Reading Steinbeck for Banned Books Week October 5 - 11, 2025 posted by Ruth Paget

For Banned Books Week 2025, my family went to the John Steinbeck House Gift Shop and purchased several books including Grapes of Wrath, which has been banned at different times of history as well as Of Mice and Men.

The store has Penguin versions of the books as well as collector first editions of our local Nobel Prize winner.

You can combine a book shopping outing with lunch upstairs in Steinbeck’s home.  The restaurant menu features seasonal items. 

Free parking is available on the street on a first come-first served basis.  I have  listed their website below:

https://steinbeckhouse.com/

Back in the 2000s, I reviewed the Steinbeck House Restaurant for the Monterey County Weekly (Curculation: 200,000).

https://ruthpaget.blogspot.com/2018/02/lunching-at-steinbecks-childhood-home.html?m=1

The National Steinbeck Center houses a museum devoted to the works of John Steinbeck.  There is a large parking garage next to the Steinbeck Center. For information, their website follows:

https://steinbeck.org/

Tour groups might arrange to see films based on Steinbeck’s books at the Fox Theatre on Main Street in downtown Salinas.

Agata Popcada at the Monterey County Weekly wrote a nice online article about Henry Miller, a Big Sur resident, whose books have also been banned:

https://mail.google.com/mail/mu/mp/465/#cv/priority/%5Esmartlabel_personal/199d0945fb6cbee9

Information about the Henry Miller Library and its events follows:

https://www.henrymiller.org/ https://www.henrymiller.org/

Carmel Valley author Jane Smiley has had her book A Thousand Acres banned in several school districts despite being a Pulitzer Prize winner.  Book information about A Thousand Acres follows:

A Thousand Acres Book Information

Information about Banned Book Week follows:

https://www.ala.org/bbooks/banned

Note: Steinbeck’s Books follow:

-Cup of Gold

-The Pastures of Heaven

-To a God Unknown

-Tortilla Flat

-In Dubious Battle

-The Harvest Gypsies

-The Red Piny

-Of Mice and Men

-The Long Valley

-The Grapes of Wrath

-Forgotten Village

-The Sea of Cortez

-Bombs Away

-The Moon is Down

-Cannery Row

-The Moon is Down

-The Wayward Bus

-The Pearl

-A Russian Journal

-Burning Bright

-The Log from the Sea of Cortez

-East of Eden

-The Short Reign of Pippin IV

-Once There was a War

-America and Americans

-Journal of a Novel

-Steinbeck: A Life in Letters

-Viva Zapata!

-The Acts of King Arthur and his Bold Knights

-Working Days: The Journals of the Grapes of Wrath

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

Breton Crepes for a few days by Ruth Paget

The magic mix of eggs, milk, flour, salt, and oil makes delicious crepes you can fill with butter and cheese or a salad with chèvre goat cheese.  This little pile will last for two or three days.

My husband Laurent made these beauties! A bottle of homeopathic Elderberry gummies full of Vitamin C sits by the crepes.

My recipe for crepes follows:

California Crepes Recipe

Trader Joe’s sells hard (alcoholic) cider like the French drink to go with these crepes.

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

Squash Economics iat The Farm in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget

Squash Harvest is in The Farm in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget

Now is the time to buy squash for decorating and eating, bringing children out to jump on haystacks and ride mini tractors, and buy a homemade pie.

Look at the squash beauties below!  Orange colored squash has vitamin A, which is important for vision.  Chop it up, remove the filaments inside, brush the flesh with oil, and bake it at 350 for an hour.  Eat it with butter and paprika.  The filaments and skin can be recycled as green waste.

Even the too cool to care goats were checking out the squash.

My husband Laurent and I bought a berry pie. Starting in November, the bakery will be the only department open at The Farm till spring.

The following video deals with baking butternut squash.  For squash that is hard to peel, I leave the peel and bake slices or cubes of squash and then scoop out the flesh from the peel:

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/229733/simple-roasted-butternut-squash/

Another fun marketing day in Salinas, California.

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

Seagull Munching on Guano at Pebble Beach, California video by Ruth Paget

While waiting to film brown pelicans at Pebble Beach, California, I saw a seagull eating guano on a rock with waves crashing behind it and brown pelicans doing fly-bys  behind it.  

The sound of the waves crashing is excellent on the video below:

Guano is bird feces.  It is highly sought as a fertilizer and wars have been fought over it.

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

Oktoberfest at Asilomar on October 11, 2025 in Pacific Grove, California reposted by Ruth Paget

Oktoberfest is being celebrated on October 11, 2025 at Asilomar Conference Center in Pacific Grove, California.

For information about tickets, I have reposted the Monterey County Weekly calendar posting below:

Oktoberfest at Asilomar in Pacific Grove, California

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

California Debt Watch Tool looks interesting reposted by Ruth Paget

This debt watch tool managed by the State of California looks useful:

California Debt Watch

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

Taco Kit Dinner at Costco in Sand City, California by Ruth Paget

Taco Kit Deal at Costco in Sand City, California by Ruth Paget

The Southwestern US taco dinner at Costco in Sand City, California provides enough food for 3 people to eat 4 medium tacos for about $5.50

The kit comes with:

-12 soft corn tortillas

-Al Pastor chicken pieces that are precooked

-shredded cabbage

 -shredded cheese

-cilantro lime crema salsa

-spicy hot salsa

-4 lime sections to squeeze on the tacos or squeeze into beer

I took photos of the taco kit below:

Taco Tuesday is easy to do with one of these taco kits at Costco.

Your weekly dinner menu could look like this:

Monday - pasta dinner

Tuesday - taco Tuesday

Wednesday - wings and drumsticks

Thursday - fish or seafood delivery

Friday - pizza - Detroit pizza is reasonably priced at Nob Hill

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