Venezia 500: The Gentle Revolution of Venetian Painting by Andreas Schumacher is on sale by the University of Chicago Press today for $19.99 instead of $55.
This book details the Venetian Renaissance expertise in handling color and light as the author analyzes character-revealing portraits, landscapes incorporating the canals and sea, and historical paintings,
Details about the book and purchase information follow:
https://mail.google.com/mail/mu/mp/465/#cv/priority/%5Esmartlabel_promo/19db52db56b43f3b
Reposted by Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
Rosemary Plants in Monterey County California Herald Spring by Ruth Paget
Spring is here at the Trader Joe’s in Marina, California. I love going to this Trader Joe’s for its display of potted flowers and cooking herbs outside the store for sale.
Amidst the basil plants, tulips, leftover Easter lilies, fuchsia plants, and cactus plants on sale, I saw an organic potted rosemary plant and immediately wanted to purchase it for its $2.49 sale price. The potted rosemary plant for $2.49 had about 12 sturdy branches with full foliage on it.
The $2.49 price seemed a lot less expensive than buying 3 or 4 branches in a plastic container inside the store.
The rosemary plant was purchased for its great price value and kitchen décor value for spring. Rosemary is a strong-flavored herb so the plant with 12 branches can provide enough flavor for at least 12 meals, if you keep the plant watered.
I use a branch of rosemary in dishes like the following:
-ratatouille vegetable stew from southern France (along with thyme)
-roast chicken (placed in the chicken cavity along with onion quarters, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, and lemon rinds. If I cannot get organic lemons, I omit the lemon rinds.)
-boiled rice (I add rosemary to the rice cooker along with olive oil, lemon juice and sometimes garlic)
I love rosemary’s citrusy and peppery flavor, but its nutrient profile is important too as it contains antioxidants and anti-inflammatory compounds.
Antioxidants remove free radicals, which may cause cancer from the body. Anti-inflammatories fight diabetes, heart disease, and cognitive decline according to Harvard Health Publishing – a link to their website on this topic follows:
https://www.health.harvard.edu/healthy-aging-and-longevity/foods-that-fight-inflammation
For people with a sunny space to grow plants, growing and selling rosemary might be a way to make some extra income. Monterey County has sites to sell cooking herbs from hardware stores to farmers’ markets to Trader Joe’s. If you would like to find out about growing rosemary for profit, ask a store manager about who to contact for organic certification and/or distribution.
I have linked to Getty Images below for photos of rosemary in its branch and plant forms:
https://www.gettyimages.com/search/2/image?phrase=rosemary
A rosemary plant brings good value for $2.49. Even if the plant dies, you still spend about .21 cents per branch used on a 12-branch plant. The citrus and pepper flavor perks up even bland rice and has several health benefits.
Young families can certainly benefit from the cost savings of buying a potted rosemary plant. The plants are also cute and watering them is a daily biology lesson for young children.
Happy Gardening!
By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
Hydrangeas’ Economic and Ecological Value by Ruth Paget
On our weekend marketing day where my family usually goes to Costco, Trader Joe’s, and Nob Hill for American and French food items, I saw huge pom-pom flowers for sale at Costco.
I used Google lens to identify the blue and pink pom-pom plants and saw that these were hydrangeas. I have given these plants to people as gifts, but forgot the name of the plants.
Now that I had the plant name, I looked up the plant characteristics on several sites and read that hydrangea flowers turn blue in acidic soil and pink in alkaline soil.
Hydrangeas came become very tall (up 8 feet) and grow in moist, well-drained soil and partial shade according to Google AI and Master Gardener Catherine Boeckmann at Almanac.com, who has written extensively on their care and topics like coloring flowers and growing them from cuttings. Her excellent article follows:
Knowing how to grow hydrangeas from cuttings can be a part-time or gig business, if you have a space to grow the flowers and a customer base. Nurseries like Grigg’s, Bokay, or Earthbound, hardware stores like Lowe’s, Costco, CVS, or other places where you see flowers sold could probably tell you how to grow sellable plants and where to get them distributed.
Hydrangeas have an economic value beyond plant sales. The three varieties described in hydrangea.com below attract bees, butterflies, and other pollinators, which are important for honey production and agricultural plant fertilization for crops, orchards, and vineyards:
Hydrangeas provide food for bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds, which are all present in Monterey County California where I saw these beautiful pom-pom hydrangea plants. Hydrangeas help keep places like the Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary in Pacific Grove, California thriving (open October to March during butterfly migration to Latin America.)
Raising flowers like hydrangeas helps create a gardening community that supports nursery sales like potting soil, fertilizer, containers, and tools as well which is good for the economy, especially in California where we have year-round sunshine making it easy to grow plants. These items might be suitable for delivery work as well.
For young couples or young families, taking care of a beautiful hydrangea can be part of a daily connection to nature that supports bees, butterflies, hummingbirds and the local economy through eco-tourism, agriculture, and vineyards.
Hydrangeas have a tangible health benefit in proving antioxidants which remove free radicals from the body that may cause cancer. Honey is sweet, so you do have to limit intake to not gain weight.
The photo below from Getty Images shows a hydrangea in all its pom-pom glory:
https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/hydrangea
Happy Gardening!
By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
The following article by McKinsey about placing health checkpoints with nurses in grocery stores and pharmacies in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is an interesting public health initiative that helps everyone get their blood pressure and blood sugar checked as part of preventative health where and when it is convenient:
Reposted by Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Gam s
Porchetta in the Park: A Florentine Food Truck Memory by Ruth Paget
After eating a memorable meal at the Fattoria di Maiano up in the hills around Florence (Italy) in Fiesole, my husband Laurent and I spent the next part of our vacation in touristy Florence looking for authentic food in a speedy not slow food location.
What is truly wonderful about Italy, especially Florence, is that we found the authentic people’s food of Tuscany at the Mercato di Cascine (Cascine Market) on Tuesday morning.
This market that stretches a mile along the Arno River has hundreds of food trucks selling cuts of spit-roasted pork and porchetta (pronounced por-ketta) sandwiches among other food items, clothes, shoes, and household items.
Several trucks specialized in just porchetta sandwiches, which I later found out was roasted, rolled pork belly seasoned with herbs like rosemary and fennel. Porchetta is basted every ½ hour with its fatty cooking juices, which makes it taste especially good.
Laurent and I bought porchetta sandwiches, because they were easy to order for tourists with limited Italian skills.
The street vendor we purchased our porchetta sandwiches from grilled two ciabatta bread halves and placed them two medium slices of warm porchetta on the bottom bun. Next, the vendor placed a mound of peppery arugula on top of the porchetta with a splash of red wine vinegar.
The warm top bun went on top of the arugula. The skin on the porchetta was crisp along with the ciabatta bun for good texture to this calorie drenched sandwiched. I liked the punchy vinegar on the arugula too.
We bought San Pellegrino Limonata, lemon sodas, to go with our delectable sandwiches.
We strolled up and down the market for exercise and being part of the local culture and economy I was so happy to have found an authentic agritourism spot in Italy that also supported what was to become the globally respected Slow Food Movement.
The recipe below from Serious Eats calls for 4-hour roast on its belly roll porchetta that can be used in sandwiches.
https://www.seriouseats.com/all-belly-porchetta-recipe-italian-roast-pork
A food truck specializing in porchetta sandwiches might be able to turn a profit quickly by setting up reservation orders at a Farmers’ Market or by setting up neighborhood delivery runs like ice cream trucks or Omaha Steaks.
Having a porchetta truck run on a non-market day like Monday in Salinas, California could bring food into local neighborhoods and distribute it quickly.
Also, Salinas has easy access to all the Porchetta sandwich ingredients - organic pork from San Benito county, organic arugula from Monterey County, and lots of homemade wine vinegar options in California. The ciabatta bread can easily be made locally too, if we have a constant supply of sugar.
Food thoughts for the day!
By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
Classic Greek salad, what we called Village Greek Salad in Detroit’s (Michigan) Greek Town, uses no lettuce, but is loaded with chopped vegetables and feta cheese with lemon juice and oil dressing with oregano.
The vegetables used in this salad include:
-cucumbers
-red onions
-cherry tomatoes
-Black Kalamata olives
Delish provides a great spring and summer recipe below:
Nob Hill Supermarket in Salinas, California sells feta cheeee in several sizes and formats.
Bon Appetit!
Reposted by Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
The Big Sur Marathon will take place on April 26, 2026 from Big Sur to Monterey, California.
The Marathon’s route is certainly one of the most cliff-hanging events in the world.
Details about the Big Sur Marathon follow:
https://www.bigsurmarathon.org/
Reposted by Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
The 2026 Asian Cultural Fair will be held on April 25, 2026 from 11 am to 4 pm in Salinas, California’s Chinatown Neighborhood.
Good food community event to be sure!
Details about the event follow:
https://www.salinasace.org/acf
Reposted by Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
Steak Tourism at Pub’s (Growers’ Pub) in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget
I try to make every steak meal at Pub’s (Growers’ Pub) in Salinas, California a surf and turf meal when I do what I consider “steak tourism” in a region with 40 pioneering ranch families, whose brands are emblazoned on two walls of the back dining room.
For starters, I ordered Monterey Bay Fried Calamari that have a delicate flour and corn meal crust. I love dunking these warm morsels in chipotle cream cocktail dipping sauce. This part of my surf and turf meal at Pub’s brings back many happy memories to me of my honeymoon in Barcelona, Spain, using up the last few days of a Eurail Pass vacation of Italy, Spain, and France.
I prefer seafood to steak, but when I eat steak I like to go to Pub’s for delicious meat at varying sizes and price levels so my husband Laurent can eat items like rack of lamb while I can happily eat the flat iron steak meal.
The Angus steaks at Pub’s seem to come from two local sources in Monterey County – Corral de Tierra off Highway 68 just outside Salinas and Parkfield located off Highway 101 inland from San Miguel Arcangel. (Parkfield is famous for its spa with horseback riding and café.)
I like my steak medium rare, which was perfectly cooked with sea salt added as the only needed extra flavoring. For the potato option in this meal, I ordered scalloped potatoes made with delicious aged cheddar cheese. (Scalloped potatoes are a favorite hot dish in Wisconsin where I lived for several years and took family vacations as a child.)
This steak meal came with a green leaf salad as an appetizer, which I ate with the house-made Thousand Island dressing. The buttered and seasonal vegetables with the steak – steamed broccoli, zucchini, and carrots – were excellent as you would expect from a growers’ pub.
We brought our own bottle of wine to dinner (purchased at COSTCO) and the reasonable corkage fee of $20 for our Château Carbonnieux Bordeaux.
This winery was established in the 13th century and has changed hands between a local Benedictine Monastery and bourgeois families of Bordeaux since that time. The Perrin family currently owns it and has instituted sustainable wine making practices, which you can read about on their website.
Château Carbonnieux is also the proud owner of a pecan tree planted by Thomas Jefferson on a 1786 visit to the Châteaux.
This Bordeaux wine comes from the Graves sub-region of Bordeaux and lies along the Garonne River that flows into the Gironde Estuary that opens out into the Atlantic Ocean.
I felt like I was drinking history in a glass as I sipped this wine with my steak meal.
Other diners who want to combine an excellent wine with their steak tourism meal at Pub’s can check out the following stores in town in case you want to bring a wine bottle to go with dinner:
-COSTCO
-Star Market
-BevMo
For relaxed and delicious steak tourism in Salinas (California), Pub’s (Growers’ Pub) should be a destination on your visit to Salinas and Monterey County.
By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
The Circus Osorio is coming to Salinas, California from April 17 to 27, 2026 at the Salinas Rodeo.
Information about Circus Osorio and tickets follow:
https://www.americancrowncircus.com/
Reposted by Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
Sea Otter Classic has exploded in 2026 at Laguna Seca midway between Salinas and Monterey (California).
There are 1,000 brand at this year’s event according to the Monterey County Weekly and events for people of all ages.
Hotels are super full for this 4-day biking event, but may have wait lists.
This is a great venue for tracking walking time, especially if you have wearable tech med to track your miles and/or steps.
Details about this event follow:
https://www.seaotterclassic.com/
Reposted by Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
While driving through downtown Salinas (California), I saw a banner for First Friday Salinas and did some further research on it.
This monthly event features art and music produced by Salinas area artists as part of the Salinas Valley Arts Incubator Ecosystem matching up artists with the community and potential buyers. First Friday keeps the community “strong, creative, and connected” for all ages.
First Friday also showcases regional cuisine from organic producers.
First Friday helps make the arts part of engaged community life in Salinas. All of downtown becomes an art fair with live music, artwork, outstanding food for purchase, late hour store shopping, and a relaxed atmosphere for learning about the art produced in Salinas Valley.
Strolling during this event also provides some light, pleasurable exercise that you can measure with wearable techmed.
Information about First Friday participants follows:
https://salinascitycenter.com/whats-going-on/first-friday/
Note: There is garage parking available downtown by the Steinbeck Center.
Reposted by Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
Land of Plenty Cookbook Review by Ruth Paget
Fuchsia Dunlop’s cookbook Land of Plenty about the food of Sichuan, a southern interior province of China, introduced this region’s spicy and healthy food to diners more familiar with the food of Hong Kong and its surrounding Guangdong province in the early 2000s.
Notably, Dunlop introduces readers to the dry-roasting cooking technique of using very little oil in a wok to almost sear foods and concentrate their flavor that is used in Sichuan, especially to cook green beans and pork.
Dunlop also introduces readers to the seasonings often used in Sichuanese dishes – garlic, ginger, scallions, red Sichuan peppercorns, and sometimes sesame oil to finish a dish. Dunlop describes Sichuan red peppercorns as numbing, but notes the chile peppers are judiciously used for an overall pleasing effect by Sichuanese cooks. I certainly like these flavors and will sometimes use all of them when I stir-fry cabbage.
What I really like in Dunlop’s cookbook are the easy-to-follow, step-by-step recipes. If you cook enough of these recipes, you will eventually learn to set up a Chinese mise en place, so you can finish cooking most dishes in 15 minutes or less.
The energy savings from using a wok in cooking times should encourage many American cooks to adopt a Wok Wednesday Chinese dish to try cooking at home.
Home cooks might adopt a weekly dinner schedule like the following to include a wok dish:
Monday – pasta dinner
Tuesday – tacos
Wednesday – wok dinner
Thursday – pizza or delivery
Friday – fish
Young couples or young families might want to try the following two recipes for health, flavor, and money savings (use sweet red bell peppers if you think the Sichuan peppers might be too hot):
*Chicken with Chiles
The chicken in this dish is marinated in rice wine, light and dark soy sauce, and salt. The marinated chicken is then stir-fried and set aside. Next, dried red chile peppers are stir-fried with garlic and Sichuan peppers.
The chicken goes back in the pot with chopped scallions. The dish is finished with sesame oil and served.
*Dry-fried Green Beans
The cooking technique here uses very little oil so the green beans’ flavor concentrates and the skin almost blisters. The green beans are cooked and set aside.
Then, oil is added to the wok along with ginger, garlic, and scallions. The green beans are added back in and stirred till coasted with the seasonings and blazing hot.
If you add rice, these two dishes make a nice meal that is a fun multicultural activity for the family.
Wok Wednesday can feature dishes from many countries around Asia, but Fuchsia Dunlop’s Food of Plenty seems to have the easiest directions to follow so you can make a delicious dish on your first try.
Happy Cooking!
By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
4 University of Chicago Professors Win Guggenheim Fellowships reposted by Ruth Paget
Subjects supported by these fellowships include:
-urban sociology - analyzing how needs like energy, food, and waste management in cities are impacting the environment
-art of Mesoamerica (Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras)
-19th and 20th century politics and culture in Russia and Europe
-deep sea oceanography and the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
Details about the awards follow:
Reposted by Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
Travel with well-read professors and classmates always sounds interesting to me.
Places UChicago can travel to with a university professor guide include:
-Antarctica
-Central Europe
-The Camino de Santiago in Northern Spain
-Southwest National Parks
-Tunisia
-Christkindlmarkts in Germany and Austria along the Danube River
-Mexico City and Oaxaca
University alumni clubs could help their tourism industry alumni with travel packages like the following ones:
https://mail.google.com/mail/mu/mp/465/#cv/priority/%5Esmartlabel_personal/19d97ace5ec8a7e6
Reposted by Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
Sam’s Wallet on YouTube delivers another tasty, fast, and delicious meal for under $2 made with ingredients from Trader Joe’s - North African Shakshuka.
For this dish you sauté onions with spices. Then, you add in marinara sauce and eggs. Toast points go around the pan for serving at the table.
What makes Sam’s Wallet great is that he calculates the price of ingredients that go into this dish that costs less than $2 per serving.
The YouTube video follows:
https://m.youtube.com/shorts/hbk3aZMIZro
Reposted by Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
This Vinted app for selling clothes looks interesting.
I have not used it, but if you are tech proficient, this might be a way to make money.
The app website follows:
Reposted by Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
Sam’s Wallet YouTube Narrator made homemade chicken noodle soup that gave him 10 meals for about $2 a day or a grand total of about $20 for an entire pot of soup.
What is nice about this video is that he gives the price for each ingredient and says that he bought most ingredients at Trader Joe’s.
This recipe is a healthy money-saver.
I am looking forward to viewing more of his work on YouTube.
The Sam’s Wallet video for homemade chicken noodle soup follows:
https://m.youtube.com/shorts/neWTKH3031I
Happy Cooking!
Reposted by Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games