Carmel Valley Garden Show - May 4, 2025 reposted by Ruth Paget

The Carmel Valley Garden Club will be hosting the Carmel Valley Garden Show on May 4, 2025.

Information below;

Click for Carmel Valley Garden Show Information

Reposted by Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

45th Quilts by the Bay Exhibit - May 2 -4, 2025 reposted by Ruth Paget

The 45th Annual Quilts by the Bay exhibit is being held in Pacific Grove, California on May 2 - May 4, 2025. 

Information about the event and tickets follow:

Click for Quilts by the Bay Tickets

Reposted by Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Nourishing Waffles by Ruth Paget

Nourishing Waffles by Ruth Paget 

I learned that waffles, even toaster Eggo waffles, contain protein and calcium thanks to the egg and milk in their ingredients in my health and nutrition classes in junior high and high school in Detroit, Michigan where many descendants of Dutch origin live. 

According to Wonderful Mini Waffles by Catherine-Gail Reinhard and the editors at Dash, waffles are Dutch and came to what is now the United States in the 1620s when the Dutch founded New Amsterdam (later named New York). 

From New York, waffles spread throughout the US especially with Dutch settlers like my teachers and classmates in Detroit. My thin teachers told us to limit ourselves to two small waffles with two tablespoons maple syrup to keep calories down. (Maple syrup was readily available to us in Michigan.) 

When I moved to Europe in the late 1980s, I ate warm waffles with powdered sugar on them that I bought from street vendors in Brussels, Belgium as I toured comfortably well off Brussels that is rich on lambic beer and the income of Europe’s civil servants. 

Belgium is also a famous country for waffles thanks to the country’s Flemish population. The Flemish are the Catholic cousins of the Protestant Dutch north of Belgium. 

Waffles are easy to make at home with a waffle iron. You have to remember to only fill the bottom of the iron with batter. You lower the top lid on top of the base. The waffles ingredients will make the waffle rise to double its size with the heat.

I own an excellent cookbook that has recipes for both sweet and savory waffles (162 pages) that was written as a companion book to go with a Dash mini waffle iron (4-inches in diameter). The cookbook entitled Wonderful Mini Wafles, was written by Catherine-Gail Reinhard. Three sweet waffle recipes stand out to make this book a great purchase. 

The stand out recipes include: 

-classic recipes made with eggs, milk, flour, and batter (waffle batter is made with more butter than pancakes) 

-Belgian Liège waffles made like classic waffles with the addition of vanilla, honey, and cinnamon  

-banana bread waffles made with mashed bananas, buttermilk, and brown sugar 

Readers who might enjoy this book include: 

-young families 

-college students 

-baby sitters

-lacto-ovo vegetarians

For everything about sweet and savory waffles, Wonderful Mini Waffles by Christine-Gail Reinhard is an excellent purchase. 

(Note: To try waffles in Salinas, California check out Waffles Breakfast and Lunch Restaurant on North Main Street by Saigon Noodle and Grocery Outlet or IHOP on West Davis Road by Carl’s Junior, Sonic, Mountain Mike’s, Vallarta Supermarket and taqueria, 24-hour gas station, and AAA.)

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

Click for Ruth Paget's Books

BLT Sandwich Recipe Created by Ruth Paget

BLT Sandwich Recipe Created by Ruth Paget 

When I live in Chicago (Illinois) for several years after I graduated from the University of Chicago, I made BLT (Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato) sandwiches when I would come home from work for lunch. (I lived across the street from the office in the corncob towers.) 

I would fry a pound of bacon on Sunday, cut up tomatoes, and tear up lettuce leaves and put them in airtight containers in the refrigerator to put together sandwiches during the week. I bought nice condiments at the Treasure Island grocery store a few blocks over and fancy German pumpernickel bread. 

Serves 1

Ingredients: 

-2 slices toasted bread 

-2 tablespoons mayonnaise 

-4 or 5 slices cooked bacon broken in half 

-2 tomato slices 

-2 leaves iceberg lettuce 

Steps: 

1-Spread mayonnaise on two slices of toasted bread. 

2-Place bacon on top of one slice. Follow with the tomatoes and then the lettuce. 

3-Place the second slice of bread on top of the lettuce and press down to hold the sandwich together.

If you would like a spicier BLT sandwich, substitute mustard-mayonnaise, horseradish-mayonnaise, or sriracha-mayonnaise for the mayonnaise. 

You can also replace the bacon with ham (Costco Kirkland brand is very good), grilled zucchini or squash cut lengthwise, or a fried egg. 

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

Click for Ruth Paget's Books

Before the Coffee gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi Reviewed by Ruth Paget

Before the Coffee Gets Cold Reviewed by Ruth Paget 

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi is a novel about a dingy, Tokyo café with a chair that can transport you back in time, giving the book its fantasy element that sells a lot of coffee. 

Beverages, alcoholic or non-alcoholic, are moneymakers for restaurants, so readers involved in the restaurant industry might enjoy how this dinky café uses the chair time machine to ring up lots of coffee, curry rice, and yakitori chicken orders. 

The café regulars are a man staving off Alzheimer’s Disease by reading travel literature, the ghost who sits in the chair time machine and who only gets up once a day to use the bathroom, and the waitress who always has curlers in her hair. The waitress is slow yet friendly and makes even first-time customers feel like family. The waitress lets people confide in her or lets them write or work on creative projects “to keep ‘em coming back” as we say in the Western United States. That phrase is the mantra of all successful restaurants. 

This Tokyo café has interested more than 3 million readers worldwide. Other reviewers call the book cute, chatty, and fun. Reflect a bit, though. One of the novel’s characters plays massive, multiplayer, online, role-playing games (MMPORGs). This café might be a mini role-playing game run by the regulars to ensure meals, to stake out a place of repose, and to maintain steady employment.  

The café owners seem to know what will attract enough customers to make a profit. The owners have identified a market niche and their niche’s needs, wants, and desires. Everyone, for example, drinks coffee – time travelers or not. 

People interested in the following careers might consider this book more than a quick read: 

-restaurant owners 

-servers 

-bartenders 

-restaurant publicists 

-writers 

-interior decorators

-artists 

-coffee salesman 

Before the Coffee gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi is a book that deserves a second reading just to see why this café survives and thrives in a basement location. 

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

Click for Ruth Paget's Books

Laguna Seca Speed Tour in Salinas, California posted by Ruth Paget

I learned that events like the Laguna Seca Speed Tour in Salinas, California (May 2 - May 4, 2025) are great for local food and beverage industries and often the hotel industry, if planned well in advance when I attended he first Detroit Grand Prix in 1986.  Souvenir merchandise also sold well at this event.

Information on this event follows:

Click for Laguna Seca Speed Tour Tix

Posted by Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

UChicago Earth Week - April 19 - 26, 2025 posted by Ruth Paget

The schedule and program summaries for Earth Week at the University of Chicago from April 19 - 26, 2025 follow:

Click for UChicsgo Earth Week Details

Posted by Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France