Trying Palak Paneer in Monterey, California by Ruth Paget

Trying Palak Paneer in Monterey, California by Ruth Paget 

On a recent visit to Ambrosia Bistro in downtown Monterey, California during the Pro-Am Golf Tournament at Pebble Beach, I tried the palak paneer, a spinach-tomato-onion curry that was mildly flavored for the first time. 

According to www.epicurious.com, palak paneer is an Indian dish made with cubes of fresh cheese and stewed spinach and vegetables and spices that becomes a mild curry. Spinach is full of iron, which is good for blood health and helps give you rosy cheeks. The calcium in the cheese is good for bone strength. The protein in cheese helps with muscle development. 

The epicurious.com recipe for palak paneer calls for turmeric (claimed to be a cancer fighter), garlic cloves, ginger, ghee (Indian clarified butter), pearl onions, coriander seeds, red chile powder, asafoetida powder (an Indian spice that tastes like mild onions), and chopped tomatoes (Vitamin C rich tomatoes are also anti-oxidants that remove free radicals that can cause cancer in the body.)

Those ingredients with chopped, stewed spinach, tomatoes, and onions create a mild curry that has further protein added to it when tomatoes combine with a grain product like bread or rice. 

I dunked vegetable fritters called pakora in the palak paneer curry, tofu masala curry, and butter chicken curry that I chose from the lunch buffet. I used naan flat bread for the remaining curry. 

As a final note, epicurious.com notes that if you cannot find paneer cheese, you can make this dish with firm tofu. The result would be vegan not vegetarian. 

Ambrosia has a spacious downtown location with an outdoor garden in downtown Monterey by the Casa Munras Hotel and one on historic Cannery Row. Both offer a bit of peace during hectic planned schedules.  

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

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Apple Lifestyle by Ruth Paget

Apple Lifestyle by Ruth Paget 

A Short Apple Lifestyle Memoir: 

I drank 

Freshly pressed apple cider 

With warm, plain donuts 

As a child on field trips 

In Detroit, Michigan. 

I ate 

Apple omelets 

As a teenager on field trips 

In Windsor, Canada 

I ate 

Apple slices 

For dessert 

As an exchange student 

In Osaka, Japan 

I drank 

Wassail 

Spiced with cloves and cinnamon 

As a college student 

At the University of Chicago 

I ate 

Tarte Tatin 

An upside-down apple tart with dollops of whipped cream 

As a DINK In Tours and Paris, France 

I drank 

Brut apple cider 

With galettes filled with ham, sunny side up eggs, and cheese 

As a BCBG 

In Nantes, France 

I ate 

Apple-chopped walnut coffee cake 

For kaffeklatsches 

As a young mom 

In Madison, Wisconsin 

I ate 

Sautéd apple slices With fried pork chops 

As a Navy mom 

In Norfolk, Virginia 

I ate 

Apfel strudel 

With raisins and chopped hazelnuts 

As an expatriate 

In Stuttgart, Germany 

I eat 

Organic applesauce 

As a writer 

In Monterey, California 

For all my apple reference needs 

I consult 

The Apple Cookbook: 

125 Freshly Picked Recipes 

By Olwen Woodier 

For savory and sweet dishes. 

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

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Chicken and Vegetable Recipes for Novice Chefs by Ruth Paget

First Try Pretty Good Recipes by Ruth Paget 

French chef Jacques Pépin’s cookbook Poulets et Légumes: My Favorite Chicken and Vegetable Recipes contains many recipes that novice cooks can get right on their first or second attempt at making them. 

Six recipes that stand out in this cookbook include: 

For chicken: 

-Roast split chicken with Dijon mustard crust – 

The hardest part of this recipe is removing the chicken backbone. You can see how this is done on youtube by typing “how to remove a chicken backbone” in the search bar. You will hundreds of choices to watch. Pépin serves this dish with mashed potatoes. 

-Chicken-African-style with couscous 

This dish is based on one from Sénégal. The chicken is marinated in an onion marinade that becomes part of the chicken stew. Couscous is served in a mound with chicken surrounding it. 

-Chicken and Rice with cumin and cilantro – 

This is arroz con pollo that is chicken wings stewed with diced tomatoes, garlic, ginger, and onions served on Carolina long-grain rice. 

For Vegetables: 

-Steamed asparagus in Dijon mustard sauce 

-Fricassé of Brussels Sprouts and chopped bacon - 

This is sautéed slices of Brussels Sprouts with chopped bacon. 

-Potato Gratin – 

The easiest things are often the best. Sliced potatoes baked in heavy cream with Parmesan topping. 

Novice chefs will appreciate Jacques Pépin for providing authentic recipes that work well the first time in Poulets et Légumes: My Favorite Chicken and Vegetable Recipes. 

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

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Poetry Workshop for Teens by Ruth Paget

Poetry Workshop for Teens by Ruth Paget 

I write nonfiction and read poetry to make my nonfiction stronger. When I was a youth services librarian I sometimes put together workshops to introduce young poets in Monterey County to library resources for their writing and to do some writing with them to do show not tell writing. 

Some of my notes for young poets follow: 

Use Your Five Senses 

-All good poetry and fiction writing uses the five senses to create feeling and mood that allows readers to see images in their minds.

-Using your senses allows you to show not tell your story or poem. 

-We’ll look at a few examples, so you can see what this means. 

Sense of Sound 

-The loud music was great. 

Versus 

-The rhythm throbbed

until my heartbeat pounded 

along with the drums 

making my house keys jingle.

-Which description makes you remember a concert better? 

Sense of Touch 

-I’m freezing. 

Versus 

-Ice needles sting my eyes 

water in my eyes freeze

burning my pupils. 

Wind cuts through my coat 

On my Chicago walk To School. 

-Which description makes you feel cold or imagine better what walking down a Chicago street would feel like? 

Sense of Taste 

-It tasted horrible. 

Versus 

My lips and jaw pinched together 

my throat closed 

my tongue arched 

against sugar on steak.

-Which description gives you a better idea that you do not like what you are eating? 

Sense of Sight 

-It was a beautiful sunset. 

Versus 

-Rays of pink 

shoot across the sky 

dividing the gray ocean 

from white clouds. 

The orange disc sank 

Through clouds and water  

-Which description gives you a better picture of what the sunset looked like? 

Sense of Smell 

-The dirt smelled. 

Versus 

 -Wet, dirty socks and 

cotton corn 

tickled my nostrils 

as I lay in the field by the house. 

-Which description makes you sense odor? 

Your Turn to Write 

-Think about the walk we did today. (I ran workshops after a walk outside.) 

-Write down 1 or 2 sensations you have about the walk for the following senses. You will use this data bank to write poetry from various cultures: 

-Sound: 

-Touch: 

-Taste: 

-Sight: 

-Smell: 

What is haiku? 

-A seasonal poem with the first two lines setting up a scene and a third one that relates something unexpected. 

-Traditional form: 

-First Line = 5 syllables 

-Second Line = 7 syllables 

-Third Line = 5 syllables 

 -Written in the present or now tense. Haiku 

Example 

-From Haiku Handbook by William J. Higginson 

-A haiku by Matsuo Basho (1644 – 1694) 

-English translation: 

The stillness 

Soaking into the stones, 

Cicadas cry. 

Write a Haiku or Two 

-Think back to your nature walk 

-Write a haiku in the “now” about something you experienced during the walk.  

What is a renga? 

-A Japanese renga is a party poem where one poet provides a lead line and the other poets provide lines until you run out of ideas. 

-Rengas can be serious, but they often become silly. 

Let’s Write a Renga

-Lead idea: Metamorphosis or change from one state to another. 

-How did you know you had morphed into a teen? 

-When I got keys to the car. 

-When I had to buy groceries for mom after school. 

-When dad made me clean toilets. 

-You get the idea from this. 

What is a ghazal? 

-Pronounced “guzzle.” 

-Ghazals are the poetic form used by the Persian poets Hafiz and Sadi and the Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca. 

-The book Poetry for Dummies provides the following guidelines for writing ghazals: 

 -Every line must have the same number of syllables. 

-The ghazal is a series of 5 couplets (10 lines). 

-The first couplet rhymes.

-The poet’s signature (first name, last name, or both appears somewhere in the last couplet). 

-See the book for more details. 

Let’s Write a Ghazal -We’ll work on just one. They are hard. 

Try to put down 5 couplets, but break it down 

-5 couplets = 5 x 2 = 10 lines of verse 

-First couplets rhymes (10 lines – 2 lines = 8 lines to write) 

-Last couplet has your signature (8 lines – 2 lines = 6 lines to write) 

Just this brings you down to 6 lines in the body of your poem to work on. 

Write your first couplet and last couplet first and then fill in the rest. 

Parting Words 

-Poets often use metaphors such as “Love is a soaring plane.” 

Or 

-Similes such as “Love is like a soaring plane.” 

Metaphor = image picture 

Simile = an image picture using “like” 

Happy writing American bards!! 

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

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Tips for Running a Bilingual Storytime by Ruth Paget

Tips for Running a Bilingual Story Time by Ruth Paget 

When I began to work as the Youth Services Librarian for the Monterey County Free Libraries (California), I looked up the census figures for Monterey County and saw that Hispanics represented 51% of the County and that this population was growing. I could also see that many children came from families where English was not spoken at home from the census.

I wanted to run bilingual story times, which would encourage Spanish-speakers to learn English and encourage English speakers and other children to learn Spanish as a job skill later in life. In business terms, those two goals were my Mission Statement. My Vision Statement was to get story times done in French, an Asian language, Italian, and German and other languages depending on demand. 

Songs teach rhythm, which is very important for oral understanding of any language, including English, and for making yourself understood when you speak a foreign language. You especially learn what is acceptable pitch in a foreign language. People usually do not want to buy things from salespeople, who sound like they are screaming. 

Songs with little exercise games help children learn to distinguish between right and left. Math and driving both need you to know the difference between right and left. These song-games build coordination as well. You are supposed to have finger plays with songs in story hours that go with a saying to help coordinate small-motor muscle movement in the hands. I prefer using art activities to develop small-motor muscle development, because most finger-play games use made-up vocabulary or are religious. 

Many people who do story time use puppets. The County did not have good puppets when I joined the county libraries and no stage, so I hired professional, puppet troupes to do puppet shows for the summer reading program. Professional puppeteers also know that children suspend belief when watching puppet shows; They are like television shows. 

Traditionally, puppet shows whether they be held in Java or Sicily, for example, had shows for the aristocracy where the children could learn etiquette and watch puppet shows about Roland the knight. The peasants got to watch Pinocchio by Collodi. 

When I ran the bilingual story time, I would give the song sheet lyrics on pieces of copy paper in English and Spanish. I let the moms who were there take the song sheets home, so they could sing these songs to their children at home and also learn English or Spanish. 

After songs, you read a story book or two, do some more songs with movement exercises, and an art project related to the books, so the children can remember the theme of the book and learn how to use items such as scissors, tape, paste, paints, and pencils. The best art projects also teach design and color coordination in addition to the use of basic office products. 

Children who go to story times and who are read to at home on a daily basis have an enormous advantage in number of vocabulary words they know when they go to kindergarten. They also know how to behave, so they can learn higher-level skills while other children are just learning the alphabet. (Spanish-speaking parents can use English-language audio books with their children and have them follow along with the text to learn English.) 

I went to story times at the public library in Highland Park, Michigan and at Bible School at my church on Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings in addition to having my family read to me on a daily basis. I had a major problem when I went to kindergarten, because I could already read. My Chinese kindergarten teacher made me learn numbers and counting very well to stop disturbing class. 

Story times and summer reading entertainment programs are offered at 11:30 am usually, because that is the optimal time for children to absorb knowledge according to my former supervisor. I volunteered to do evening and weekend story times for working parents, but according to upper managers, the public was not interested, because families did sports and shopping on the weekends.  They were right.  I insisted on trying and no one came.

A good story time requires just as much planning as a lesson plan for children to learn anything in them. I have never believed in story time as “entertainment” or as a competitor for television, movies, and video games. And, certainly not a time to promote book tie-in merchandise displayed around the library, tie-in contests, and tie-in book bag choices in the library. 

If you want story time to be just fun, you can go to Chucky Cheese Pizza and play games to win stuffed toys. (Young children and teens should be viewed as minds to develop and not as a marketing group, who makes guilty parents buy them books to make up for not spending quality time with them.) 

The Monterey County Libraries had and probably still has one of the best collections in the country for doing bilingual story times. The books are located throughout its seventeen branches. Borrowers can request books from all branches online.

I used books similar to the ones below to do bilingual story times. You can use the Amazon “Look Inside” feature to help you judge, if you would like to buy these books, if they are not available at your library: 

Bilingual Song Books 

-The Bilingual Book of Rhymes, Songs, Stories, and Finger Plays by Pam Schiller, Rafael Lara-Alecio, and Beverly J. Irby 

-Pio Peep! Traditonal Spanish Nursery Rhymes selected by Alma Flor Ada and F. Isabel Compoy 

-De Colores and Other Latin-American Folk Songs for Children selected, arranged, and translated by Jose-Luis Orozco 

Pre-School Games and Exercises 

-Unique Games and Sports Around the World: A Reference Guide edited by Doris Corbett, John Cheffers, and Eileen Crowley Sullivan 

-303 Preschooler – Approved Exercises and Active Games by Kimberly Wechsler 

Puppet Theatre 

-The Italian Puppet Theatre: A History by John McCormick 

-A Show of Hands: Using Puppets with Young Children by Ingrid M. Crepeau and M. Ann Richards 

Art Education for Preschoolers 

-Creative Art for the Developing Child: A Guide for Early Childhood Education by Clare Cherry 

-The Child Care Centers Management Guide by Clare Cherry 

A note on summer reading:

Some families do fun birthday parties for their children with pony rides, clowns, puppets, magicians, ventriloquists, musicians, artists who teach portrait drawing and cartoon drawing, juggling, English parlor games, etiquette lessons from around the world as host and guests eat lovely ethnic meals, self-defense sports demonstrations in sports such as karate and capoeira angola, and ballroom dancing lessons. Some families even teach old-fashioned ballroom dancing at these affairs.  

I planned activities like these for summer reading at the Monterey County Free Libraries to make summer reading a free summer camp for children and teens here.  Several of the programs featured bilingual entertainers.  It is fun and nerve-wracking to plan 130 shows like these in a six-week period, but I am glad I did it.

Finally, Two Theory Books about why Story Time and Summer Reading are Great Enrichment Programs for Youth:

-Play, Dreams, and Imitation in Childhood by Jean Piaget 

-The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray 

-Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paolo Freyre

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

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Tortilla Making Failure by Ruth Paget

Tortilla Making Failure by Ruth Paget 

I could honestly say I had no culture shock when adjusting to life in Stuttgart (Germany) when I lived there except for on major drawback – no Mexican food. 

For a Californian, this is severe homeopathic withdrawal. I rely on Vitamin-C rich chile peppers, tomatoes, cilantro, and lime juice and sulfa-compounds in onions found in pico de gallo salsa to boost my immune system.  

Germany’s polar vortex winters convinced me to try making my own Mexican food. German bookstores do not carry English-language cookbooks. (They do have some tech ones I noticed on C+++ for designing apps.) 

I had a kindle and purchased Everyday Mexican by Rick Bayless to try and make an authentic Mexican meal at in Germany. German stores and the commissary on base did not sell tortillas. I turned to Amazon to order masa harina and a manual tortilla press.

I waited for these items to be delivered and reread the tortilla recipe many times. Finally, Laurent brought them home and said the mailroom people said, “You cannot live without those items in Germany.”

Masa harina is a corn meal that has been nixtamalized, soaked with calcium hydroxide and water and then rinsed. Nixtamalized corn becomes sticky so a corn tortilla can hold together with the addition of water before cooking without the addition of lard. (Flour tortillas use lard to hold together.) 

Using the directions Everyday Mexican, I patted out little balls of masa harina to press. I put plastic wrap on the bottom of the press and placed the dough on top. I put another piece of plastic wrap on top of that and pressed down. The ball went squish and stuck to the plastic wrap on both sides. I had obviously put too much water in the masa harina. On the next press, I dusted the bottom plastic wrap with masa harina and the top of the dough ball. That worked better. 

The tortillas were about ¼-inch thick, but I griddled them anyways. That is thick by tortilla standards, but I thought they looked sweet. I put them in a tortilla warmer that I had brought from California and prepared the taco toppings. 

I made my own seasoning for the meat with cayenne pepper and dry garlic from Gilroy, California. I grated allgäu emmentaler cheese (a local adaptation), shredded cabbage (a local adaptation with Vitamin C I found out), chopped tomatoes, chopped a mild green pepper, and put a spoon in the mild salsa I found in the snacks aisle at the commissary.  

The first thing Laurent said about the tortillas was, “These are thick. Are they cooked through?” I said I had tasted them and that they were good. 

Thanks to Rick Bayless, I knew that tortillas were versatile and had different names depending on shape and function, which I explained to Laurent as follows: 

“So, this chubby tortilla made into a taco is a gordita. If you keep the tortilla flat and put items on top of it, you have a tostada. If the tortilla is made into a boat shape with raised edges, it becomes a sope. If the tortilla is stuffed with beans and griddled, it becomes a panucho.” 

I would like to be a purist who always wants authentic food, but I learned to like the German tacos I made. The commissary finally sold Old El Paso hard corn tortillas, which I used, but I am glad I tried to make corn tortillas at home with Everyday Mexican by Rick Bayless. 

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

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Nopalito for Mexican Food by Ruth Paget

Nopalito for Mexican Food by Ruth Paget 

In 2024, I am sure many people in San Francisco have eaten at Nopalito Mexican restaurants, have read reviews of Nopalito restaurants in the newspaper and magazines, and have discussed its online reviews as if they were Parisians. 

I live in a small city about two hours south of San Francisco where not all the dishes described in the cookbook Nopalito: A Mexican Kitchen by Gonzalo Guzman and Stacy Adimando are available.  I would try all of Nopalito’s dishes that I suspect are popular in Veracruz Mexico on the Gulf of Mexico where Guzman grew up. 

Three dishes that I think look delicious and doable at home include: 

*Ensalada de Frutas (Fruit Salad with Chile Pepper and Lime) made with lime juice, orange juice, watermelon cubes, bite-sized melons, queso fresco (a Mexican cheese like mozzarella), spices and sauces made with sweet and mildly spicy red guajillo chile peppers and spicy, red arból peppers. 

*Ensalada de Nopales (Cactus Leaf Salad) made with dethorned, Nopale cactuas leaf paddles, salt, red onion, lime juice, tomatoes, avocado, cotija cheese (Mexican cheese like ricotta), and chopped fresh cilantro. 

*Panuchos de Pollo (Black-bean stuffed tortillas with shredded chicken) made with tortillas that are stuffed then fried or grilled. The panucho is topped with shredded chicken, citrus, achiote (a Mexican herb), pickled red onions, and spicy habanero chile salsa. Two or three panuchos can be eaten as a meal. 

For the moment, these items do not appear on menus in Monterey County, but this could change overnight as regional Mexican food is becoming popular. I filled three lined sheets of paper with names of Mexican taquerías in the city of Salinas alone. The Noplalito dishes might be here. I just need to visit all the taquerías to find this information out. 

Thankfully, if I decide to cook Mexican food at home, the Nopalito cookbook by Gonzalo Guzman is a good guide, because it shows how to make basic ingredients like corn and flour tortillas, Mexican cheese, and sauces. It is a great reference cookbook for this reason. 

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

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