Relaxing at the Indian Buffet by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Relaxing at the Indian Buffet by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

I loved taking my daughter Florence out for lunch at India’s Clay Oven in downtown Monterey, California with my poetry -writing friends in the late 1990s.  We all liked discussing books at our window table with a view of treetop and tourists going to Fishermans’ Wharf below at “India’s.”

Our 1990s drink orders were for chai – a spiced tea and milk drink from Central Asia that was becoming all the rage in California – and mango lhassi – a mango purée and yogurt drink that tastes like a tart milkshake.  Florence loved mango lhassis and usually ordered two.

India’s Clay Oven claimed to have eighteen items on its buffet, but they did not include all the soups or freshly chopped salad fixings and fruit in that number.

Thanks to labels above the food items, I knew that on my first visit I had filled my plate with flat, thick rounds of blistered naan bread and bright red thighs and drumsticks of tandoori chicken.  This combination is a hit everywhere in India.

These two items typify what is known a Punjabi-Moghul cuisine of Northwestern India according to Smita Chandra in her cookbook/history book entitled Cuisines of India:  The Art and Tradition of Regional Indian Cooking.

When the Punjab region became divided between India and Pakistan, Hindu refugees from Pakistan had to make new lives for themselves in India.  Many of them settled in Delhi, the capital of India’s ancient Mogul Empire and opened restaurants featuring food cooked in their traditional tandoor, a clay oven lined with charcoal.

Chandra further relates that the former chefs of the princely Northwestern Indian states, who lost their jobs after Independence had to find work much like French chefs after the French Revolution.  These chefs cooked Persian influenced Mogul cuisine featuring richly spiced curries and meat and rice and dishes; Indian food is not all vegetarian.

After several trips to “India’s,” I checked out Premila Lal’s The Complete Book of Indian Cooking to read up on tandoori chicken.  Tandoori chicken marinates in yogurt with seasonings such as lemon juice, cumin seeds, cinnamon, bay leaf, peppercorn, and cardamom.

Lal writes that a daughter-in-law knows she has been accepted into an Indian family when her mother-in-law shares the family spice recipes with her.

Lal’s cookbook share naan’s recipe as well: flour, eggs, yogurt, milk, and ghees – clarified butter.  I knew why I liked this warm naan bread so much, which has a few heat blistered spots that crunch.

My poetry writing friend Debra said I should really try the vegetable dishes, too.  I like the following tasty items:

-vegetable deep fried pakoras – potato and onion fritters

-bhartha – puréed roast eggplants with cumin, turmeric, paprika, garlic, green chilies, onion, gingerroot, and garam masala (spice combination) with sour cream

Between trips to the buffet table, we did talk about poetry like Neruda’s Birds and Rumi’s poetry of love.

Going to India’s Clay Oven was a sweet, mango lhassi lunch.  Metaphor is about all I can do in poetry.  Metre is too hard.

(Note:  India’s Clay Oven is now closed, but Ambrosia in Monterey serves wonderful food in a garden atmosphere with huge Nataraja statues from India presiding over the dining room.)

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

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Bug Safari Activity for Kids by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Bug Safari Activity for Kids by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

When I read that 7 citiies in the UK are participating in the #CityNatureChallenge on Twitter, I immediately thought of the “Bug Safari” program I did with the Monterey Peninsual Regional Parks District when I was the Youth Services Librarian for Monterey County California.

This is a school age – 12 and under – program that includes a nature walk with song, stories, and art projects afterwards.  The Parks District handled the nature walk, and I did the cultural part of the program.

Three libraries with nearby parks participated in the program:

-Marina – Locke Paddon Park

-Seaside – Laguna Grande Park

-Carmel Valley – Carmel Valley Park

After the walk with pointing out all cobwebs and flying creatures, we began the library park of the walk by singing The Itsy Bitsy Spider a few times till we got the gestures right.  The gestures help memorize the song.

Picture Books

Then, I read the following insect-related picture books:

-A picture book version of The Itsy Bitsy Spider as children made the hand gestures and recited

-Anansi the Spider books – African folktales about a smart spider

-The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

-The Ant and the Grasshopper fable from Aesop’s fables written by an ancient Roman storyteller

-A nonfiction photo book about chrysalis to butterfly formation

Art Projects

-3D Spider

Construction paper body with wobbly eyes pasted on and legs made of strips of construction paper folded back and forth and released as springs.  Use black construction paper and a white crayon to make a cobweb.

-Butterfly Painting

Fold white typing paper in half and fill in one side with paint to look like half a butterfly.  Fold the other side down and press.  Open paper up to find a symmetrical butterfly.

Can make a bumblebee this way with yellow and black alone.

-Use drawing books to draw the following insects:

-ladybugs

-butterflies

-mosquitos

-bees

-dragonflies

-spiders

The easiest drawing books for children to begin drawing insects break the bug down into geometric shapes and then color them in with pencils.

I used insect drawing books from the collection of the Monterey County Free Libraries, which included books such as the following:

-How to Draw Insects by Barbara Soloff Levy

-Ralph Masiello’s Bug Drawing Book by Ralph Masiello

-How to Draw: Insects by Dandi Palma

-Learn to Draw Insects: Step-by-Step Instructions for 26 Creepy Crawlies by Dina Fisher

-How to Draw Amazing Animals and Incredible Insects: Packed with Over 100 Fascination Animals by Fiona Gowne

To finish up, we would discuss which art projects were the most interesting to draw and why and which books they liked the best and why.

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

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Cooking Spanish Food - Part 2 - by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Cooking Spanish Food – Part 2 – by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

I served Viña Esmerelda from the Torres winery outside Barcelona, Spain with the gambas al ajillo (garlic shrimp).  The wine provided some “spin” stories, too.  Laurent and I relived our 1992 trip to Barcelona where we first tried this wine at the Los Caracoles restaurant.

I had just finished reading my first reference book in Spanish entitled Atlas de los Vinos de Espana (Atlas of Spanish wines) and could tell Laurent that Viña Esmerelda was made with muscat and gewürztraminer grapes.  Those grapes gave it a slightly sweet flavor that went well with the shrimp.

The wine’s name was the same as the heroine in Victor Hugo’s Hunchback of Nôtre Dame.   All this great spin came from one of the best kept secrets of the 1990s – inexpensive and very good Spanish wines.

The next dish I served was a roast leg of lamb that was really mutton.  I studded the roast with garlic and drizzled olive oil on it with thyme sprinkled on it to roast.

When the roast was medium rare, I carved it as Florence sprinkled chopped, fresh Italian parsley on white cannellini beans that would go with it.

I served the lamb-mutton on warm plates to keep the food hot so we could talk a long time.

I chose a French wine with not a Spanish one to go with the meal from the Bordeaux region – Lalande-de-Pomerol.  We bought that bottle as a souvenir from a Bordeaux area road trip.

Everyone liked the cognac-laced brownies.  Brownies may not be Spanish, but the Spaniards are the ones who brought Mexican chocolate to Europe along with other New World products such as corn (maiz), tomatoes, and potatoes.

The Spanish meal theme was a hit, but it can easily become all French, if you serve all French wines.

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

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Cooking Spanish Food - Part 1 - with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Cooking Spanish Food – Part 1 - with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

I volunteered to cook a Spanish anniversary meal for Laurent with little Florence as a guest one year when we lived in Wisconsin.  Spanish food is similar to what is made in Languedoc and the Pays Basque, which share the Pyrenées mountain region between them.

I took out my copy of Penelope Casas’ cookbook The Food and Wine of Spain to look up recipes.  This cookbook always makes me think of love as Casas described how she and her Spanish boyfriend sampled tapas (appetizers) in the “tasca” bars of Madrid.

That sweet story made me think of eating in Chicago’s many ethnic restaurants with Laurent when we first dated.

I read through Casas’ recipes and came up with my basic menu:

-Ensalada San Isidro

-Gambas al ajillo (garlic shrimp)

-Roast lamb with white beans

-Brownies (These are not Spanish, but Laurent and Florence both like them.)

I looked through our wines and wrote out our menu on a piece of bordered stationery with a rose on it.

This menu replaced the one that I had in a frame by the dining room table from our last meal.  I pasted the old menu in our menu journal of festive family meals.

Now all I had to do was deliver on my gourmet promises as I taught Florence how to do some things in the kitchen like mixing brownie batter.

The Ensalada San Isidro required marinating canned tuna (packed in oil) with red wine vinegar, minced onion, chopped parsley, and pepper overnight.  Casas’ recipe called for sour capers, but I did not use them, because Laurent does not like sour food.  Even without the capers, this marinated tuna salad was delicious and can also be used for sandwiches.

I liked rolling around the sound of “atún escabechado” for marinated tuna on my tongue.  I added this savory concoction to hand torn romaine lettuce that Florence helped tear after I washed it.   She added sliced tomatoes, chopped cooked white asparagus (from France), and sliced onion that we had soaked in warm water to mellow the taste.  Green olives with red pimiento peppers made the salad colorful.

Ensalada San Isidro is basically a tuna salad, but it has flair.  The flair, of course, came from telling Florence that San Isidro is the patron saint of farmers and shepherds in Spain and that God sent him to help with plowing.

It may be tuna salad, but it has a college education as we say in the United States.  The hagiography required a little research, but it let me add some “spin” to my food offerings in addition to nice bread to soak up the dressing, which we only do at home not in restaurants.

The gambas al ajillo (garlic shrimp) needed no spin; everyone who lives in the Midwest starves for fresh seafood.  Most shrimp in Wisconsin is frozen, which is fine if it is frozen raw shrimp that you can thaw and cook like fresh seafood.

End of Part 1.

To be continued…

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

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Attending a Poetry Slam in Monterey County California by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Attending a Poetry Slam in Monterey County California by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Most of Monterey County’s Poetry Slams are held in the East Village Coffee Lounge in downtown Monterey, but the Steinbeck Center in Salinas held one as part of the National Endowment of the Arts Big Read program honoring Carmel poet Robinson Jeffers when I was the youth services librarian for Monterey County.

I took my daughter Florence along to attend a poetry slam held in conjunction with the Robinson Jeffers Big Read.  Slam poetry is a performance art.  The genre is urban and was most definitely influenced by hip hop music.  The teen poets who performed that evening came from Oakland, California.

The evening was organized by Monterey’s local slam poets Garland Thompson and Marcos Cabrera – stars at the time at the East Village Coffee Lounge, newspaper writers, and fellow producers of youth summer reading programs from the Salinas Public Library.

Thompson began the evening by saying that poetry slams in coffee houses begin with people snapping their fingers to bring the poets on stage.  I began snapping my fingers rhythmically imitating dance music, looking forward to a great evening.

The teen poets dealt with every problem in the US and the world it seemed.  I was happy that social studies had not been dropped from school curriculums and that the teens had some solutions for pollution.

The only thing I would change about the evening would be to end with a Japanese renga poem, which has a same beginning that everyone adds to in order to bring everyone into the poetry circle.

Then, I would use poetry rounds to start having attendees think about simple poetry prompts for their own work.  The one round that everyone learns in kindergarten in “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.”  That one might generate laughs, but songs like “Home on the Range” and “America the Beautiful” encourage poets to look for beauty around them.

Reading a poem together might create a contemplative atmosphere for writing after an evening of poetry slamming.  My suggestion would be “A Negro Speaks of Rivers” by New York poet Langston Hughes in order to have Monterey County slam poetry attendees to think of our underground Salinas River and usually dry Carmel River.

I am not a poet, but love reading Japanese haiku poems about nature.  The form and subject are easy to learn and might be a good wrap up for a poetry slam as well.

I like slam poetry for the way it draws the audience in, but think it could be even more powerful by capitalizing on audience energy to write group poems and individual poems focused on solutions to maintain or retrieve unpolluted nature. (Clean, pristine water is beautiful, and we need it everywhere.)

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

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