloin, onions, Calvados (apple brandy), cider, beef stock, and double cream mixed in once the pork is cooked.
-The dish is garnished with sautéed, sliced apples
*For Pears
*Pickled pears to served with ham, salt pork, or duck -For this dish, you pickle pears in a solution of sugar, vinegar, water, cloves, all spice, and cinnamon sticks
*For Plums
*Pork in the Vosges Style
-This dish calls for yellow mirabelle plums and 3 cooking vessels.
-First, you brown the pork in a Dutch oven and cook it with 2 cups of white wine either stovetop or in the oven.
-Then, you sauté chopped onions slightly in one pan and simmer the mirabelle plums in water in another pan
-When the pork is done cooking, you place the onions on a serving platter with the pork on top of the onions. Next, you place the plums around the pork with the mirabelle cooking juices spooned over the pork.
*For Cherries
*Pickled cherries can be served as part of an hors d’oeuvres tray to go with sparkling wines and kirs made with sweet white wines.
-These cherries are preserved in a solution made up of white wine vinegar, brown sugar, cloves, juniper berries, lemon peel, and cinnamon sticks
Note: The French routinely use surplus fruit to make brandies, eau-de-vie for drinking or cooking (calvados-apple brandy, Poire-Williams – pear brandy, mirabelle – yellow plum brandy, and kirsch – cherry brandy)
Jane Grigson’s Fruit Book mostly provides recipes for sweet dishes, but her savory fruit recipes not only taste good, but they can save you money when they arrive in fall. (I am assuming that abundant supply keeps the price down.)
Fruit lovers and personal chefs can find many creative ways to deal with seasonal fruit for immediate consumption and to preserve for the winter months in Jane Grigson’s Fruit Book. Restaurants and personal chefs might be interested in offering pickled fruit products as add-on products using the recipes in Grigson’s book as well.
By Ruth Paget
-author Eating Soup with Chopsticks, Marrying France, and Europe’s Lessons written during overseas duty in Germany + 5 other Kindle books
-developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games + 8 Classical Western Civilization War Games
-developer of food and beverage knowledge games
-creator of online exhibits about San Miguel Arcangel Mission, French baguette making, and the Carmel Valley History Center
-creator of French travel and culture games
-writer of 1900+ Central Coast California lifestyle blogs
-family genealogist
-developer of 9 music theory games
Austrian baker Tim Auer of New York City is selling rye sourdough bread for $60 a loaf. It sold out on the first day of sale.
Details about why the bread costs so much follow in People:
https://people.com/new-york-city-bakery-goes-viral-for-selling-60-bread-12132692
Ad Astra Bread Company in Monterey, California is very reasonable compared to New York rye sourdough.
Reposted by Ruth Paget
-author Eating Soup with Chopsticks, Marrying France, and Europe’s Lessons written during overseas duty in Germany + 5 other Kindle books
-developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games + 8 Classical Western Civilization War Games
-developer of food and beverage knowledge games
-creator of online exhibits about San Miguel Arcangel Mission, and the Carmel Valley History Center
-creator of French travel and culture games
-writer of 1900+ Central Coast California lifestyle blogs
-family genealogist
-developer of 9 music theory games
Good Deal on Roasting Chicken at Raley’s Nob Hill in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget
I received a digital coupon for Foster Farms Whole Fryer chicken at .$.97 cents per pound today as a Raley Nob Hill member.
That is a good price.
A simple dish you can make with this is lemon - garlic chicken stuffed with used lemon rinds, garlic, and thyme. Potatoes can go around the chicken that sits on a bed of chopped onion with a cup of olive oil and lemon juice drizzled over everything.
I use a covered metal Granite baking pan to hold these items and bake in a preheated 450-degree oven for 1 to 1 1/2 hours.
This tastes great with a good Pilsner like Pilsner Urquell from the Czech Republic.
You can boil the carcass with onions, carrots, and celery and skim the surface to make a good broth you can freeze in ice cube trays and eventually store in a ziploc bag to add to soups.
Note: I always think of the town of Menton in France’s southeastern corner when I make this dish. Menton is the lemon capital of France.
Note: You can sign up to get the members app online or in-store.
Happy Cooking!
By Ruth Paget
-author Eating Soup with Chopsticks, Marrying France, and Europe’s Lessons written during overseas duty in Germany + 5 other Kindle books
-developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games + 8 Classical Western Civilization War Games
-developer of food and beverage knowledge games
-creator of online exhibits about San Miguel Arcangel Mission, French baguette making, and the Carmel Valley History Center
-creator of French travel and culture games
-writer of 1900+ Central Coast California lifestyle blogs
-family genealogist
-developer of 9 music theory games
The University of Chicago Aims of Education Address promotes the value of a liberal education for creating agile minds needed in the 21st century.
English professor Kenneth Warren will deliver the Aims of Education address on September 24, 2026 at Rockefeller Chapel.
The Address will be webcasted.
More details about the speaker and Aims of Education Address follow:
Reposted by Ruth Paget
-author Eating Soup with Chopsticks, Marrying France, and Europe’s Lessons written during overseas duty in Germany + 5 other Kindle books
Fish Ideas for Personal Chefs by Ruth Paget
I read Jane Grigson’s Fish Book (563 pages organized by 52 species of edible fish with an index) as a follow-up to my Wisconsin 2026 Dairyland Vacation.
Grigson mostly deals with ocean fish, but her techniques and sauces work with freshwater fish too, which abound in Wisconsin’s rivers like the Wisconsin River and the Fox River and bordering Great Lakes.
When I was a child growing up in Detroit (Michigan), my mother took me on driving vacations from Detroit that led us through Gary (Indiana) and Chicago (Illinois) on the way to the relatives’ homes outside Madison, Wisconsin.
My grandparents had a cabin on the Wisconsin River, which runs to the Mississippi River, where we ate bass filets fried in bacon grease with hand-mashed potatoes. A side of canned green beans rounded out the North Woods meal. This is one of my favorite Wisconsin memories.
Grigson’s fish book provides recipes from around the world that work with fish from any US state. Her seasoned butters, sauces, and mayonnaise toppings provide easy, great variety for poached or fried fish:
-anise butter made with licorice-flavored pastis and butter that you can just melt on fish and sides like rice pilaf
-orange butter made with bitter Seville orange juice. This butter lightens fried fish and adds perkiness to pilafs and peas
-sauce au cidre gets is equally perky flavor from dry apple cider
-Pernod remoulade is a mayonnaise made with licorice-flavored Pernod mayonnaise
Four stand-out recipes that personal chefs might be interested in include:
-clam farcies (stuffed clams) made with a mixture of mushrooms, bacon, parsley, and chopped clams served on clam half shells
-cod with mushrooms made by frying cod and serving it with sautéed mushrooms on top.
-mullet baked with licorice-flavored fennel and pastis
-mullet Charente style, which is sautéed and then baked briefly with tomatoes, parsley, garlic, dry white wine, and Parmesan cheese
Fish lovers, personal chefs, and lovers of French food can all find delicious recipes to try in Jane Grigson’s Fish Book, which remains a classic recipe book.
Happy Cooking!
By Ruth Paget
-author Eating Soup with Chopsticks, Marrying France, and Europe’s Lessons written during overseas duty in Germany + 5 other Kindle books
-developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games + 8 Classical Western Civilization War Games
-developer of food and beverage knowledge games
-creator of online exhibits about San Miguel Arcangel Mission, French baguette making, and the Carmel Valley History Center
-creator of French travel and culture games
-writer of 1900+ Central Coast California lifestyle blogs
-family genealogist
-developer of 9 music theory games
Make it Monday for Home Cooked Meal Night Ideas by Ruth Paget
-Pasta with butter, shredded Swiss cheese, and strips of prosciutto with boiled eggs on the side or in the pasta. Pasta made from 00 flour has a high protein count.
This is a modified Schinkennudeln (ham and noodle pasta dish) from Germany that is a baked casserole there.
I have eaten this for years and like it.
-Bacon, Lettuce, and Tomato Sandwiches are also good
-I have made breakfasts for dinner too. (Bisquick pancakes and syrup are all-American dinners in my book.)
Note: Walmart carries all these ingredients at a reasonable price. There are two Super Center Walmart Stores in Salinas - one on North Davis and one on North Main. Target on North Main generally carries these products as well. Costco sells jugs of maple syrup.
Happy Cooking!
By Ruth Paget
-author Eating Soup with Chopsticks, Marrying France, and Europe’s Lesson written during overseas duty in Germany + 5 other Kindle books
-developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games + 8 Classical Western Civilization War Games
-developer of food and beverage knowledge games
-creator of online exhibits about San Miguel Arcangel Mission, French baguette making, and the Carmel Valley History Center
-creator of French travel and culture games
-writer of 1900+ Central Coast California lifestyle blogs
-family genealogist
-developer of 9 music theory games