UChicago Press Fall 2025 Catalog Reposted by Ruth Paget

The Fall 2025 Catalog for the University of Chicago Press is available online and in PDF format.  Click below for information:

UChicago Press Fall 2025 Catalog 

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

UChicago Press Free E-Book - Lions in the Balance reposted by Ruth Paget

The University of Chicago free e-book this month is Lions in the Balance.  Click for information below:

Lions in the Balance Free E-Book

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

UChicago Press Botany Books 2025 reposted by Ruth Paget

Californians might enjoy browsing the University of Chicago Press books below:

Click for UChicsgo Botany 2025 Books

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

Italian Linguine with Clams at Lure Fish House in San Luis Obispo, California by Ruth Paget

Italian Linguine with Clams at Lure Fish House in San Luis Obispo, California by Ruth Paget 

For a family mini trip, my husband Laurent, my daughter Florence Paget, and I went to San Luis Obispo, California which is about 2½ hours south of Salinas. 

The landscape changes dramatically along Highway 101 going south. We saw longhorn cattle grazing on the hillsides by the freeway and oil rigs in San Ardo. We passed San Miguel Mission with its whitewashed stucco architecture and compania bell tower that is typical of many Spanish churches with its open towers that allow bells to swing wide and freely and resound over the vineyards. 

The Salinas River is underground here, but you can trace its course by looking at trees that sinew along the countryside. Vineyards and olive trees rise up the hills that become browner the farther away they are from the Salinas River. 

The landscape looks like Spain with its patches of white sheep grazing along the way. English road signs remind you that you really are in the United States. (I did ask Laurent if Gibraltar is like this. His Navy ship passed by there when he did a Mediterranean deployment.) 

San Luis Obispo is also named for it mission church that honors San Luis Obispo de Tolosa (1274 – 1297). Tolosa refers to Toulouse, France. San Luis Obispo sits on a plain like Toulouse, France despite going through some mountains to get to it. San Luis Obispo is the home of California Polytechnique State University, which is highly respected for its engineering, business, and architecture schools. 

Our dinner destination in San Luis Obispo was the Lure Fish House. This family-owned California chain also has locations in Santa Barbara, Ventura, Camarillo, West Lake Village, Porter Ranch, and Scottsdale (Arizona). 

Menus at Lure vary by location to take advantage of seasonal and local produce and seafood. As an appetizer, 

I started with deep-fried, crispy calamari (squid) that came with two excellent dipping sauces. The first was a chipotle aioli (garlic mayonnaise with chipotle peppers blended in). The second sauce was a cioppino dipping sauce. This light sauce did taste like tomatoes and white wine cooked with seafood and garlic. Both sauces were delicious. 

I ate all the sauce and all the calamari. Fried calamari are served all around the Christian Mediterranean and have a happy, devoted following in California. 

For an Italian Mediterranean Diet dinner, I ate a specialty of Naples, linguine with clams, as my main dish. The clams were steamed with white wine, lemon juice, garlic, and parsley.  

The meat from about two clams was chopped into the sauce and poured over the linguine. Six large clams were arranged a mound of linguine for this dish. I enjoyed every bite of this dish, too! 

I drank a home-made agave vanilla cream soda with this Mediterranean meal. Agave is a natural sweetener that comes from agave plants that grow well in the soil and climate in San Luis Obispo. 

Back at the hotel (a Marriot Courtyard), I took a hot shower followed by bursts of cold water to cool off and luxuriated in the air-conditioned room as I looked outside the room window at three kinds of trees: a rubber tree, a California magnolia tree, and a palm tree. San Luis Obispo has a city-wide initiative to develop a tree canopy that is recognized by the Arbor Foundation.

For a great health, culture, and history recharge, San Luis Obispo, California might just be the vacation town for you.  The warm weather invites swimming and most hotels have a pool.

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

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(Note: View from hotel window.  To better see the trees, place two of your fingers on the photo and move them apart to enlarge the image.  The tree in front is a rubber plant that can be used to make tires.  The pollen from the magnolia tree can be used for honey.  The palm trees produce coconuts that can be used for food and coconut milk.)

Pebble Beach Video of Seashore by Ruth Paget

This section of Pebble Beach, California has 4 picnic tables and is located right before Bird Rock, the haunt of long-necked black cormorants.  You can see brown pelicans flying in formation here, white egrets, and seagulls.  Seals and sea otters play in the waves here.

Taken after Kamchatka Earthquake

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

San Miguel Arcangel Mission near San Luis Obispo, California Photo Mini Trip by Ruth Paget

San Miguel Arcangel Mission close to San Luis Obispo, California Photo Visit by Ruth Paget

Mission San Miguel Arcangel was founded in 1797.

Good Example of stucco architecture.  Plaster covers brick  in stucco work and is painted white.  The dark color of brick absorbs heat.  Stucco is applied for white paint, which reflects heat and keeps buildings cool.  The Spanish used this technique in southern Andalusia, Spain and brought it to their missions in California

 

The coil on top of the wall corner may refer to a beehive and/or proofing basket for sourdough bread

Monasteries still make honey to be self-sufficient in foodand sell the excess to earn money for monastery upkeep.

 

This gate leads into the cactus garden. In an emergency, cactus plants can be used for water and cactus leaves can be cut up and fried or put into omelets as food. The alcoves originally held statues of saints and Christ.

Agave plant outside the mission garden.  Tequila is made from agave plants.  Monasteries can cook with tequila, drink it, and sell it for profit and use the profits to maintain the monastery.

 

Olive tree n the mission garden.  The priests and nuns could press their own olive oil for use in religious rites and for cooking.  This area is surrounded by vineyards and olive trees.  San Miguel Arcangel is located on a valley floor between the inter-coastal mountain range about 12 miles outside San Luis Obispo.

Cactus garden at San Miguel Arcangel with baby agave plants.  Pickers can be removed from cactus leaves with the leaf or paddle chopped up to be sautéed with scrambled eggs.  Cumin, salt, and pepperadded to the eggs makes the cactus taste like meat with a slight citrus flavor.  You can eat the cactus (nopal) with eggs accompanied by pico de gallo salsa and tortilla chips or place the egg and cactus in rolled up tortillas. Photo by Laurent Paget

Wine is made on the premises for Eucharistic purposes during mass.  The bottom half of this wine barrel has been used as a flowerpot for roses.  Rose petals and buds can be dried to make a tea that is high in Vitamin C. The white pipe helps drain the rose bush.  Text and photo by Ruth Paget.

This photo shows a half moon opening on the wine barrel that was once part of a circular opening in the barrel called a bung hole.  The opening had a cork-like cap that was removed to fill and empty the barrel.  While the wine is aging, the winemaker can siphon off some of the wine through the bung hole for tasting and evaluating the harvest year wine as well.   Text and photo by Ruth Paget

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Dying rose can signal disease or blight in vineyards.  These roses are located just across the street from vineyards in San Miguel.  The rose bush is full of buds with several blooming.  The vineyards appear to be safe for the 2025 harvest in San Miguel Arcangel, California.

Mission kitchen gadgets and local ingredients:  By the back wall is a curved stone metate with a stone rolling pin for crushing dried corn kernels to make into flour for tortillas.  In the middle of the photo is a mocajeta (also spelled as molcajete) for pounding wet or dry ingredients.  A molcajete is a mortar and pestle.  You can make guacamole in it or fresh salsa like pico de gallo with onions, tomatoes, chile peppers, and cilantro.  A butcher’s block with meat (pork?) is in front of the photo.  Local ingredients on the table include radishes, carrots, red leaf lettuce, carrots, and oranges. 

Another photo from the kitchen shows a comal for cooking tortillas.  The pots with long handles could go in a fireplace. 

Priests ate eggs, grapes, fish, apples, pears,  and bread in their dining room.  Most of these items can be obtained locally.  Bread is harder to procure locally, but rice grows in California outside Sacramento in case flour runs short.

Many Catholic Churches have wineries for food and beverage needs.  Some of the winery foods they obtain include grape leaves for sautéed grape leaves with olive oil and lemon juice (Greek Horta) and wild boar sausage.  Wine that has gone sour can be used as vinegar, most notably in salad dressing.

Kitchen photos by Laurent Paget,  Kitchen photos text by Ruth Paget

Model of what San Miguel Arcangel Mission looked like when it was originally completed in the 18th century. Photo by Laurent Paget.

For tours and visiting hours look up the mission’s website.

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

Click for Ruth Paget’s Books

Chicken Korma Cashew Curry at Avatar Indian Grill in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget

Chicken Korma Cashew Curry at Avatar Indian Grill in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget 

I like everything on the menu at Avatar Indian Grill in Salinas, California. I am a big fan of freshly ground and roasted spices sautéed in ghee, clarified butter, that are cooked with yogurt or coconut milk to make curry sauce. 

I love to mix curry sauce with bites of basmati rice or chicken or seafood cooked in curry in naan flatbread that is baked with licorice-flavored anise seeds. 

I did wonder when I ordered chicken korma why Avatar Indian Grill did not call this dish a curry. I was intrigued and wanted to see what was different about it. So, I ordered it and knew it would be delicious, because Avatar Indian Grill was making it. 

When the chicken korma arrived, the first thing I noticed was that it was a curry made with the addition of crushed cashew nuts. I love this addition to curry. (I obviously do not have a nut allergy.) 

The second thing I noticed about this curry was the yellow-brown ochre color. I checked indianhealthyrecipes.com and saw that tomatoes are not used in making chicken korma, so the curry in chicken korma is not bright red. The crushed cashews also contribute to this ochre color as well as turmeric used to marinate the chicken. 

The chicken pieces in the curry were moist and flavorful thigh meat. Chicken korma must be an Indian comfort food with its curry base of sautéed garlic, fresh ginger, and onion. 

The preparation of chicken korma with yogurt appears to be a Northern Indian dish while that made with coconut milk is a Southern Indian dish according to indianhealthyrecipes.com. Both versions sound delicious and would pair well with a chilled mango lassi yogurt drink. 

For a delicious midday comfort food lunch, chicken korma with cashew curry at Avatar Indian Grill in Salinas, California is a great option for cashew lovers. 

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

Click for Ruth Paget's Books