The book Chaos, Creativity, Completion by Martinez and sold by the University of Chicago Press just looks so interesting for all kinds of creators during a time of technological change and economic challenge.
Purchase details follow:
Reposted by Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
The University of Chicago Press Free E-Book for May 2026 is Big Bosses: A Working Girl’s Memoir of Jazz Age America.
Information about the book and download details follow:
https://mail.google.com/mail/mu/mp/465/#cv/search/Uchicago/19e031b7867f335d
Happy Reading!
By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
Karura, Japanese poetry card gaming, will take place at the University of Chicago on May 22, 2026 as part of the Year of Games at the University of Chicago.
The media release below relates that Karuta was introduced to Japan in the 16th century by Portuguese traders.
Details about this fast-paced Karuta card gaming event follow:
https://events.uchicago.edu/event/264199-karuta-japanese-poetry-card-game-demo-talk
Reposted by Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
2026 Pulitzer Prize Winner for Literature Yiyun Li gave three lectures at the University of Chicago right before winning the Pulitzer Prize.
These three lecture, part of the Berlin Family Lecture Series, are available at the University of Chicago link below:
https://mail.google.com/mail/mu/mp/465/#cv/priority/%5Esmartlabel_personal/19e26ae89a15e189
Reposted by Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
The Ohana Toy-Anime-Comic Con King City will be held on August 23, 2026 at the Fairgrounds from 1 pm to 4 pm.
Details about Ohana Comic Cons follow:
Reposted by Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
The Salinas Valley Fair will be held between May 14 to May 17, 2026 in King City, California.
My daughter Florence Paget sang in the talent show here one year as part of our day in the country.
Details about the Dalinas Valley Fair follow:
https://www.salinasvalleyfair.com/
Reposted by Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
Two University of Chicago alumni have won 2026 Pulitzer Prizes.
Details about their award-winning work from the University of Chicago website follow:
Reposted by Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
The Marina Dunes Promenade in Marina, California will be hosting a Barter Fair on Sunday, May 16, 2026.
Trading services and/or products of equivalent value is an economics lesson.
The cost is free with more information on the Monterey County Weekly’s online community calendar below:
Reposted by Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
In a recent University of Chicago Booth School of Business article, the authors write about a small Honduran pig farm that used MIA, an AI mentor, to formalize accounting processes, taxation reporting, and marketing campaigns.
These formalized structures helped the small business obtain loans to expand the business.
This lengthy and informative article then expands upon how AI has been used throughout the world to help small businesses grow.
The Booth Review article follows:
Reposted by Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
The Monterey County Weekly online community calendar has listed an important fundraiser for June 7, 2026: Feathers in Flight - Fundraiser for Condors.
The Ventana Wildlife Society is organizing the fundraiser ($150 per ticket).
Information about this event and ticket purchase information follows from The Weekly website:
Reposted by Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
Movies + 3-Course Dinner While Watching the Film now being done in San Jose, California -
I just saw this streaming on TikTok. The video did not say where, but it filled the front section of the theatre where the film was being shown.
Dinner theatre becoming dinner movies is a great way to increase profits even in theatres that are less full for theatre owners.
Been scrolling -
By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
The Monterey County Weekly has listed the Spanish Coversation Club for Intermediate and Advanced Speakers on their online community calendar for several weeks.
The Spanish. conversation club takes place on Sundays in Pacific Grove.
More details about this free event and contact information follow from the Monterey County Website:
https://www.montereycountynow.com/events/#/details/spanish-conversation/18161469/2026-05-17T15
Reposted by Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
Tasmanian Flax Lily Sightings in Pebble Beach, California by Ruth Paget
While drinking my weekly Peerless organic latte from the Market at Pebble Beach (California), I admired the large, puff-ball shaped Tasmanian flax lilies from southeastern Australia and the island of Tasmania originally.
Up close, you can see that Tasmanian flax lilies have spiky pointed leaves with green and white stripes running along the leaves. The leaves bounce in wind and have a white stripes running down the center of the thin leaves.
Tasmanian flax lilies are drought and deer resistant – both very important traits in coastal, wooded areas of California.
You can find Tasmanian flax lilies by the Market at Pebble Beach.
More information about these hardy yet frail looking plants follows:
https://txmg.org/hendersonmg/files/2020/06/FLAX-LILY-VARIEGATED.pdf
Nursery information and purchasing details follow:
https://www.budgetplants.com/variegated-flax-lily
Take a mini trip to Tasmania and Southeastern Australia as you stroll around the Market and Lodge and Pebble Beach, California!
By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
Two German Sandwiches for Tourists in Germany by Ruth Paget
My go-to German “fast food” sandwiches when I lived in Stuttgart (Germany) for five years were schinken-käse-brot (ham and cheese sandwiches on dinner rolls) and butter-brot (open-faced sandwiches like they make in Denmark).
Both sandwiches are ideal for tourists especially tourists who visit German cities and towns on foot.
The place I would order schinken-kâse-brot was Sehne Ihre Bâckerei. Sehne (pronounced ‘zay-nay’) is a national bakery chain like McDonalds that sells bread (supposedly 365 kinds in German) and provides seating for kaffee klatsches (coffee breaks).
They have white bread baguettes, which I always picked up for toast. As a little treat, I would get two schinken-kâse sandwiches. I liked ordering these in German, “Zwei schinken-kâse, bitte – two ham and cheese sandwiches, please.” I drank Gerolsteiner fizzy water with these sandwichs and contemplated braving the 30 below, windy weather outside to go home.
The other sandwich I sometimes ate at home was a butter-brot or open-faced sandwich. I bought the ingredients for these at the Total Gas Station down from our apartment or Ikea’s grocery department downtown.
I toasted rye or pumpernickel bread and spread it with brown, large grain German mustard. On top of this, I would place tinned, smoked trout or smoked salmon and sliced red onion.
I thought this sandwich was very northern German and would drink a Beck’s lager with my Baltic sandwich. Our local Edeka supermarket had many choices of beer in 4-packs so you could sample beers from all around Germany. I was able to get Beck’s from Bremen in northern Germany this way in southern Stuttgart.
These sandwiches are available year-round usually at a pretty reasonable price. Tourists and locals alike can enjoy these while visiting or doing errands in cities and towns in Germany.
Note: Brot bread can be made with spent grain from beer making.
Polar Vortex Memories!
By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
The Everything Indian Cookbook: 300 Tantalizing Recipes Reviewed by Ruth Paget
Monica Bhide’s The Everything India Cookbook: 300 Tantalizing Recipes helped me solidify the knowledge I have gained about Indian from eating in Indian restaurants and preparing several dishes at home over a few decades.
Bhide writes that Indian cooking has six tastes that cooks try to achieve when putting together a meal. These six tastes follow:
-sweet
-sour
-salty
-spicy
-bitter
-astringent
These flavors are often brought into a meal with a variety of condiments.
Bhide further writes that spices distinguish Indian cuisine from others. Indians have a specific spicing order when cooking that promotes flavor and gut health, which follows:
-whole spices
-herbs
-powdered spices
Spice powders are made from dry roasted whole spices that are ground and kept in air-tight jars in dark places.
Thickening agents for cooking include:
-yogurt
-chickpea flour
-onions
-nut pastes
Bhide cites Indian Ayurvedic traditional medicine when she writes that ancient texts promote the use of spices for the following reasons:
-medicinal properties
-ability to act as food preservers
-healing
The 300 recipes in The Everyday Indian Cookbook are well written and invite Indian food lovers to try cooking some of their favorite restaurant foods.
Some of the recipes that I think are particularly good for cooking after a farmers’ market visit include:
-Indian paneer – cheese made with milk, lemon juice, and cheese cloth from draining
-spinach soup
-Indian-style coleslaw
-potato and yogurt salad
-Maharastrian cabbage salad
-shredded carrot salad
The Everything Indian Cookbook: 300 Tantalizing Recipes by Monica Bhide is enjoyable to read and cook from.
Novice cooks and Indian restaurant habitu̩s can all find tasty recipes to try in The Everything Indian Cookbook Рan absolute great reference cookbook for the kitchen bookshelf or Kindle library.
Note: In Salinas (California) you can eat Indian food at Avatar Indian Grill, In Monterey, (California) Ambrosia has two locations. Ambrosia also has a location in Los Gatos outside San Jose, California.
By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
I have been watching video restaurant reviews on TikTok (mostly Asian - I love all Asian food) and find that reviews in the following format give me the best idea of what a restaurant is like:
-panoramic shot outside the restaurant
-panoramic shot inside
-menu shot - I like photo menus and ordering list
-if restaurants have a delivery robot, it is cute to see food delivered by them
-close-up shots of food ordered, names, and ingredients
-descriptions of dishes with individual portion shots coming up to the camera
-opinions of why you like a dish and who else might like a dish
-to finish, if they have merchandise for sale like a sauce, calendar, language-learning CDs, children’s educational books from Daiso or Scholastic, pencils, pens, logo stationery, or chopsticks, that is a cute good-bye
Thanks filmmakers for the fun videos and restaurant ideas.
By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
Ulysses S. Grant wrote his autobiography to support his family after his death according to the book’s description below:
https://www.amazon.com/American-Ulysses-Life-S-Grant/dp/1400069025
For people interested in the Civil War and its aftermath, this looks like a fascinating read.
By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
I am an older mom now, so my daughter ordered me a Taco Bell dinner:
-crunch wrap
-hard shell taco
-low-sugar strawberry agua fresca
I thought it was great, because I did not have to cook it.
Cheerios!
By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
TikTok Video Travel Itinerary Outline (Suggested) for California’s Central Coast by Ruth Paget
I have been watching TikTok travel videos for my region and like TikTok’s that have an itinerary like the following for Central Coast California tourism:
Recharge Overnight Stay in Monterey or Carmel for example:
-hotel description
-dinner out
-breakfast out
-coffee for walk through town or coastal drive with hike with some wildflower and tree identification and description
-lunch
-outing with 1 or more of the following
-art or craft making activity (new form of tourism here)
-writing workshop shots
-farmers’ market
- museum visit - history museums have an anthropological bent often with exhibits about Native Americans and settlers from other places
-agritourism such as visiting artichoke farms, orchards, oyster farms, organic farming operations, and so on
-cooking class (done in Europe but US could do this too) - chicken noodle soup, dinner rolls for homemade sliders, pork chops with homemade applesauce, sheet pan baked vegetables, scalloped potatoes and mashed potatoes, and roast beef with vegetables are some good American dishes to start with.
-wine tasting
-art gallery visit
-shopping for books, kitchen items, regional food souvenirs
-decaffeinated coffee or agua fresca for drive home with sunset
I like videos like these for giving me travel ideas.
Thanks TikTok filmmakers!
Note: This is a nice outline for print travel stories too.
By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games