Introducing Northern and Southern Chinese Food to Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Introducing Northern and Southern Chinese Food to Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget



My sister worked as a waitress at the Ho-Ho Inn, a Chinese restaurant on Cass Street in Detroit.  She sat a plate of Egg Foo Yung in front of five-year-old me.

I had a way with words and quickly renamed this Egg Foo “Yuck.”  Tears ran down my cheeks as I thought about eating this worm-like mess of food.

The Chinese waiter called George came in and looked at me.  He took the Egg Foo “Yuck” and threw it in the garbage.  Then, he went to the freezer and brought me one of those ice cream treats that Chinese restaurants serve; a coconut-flavored outer shell of ice cream surrounding a mango core.

My sister came in and glared at me.  George said, “She ate everything, so I gave her an ice cream.”  I smiled sweetly at George.  My love for the Chinese, if not their food, began at that instant.

When I was fifteen, I raised $42,000 with 21 other young people to visit the People’s Republic of China in 1979.  We wanted to see how a “developing” country was able to provide a stellar education to its students in addition to visiting the Great Wall and the Forbidden City. 

I dreaded the culinary side of our trip and packed 100 antacid tablets in my suitcase.

I did not like pork, China’s staple meat.  I was suspicious of all seafood except shrimp.  I impolitely took half of the serving plate full of sweet and sour shrimp when that appeared on the table.

My tour mates curbed this piggy behavior by telling me the shrimp were cat, rat, or dog meat.  I subsisted on rice and soup broth for two weeks.  I left unknown soup ingredients in my bowl.  I cringe now when I think of wasting food in a country that still had a collective memory of famine.

At lunch on a commune outside Shanghai, our grandmotherly-looking tour guide with a round face, gray hair, and a body made rotund by swaddling in layers of clothing topped off by a blue Mao jacket asked me if I would like some pork.

“No, thank you, Ms. Woo-Ching,” I politely responded.

Ms. Woo-Ching placed a large serving of pork on my plate.

“Would you like some soup?” she asked.

I politely refused again.

She smiled and ladled out some wonton soup into a bowl, which she placed in front of me.

I, “the foreign devil,” recognized a lost battle.

“I’ll try a little of everything,” I said and watched in horror as something hot, white, and topped off with pork was placed in front of me.

The white stuff was bean curd.  I tried it and loved it.

“Ms. Woo-Ching, please tell the farmworkers that Chinese food is delicious,” I said.

In college, my friends and I went to hole-in-the-wall restaurants in Chicago’s China Town where daily specials were written in Chinese characters on chalkboards.

I was in third-year Japanese at the University of Chicago and could read characters.  I was able to order the daily specials, because I could read characters.  For 1/3 the price, we ate the food served in restaurants with red vinyl seat cushions and lanterns with tassels.

During senior year, I worked for a translation company that was also the U.S. advertising representative for several Chinese newspapers including the People’s Daily.  I was a salesman and sold sponsorships and handled all the public relations for the first Super Bowl broadcast in China the year the Chicago Bears won the Super Bowl.

Every time we signed a contract, we would go to a banquet, sometimes two, at the House of Hunan or Szechuan House in downtown Chicago to celebrate.  Years later when I read the Time-Life Foods of the World book on China, I realized that I had consumed a lot of shark fin soup, which is a traditional celebratory dish.

By the time I finished college, I thought to myself, “How could I have disliked Chinese food?”

When I was 31 and living in Wisconsin, I bought a wok and Kenneth Lo’s Encyclopedia of Chinese Cooking at a garage sale.  I cleaned and re-seasoned the wok into working condition.  The cookbook listed 40 different cooking techniques and said that this was “just an abbreviated list.”

I had to relearn how to chop vegetables for these different cooking techniques.  One chopping pattern resembles a trapezoid.  I never thought I would see one of those again after taking the Scholastic Aptitude Test to get into college.

To cook Chinese food you have to supply your pantry with things like dry mushrooms, oyster sauce, soy sauce, glass noodles, rice wine, ginger root, garlic, and dehydrated shrimp.

I tried several dishes, but my family had its favorites: Cantonese rice (fried rice with eggs, chopped pork, shrimp, carrots, peas, and scallions – a kind of Chinese hash), egg drop soup, and stir-fried beef in oyster sauce.

I taught Florence how to use Chinese chopsticks, which are square-bottomed at the end and long versus Japanese chopsticks, which are pointy at the end and shorter than Chinese chopsticks.

When Florence was a little older, I showed her China on the map and said, “Rice grows in the south of China where it’s hot and rainy in summer.”

I pointed to the north of China and said, “The Chinese grow wheat for noodles and dumplings here.”

I showed Florence how to stir-fry bok choy and hope she’ll visit China one day without antacid in her suitcase.

Later when I worked as a restaurant critic for the Monterey County Weekly newspaper (Circulation 200,000).  I reviewed Chef Lee’s, which has been in Monterey for two decades.

I was in charge of a banquet now and had to do the ordering and seating arrangements.  The menu follows:

-San San Soup – egg drop soup with scallops and shrimp

-Walnut shrimp

-Chef Lee’s Special Lamb

-Mongolian Beef

-Mandarin Fried Chicken

-Tsing Tao Beers

I was surprised to see lamb on Chef Lee’s menu, but after reading Nina Simonds Classic Chinese Cuisine, I learned that China’s northern regions have a large Muslim population.  Muslims do not eat pork and prefer lamb.

After our meal, we drank jasmine tea just like you are supposed to do.

By Ruth Paget - Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Introducing Wine Culture and Business in Napa Valley (CA) to Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Introducing Wine Culture and Business in Napa Valley (CA) to Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget 

One of my family’s favorite places to go during summer when my daughter Florence was young was Napa Valley outside San Francisco.

Little Florence was not going drink wine, but I wanted her to know about wine culture, since it is important to California’s economy.

We had three destinations on our usual Napa itinerary – Sattui Winery, the Robert Mondavi Winery, and Trader Joe’s to buy wine.

Sattui Winery has been a San Francisco secret for decades, because they have a market with items such as terrines, pâtés, baguettes, French cheese, salami, mesclun salads, and made-to-order sandwiches in addition to Italian soda, French soda, and wine. 

You can eat on the premises at picnic tables or benches.  Sometimes bands play.  Children can always play here, making this a nice outing for children.

You used to be able to do wine tastings for free, but now that their wines have won several awards, and the winery is a stop on the Napa wine train, you have to pay for tastings.

There are some things to do after eating.  We would always walk around the vineyard with Florence.

“These stone buildings look like the ones you can see in Tuscany, Italy or Languedoc, France.  Daddy and I saw wineries like this one when we were on our honeymoon in Italy, France, and Spain,” I said.

We walked by the edges of the vineyards where I told Florence, “Never pick the grapes in a vineyard to eat.  That’s a huge no-no.”

Laurent laughed and said, “The vineyard owners might come after you with hunting dogs for eating grapes in the vineyard.”

“That’s not funny,” Florence said.

“It’s vineyard etiquette,” I said.  “You might get yelled at in French and chased with a pitchfork, if they don’t have the dogs out,” I said, continuing my vineyard etiquette lesson.

After inspecting the vineyards, we would cross the street and go to the Dean & Deluca brick-and-mortar store to get some Le Perroquet brown sugar cubes for tea.

We would always inspect the cheese section.  Barcelona and the Catalan region of Spain surrounding Barcelona were very fashionable when Florence was growing up, so we would get a Catalan cheese like Garrotxa to eat.

When I bought that, Florence called it, “The gross cheese.”

We have started eating at Tarla’s in downtown Napa now that Florence is older, but Sattui’s is still a nice place to go with younger children.

The next stop on our Napa wine tour was usually the Robert Mondavi Winery.  The winery is white and towering with lots of arches – perfect for fashion photos.

The tasting bar is full of San Francisco’s upwardly mobile professionals, who describe the wine they taste as “dancing on the tongue” and “having a luscious bouquet.”

Mondavi was a genius at marketing; all Napa wines are excellent, but he created cachet.  I just liked to see how he placed wine glasses, wine buckets, corkscrews, and towels together with wine carriers for al fresco dining.  I asked Florence what she liked on the table in the era of marketing to children.

“The glasses with the picture,” she said, referring to an etched glass with the Mondavi logo.  I knew from my work in marketing research that children like logos and being associated with prestige brands.  Florence’s remark just confirmed every kid’s love for designer anything I thought.

I looked at some of the winery’s more high-end merchandising, which featured a flowing Hermes-like scarf surrounded with bracelets and earrings.

“A lot of people get dressed up to drink wine,” I said to Florence.

“When are some of the times people get dressed up to drink wine?” I asked Florence.

“Weddings, baptisms, Christmas, Easter, birthday parties, and Sunday lunch,” Florence responded.

“It’s better for your liver to limit wine to those occasions,” I said to Florence.

On the way home, we would stop at Trader Joe’s to go wine shopping.  They had wines from all around the world on sale, but I would head to the Italian wine section.

I always bought some Barolos from the Piedmont region, which is considered Italy’s best red wine.  I would also get some Amarone wines from the Veneto region outside Venice.

We would also scout the shelves for some bottles of Grgich, one of the winners in the 1976 Paris Tasting that pitted Napa wines against French ones.  When Napa wines won, the Napa region became world famous.

By the time we bought the wine, we were sun-burnt and ready to go home with our Napa Valley booty.

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Enjoying Parisian Brunches at Cafe de la Presse in San Francisco (CA) with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Enjoying Parisian Brunches at Cafe de la Presse in San Francisco (California) with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

When Florence was young, my husband Laurent and I would take her to the Café de la Presse in San Francisco.

I would tell her that San Francisco is very Parisian for its literary scene like author talks at the City Lights Bookstore, museums, symphony, plays and musicals, and restaurants like Café de la Presse.

The Café de la Presse is jokingly called the “cantine” by French consulate employees.  (“Canteen”, meaning “lunchroom” in English).  The restaurant is famous for great daily specials that cost about $30 for a 3-course meal to fit the consulate employees’ per diem for food expenses.  On the weekend, the prices go up.

There is a huge parking garage by Café de la Presse, because it is located across the street from the main entrance to China Town.

You have to make reservations to eat in the lower level restaurant.  The upper level has a coffee bar, pastries, and magazines from the UK, US, France, and Italy.  You always arrive early to get some press to read.

We picked out our orders quickly and then looked like the Parisians that the Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva describes in her poems as only having eyebrows and foreheads visible behind their newspapers.

I would always buy Corriere della Sera newspaper from Milan, Italy to read.  The Italians know all the dirt and publish it first.  I have been able to read Italian at a high level for a long time.  

I smirked as I read this newspaper, because I knew the copies had been ordered for the Consul General.  I guess he would have to go to San Francisco’s North Beach Italian neighborhood for newspapers and pre-press gossip.

My family follows the Mediterranean Diet; it is easy to do in California.  I used the plan set out by the Oldways Preservation Trust and checked it out with a doctor before we started following it.  We came to Café de la Presse to get a once-a-month meal of fine steak.

The Med Diet Oldways describes is traditional only for the last 500 years, because American foods such as tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, and green beans have only been present in the Mediterranean diet since Columbus and subsequent explorers of the New World brought them back to Europe.

Every trip to Café de la Presse would come with a mini-nutrition lecture from mom, “Your main meal of the day should have a protein-carbohydrate-vegetable mix with the vegetable and carbohydrate forming an additional protein, if possible.  Calcium comes in the form of milk, cheese, and/or yogurt,” I said.

“What does protein do?” Florence would ask.

“It’s important for your hair.  If you want thick hair, you need to eat it,” I said.

“Why is calcium important?” Florence asked.

“Calcium builds strong bones,” I said.

I added, “Orange vegetables like carrots and butternut squash have vitamin A, which is important for vision.  Your generation really needs that for all the work you do on computers.  Spinach has iron for blood and muscles.  Cabbage and mushrooms both help with constipation.”

Laurent asked, “What are protein combinations?” with Gallic concern.

“Vegetarians combine the amino acids in plant items to get what you would in meat.  We eat these all the time – stuff like turmeric rice with peas, beans and rice, bean and vegetable soups with quinoa flour mixed in.  Sometimes I add chickpea flour, which has a lot of iron in it to soups and powdered milk for calcium as well,” I said.

“I know you make up menus for the week, but do you really have a plan for doing this?” Laurent asked.

“I do.  

Monday through Thursday, we eat things like omelets, pasta with Alfredo sauce, soup, and potato dishes and casseroles.

On Fridays, we eat fish and oven-baked potatoes.

On Saturdays, we eat chicken or pork.

On Sunday, we eat shrimp or scallops three times a month.  Once a month we eat red meat.

We’re not starving on this diet.  We’ve been eating this way for twenty years.  (Make that 30 years as of 2017),” I said.

After lunch, we would usually take a walk in China Town and buy Chinese music, postcards, and chopstick holders.

Walking is important to the Med Diet, too, I like to think.  

By Ruth Paget - Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Visiting the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco (CA) with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget and Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco (CA) with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget and Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

About every two or three months while Florence was growing up, my husband Laurent and I would go to the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco to show Florence the artwork from Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia that was linked with the literature and oral storytelling she was learning in her charter Waldorf School.

Florence was studying mythology and philosophy from such works as the Shahmaneh from Iran, Zarathustra’s Zend-Avesta from Iran, the Bhagavad Gita from India, Buddhist Jataka Tales from India, and Panchantranta Tales from Kashmir at school.  The children heard these stories told in oral form and acted them out with classmates.  In this way, they learned to inhere motives, behaviors, and their lines easily.

Florence also studied Japanese and Spanish language and culture at school.  I thought her Japanese teacher was doing a wonderful job and just supplemented the work she did at school with some activities at home.  I knew her teacher had taught the children about the Japanese tea ceremony and had brought in the utensils for the children to handle.

The Asian Art Museum has a real teahouse on display, and Florence always peeked through both sides that are open as if it were a dollhouse.  (I will write another blog on how I taught Florence about Japanese culture.)

The permanent collection of the Asian Art Museum is designed so that you start at the top floor with Hindu art from India.  Then, you work your way down the floors to Buddhism, which is an offshoot of Hinduism.  Buddha was a prince from the Ksatriya caste before he became Buddha.

Guan Yin, the Chinese earth goddess made into a Buddhist bhoddisatva, leads one into the art of China and East Asia.  She is sometimes portrayed as a man.  The Mahayana Buddhist Art (called “greater vehicle”) of China, Japan, and Korea is displayed first followed by the Theravada Buddhist art of Southeast Asia.  (Theravada is the preferred name of Hinayana Buddhism, which means “lesser vehicle.”)

There is not as much Vajrayana Buddhist art of Tibet here, but they do have some scary-faced protective deities to growl back at with kids.

I would always make sure that Florence, Laurent, and I would look at a statue of an Earth Touching Buddha, an iconographical statue mostly associated with Thailand.  The Buddha in this pose is captured at the moment where he acknowledges his enlightenment.

Mara, the demon of illusion, tried to keep Buddha from achieving enlightenment, but Buddha meditated and overcame Mara. 

I would show Florence various parts of the Buddha in the Earth Touching pose and say, “The bun of hair on top of his head, his elongated ears from wearing heavy jewelry, and his lovely, yet simple clothing all show that he was from the Ksatriya caste of kings and soldiers.  His hand touching the ground is a mudra, or hand position, showing that Buddha has defeated Mara, representing the illusory world.”

We all loved admiring the jade-green porcelain ware from Korea.

In the Southeast Asian section, Florence was most interested in the Javanese puppets from the wayang kulit, Javanese puppet theatre.  Traders in Java knew a top-dollar novelty when they saw one and took this art form around the world.  I had studied puppets when I was studying early children’s education and French children’s culture in Wisconsin.

I learned from my readings and interviews that there were puppet shows performed for the aristocracy and the common people.  Aristocratic stories revolved around teaching royal etiquette, royal prerogative, and fashion.  Royals could communicate with the populace through puppet shows.

Blurted comments in response to the puppet show might alert a sovereign to a fomenting revolution.  Family members who paid for these performances might be wishing to show their new ranking in a family, for instance, or their admission into the ranks of the local elite (i.e. aristocratic and royal overseers).

Basically, puppets were a kind of interactive television of their time.  Children set up a fourth wall between them and performers very easily, especially when you hold conversations between puppets and change voices.  I have tested this with dolls, teddy bears, paper bag puppets, and Barbie dolls; children just watch the dialog and forget that the puppeteer is there.

While Florence was looking at the Javanese puppets, I told her, “Their big eyes make it easy to see them in the back of an audience.  Their eyes also seem to glow, because the Javanese puppet performances went on all night long.

Make-up for the theatre is also done, so people in the back rows can see you.  People with small features, especially need to know how to use make-up for the theatre.

“In some cultures like Japan, the bunraku puppet theatre plays were turned into kabuki theatre for adults,” I told Florence.  “So, remember, puppets really are not child’s play alone.”

One of the most interesting exhibits we went to at the Asian Art Museum was devoted to the royal art of Afghanistan.  The art on display was called Ghandaran, because it uses Graeco-Roman style to portray Buddhist figures and concepts.  Florence laughed about the Buddhas and figures with moustaches and bulging muscles.

Outside the exhibit, there was an example of an archaeological dig set up for children.  Strings divided a sandbox where “artifacts” were buried in the sand.  Florence spent about 45 minutes digging up urns, bowls, necklaces, and swords.

“Now you have to be a real archaeologists and write a story about the kinds of people who made these things,” I said to Florence.

We always leave this museum happy and enlightened.

I recommend the teacher resources website for activities and information:

Education.asianart.org

(120 Lessons and Activities, 302 Artworks, 514 videos, and 190 Background Information Sheets)

By Ruth Paget - Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Hiking in Yosemite National Park (CA) with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget and Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Hiking in Yosemite National Park (CA) with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget and Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Every spring when my daughter was small, my family would go to Yosemite National Park to see the Bridalveil Fall with its gushing waters from melting snow and hike among the giant sequoia trees.

It always seems to take forever to get into the park, but once we did, we headed straight to see Bridalveil Fall and the towering block of granite called El Capitan, that is famous as a screensaver on computer screens.

“El Capitan over there is granite,” I told Florence.  “It’s like the rocks out at Point Lobos in Carmel.  It’s an igneous rock.”

“That means a volcanic rock, right?” she asked.

“Yes.  It’s made from magma, also known as lava,” I said.

Florence knew all about volcanoes and igneous rocks from her class trip to Mount Lassen, a visit to a Stanford University geology professor’s lab, a visit to Stanford’s geology library, and her project on volcanoes that she did for the Monterey County Science Fair.

I would often show her photos from books of Ansel Adams photos of the Park in black and white before we visited.  “These mountain faces were made to look this way by rivers eroding, or wearing away, valley floors and by glaciers covering and then retreating from the area,” I said. 

Adams’ photos are very good at illustrating these points, because there are no distracting colors from flowers, for instance.  His photos of Yosemite Valley and the Tuolumne Meadows, which is described as a sub-Alpine meadow surrounded by majestic peaks and domes on the Park’s website, show depth and height with just black, white, and gray. 

Every visit to Yosemite required a visit to the Yosemite Museum where we could look at photos of the Miwok and Paiute people, who originally populated this region.  During tourist season, there is usually someone weaving baskets in this museum.

Finally, we would be off to the Mariposa Grove to walk among the towering sequoias in the dry heat of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

As we walked through the sequoias, I would tell Florence, “Did you know that in the Brazilian Rainforest, they say that there are tons of animals that live in the treetops that never come down to the ground.  That might be the same here.  What do you think might live in the tops of these trees?”

“Bugs, spiders, squirrels, and birds,” Florence replied.  I thought she must have started a biology unit at school for the rapid response she gave me.

I stretched my arms upward and said to Florence, “I am tall like a sequoia.”

“You’re little,” said Florence.

About six miles into Mariposa Grove, we would collectively decide that our legs hurt and we were tired.  “I love Yosemite, but you could also call this place ‘Yosemite Sore Legs,’” I said.  I thought that would be a good title for a cartoon series.

Once we hiked back six miles, we would eat a picnic lunch.  Laurent would tell me before each Yosemite visit, “Don’t bring the wicker picnic basket.  We’re going hiking.  Just bring the cooler.”

One thing I would not give up was using a nice, cotton tablecloth to cover the picnic table we would eat on.  In addition to looking nice, the tablecloth cuts down on insects coming to get your food from under the table and you do not have to eat on a table that might have bird droppings on it.

I would usually make ham and cheese sandwiches on a baguette with Orangina and water to drink.  We had Nutella to eat on baguette slices as dessert.

Before leaving the park, we would stop and look at the cross-section of a sequoia tree that had been cut down.

I would trace out a thicker band in the trunk and say, “Thicker bands show the years where there was lots of rainfall.  Thinner bands show the years where there was drought, or little rainfall.  Can you find some years with a lot of rainfall?” I asked Florence.

She would point some out.  Then, I’d ask, “What about drought years?”  She found those, too. 

After the sequoia trunk lesson, we would head home and stop in town to buy bear claw muffins to get some gooey carbohydrates after a workout in the woods.

By Ruth Paget - Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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