Yiyun Li will spray at three lectures at UChicago as part of the Berlin Family Lectures. Zoom attendance is possible for people who cannot attend in person.
Lectures occur on March 31, April 7, and April 14, 2026.
Details about this event follow:
https://mailchi.mp/uchicago.edu/invitation-humanities-day-on-october-5865889?e=cef015051e
Reposted by Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
Salinas Surf and Turf Dinner at Pub’s in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget
My husband Laurent, daughter Florence Paget, and I went out for a Salinas surf and turf meal at Pub’s in Salinas, California that was reliably great. I love eating at the oldest bar in Salinas.
We began our meal with an order of deep-fried Monterey Bay calamari. The squid was lightly coated and came with a creamy, chipotle-mayonnaise dipping sauce. This was the delicious surf part of my meal.
We all ordered steaks for the turf part of our meal. Florence and I ordered the flatiron steaks while Laurent had the filet mignon with shrimp scampi special.
All the steaks came with an appetizer salad. The salad was crisp romaine lettuce like you would expect to eat in a top-notch steak house. I ate Thousand Island dressing with my salad made with ketchup-mayonnaise and pleasantly sour, house-made pickles. That was a refreshing break after eating the delicious calamari.
I ordered my steak medium rare and it came out perfectly cooked and a little salty, the way I like steak.
I chose to eat tiled, scalloped potatoes made with sharp cheddar cheese as my potato option. This tasty side is something I would eat as a vegetarian meal during the week.
Steamed vegetables coated in butter rounded out the steak platter. Carrots, celery, and zucchini made up the vegetable selection when we went, but they can change with the seasons. The vegetables had a slight, sugary flavor letting you know they were fresh and at their peak ripeness.
We brought our own bottle of wine to go with the steaks – a Mayard Châteauneuf-du-Pape La Crau de ma Mère produced in the Rhône River Valley by Avignon, France. The wine was six years old and excellent with steak. (The corkage fee at Pub’s is $20 – very reasonable, if you drink your entire bottle.)
For a really great seafood and steak dinner in a country town, Pub’s in Salinas, California has been a number one option since its opening in 1901.
Note: The dining in town comment refers to John Steinbeck’s character Elisa preferring to eat in town than run away the traveling repairman in the short story The Chrysanthemums in his short story collection entitled The Long Valley.
By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
It’s supposed to be 89 in Salinas, California today.
For people doing delivery and other driving fleet work, I thought portable, battery operated fans might be useful to stay cool while waiting for assignments or trying to cut down on AC use while driving.
Walmart has a good selection and two locations in Salinas and one in Marina:
Target, Ace Hardware, and Amazon probably carry these items as well.
Reposted by Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
Quarter 2 Sales Drivers for Salinas and Monterey County California by Ruth Paget
Quarter 2 (Q2) sales drivers for the period April 1 to June 31, 2026 in Salinas and Monterey County California feature many national sporting playoffs and championships that can generate bar-restaurant sales as well as supermarket and market sales for home-based celebrations. Merchandise, sponsorships, and concessions bring in big money from sports, if managed well.
A preliminary list by month of events follows:
April:
-Easter – April 5
-Earth Day – April 22
-Hidden Hills Hoedown – April 19
-ComicCon Salinas (Spreckels) – April 22
-NHL Playoffs start – April 18
-Smog check cars
May:
-Kentucky Derby – May 2
-Quilt Show Pacific Grove – May 1
-WNBA Playoffs start – May 8
-Cinco de Mayo - May 5
June:
-NBA Playoffs start – June 3
-Wimbledon begins – June 29 (their signature dish is strawberries and cream)
-World Cup Soccer - beginning June 11
Ongoing:
-Spring releases of books
-Major League Baseball
-LA ComicCon – November 30 to December 1
-Room Air Conditioner Sales
-Fan sales
-time to get a personal gardener to clear out weeds and get the garden tidy
-spring is time for pet grooming and making sure shots and insurance are up to date
-In the South, people do laundry for other people as a gig job. clothes can dry on lines in Spring.
-Spring is time to contact a cleaning company to set up spring cleaning
-start pricing educational toys for the holidays at Thinker Toys in Carmel
-set up landscaping services for summer
I used to do sports rallyes to watch basket games when I live in Chicago. It was easy for me to buy Greek food so I put together many Greek buffets. My sports rallye blog follows:
https://ruthpaget.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-chicago-bears-rallye-game-sports.html?m=1
*Catch up on vaccinations
*Get an oil change
*take coins in rollers to the bank and deposit them
*School graduations and proms
*Buy year’s worth of stamps
*Schedule yearly physical and lab work. Young people going to summer camps often need physicals.
*Check supply of medications and make sure refills are on schedule
Note: Nick the Greek Restaurant has opened in Monterey on Alvarado Street recently, if you would like to try some Greek food sports buffets too. Demetra in Marina and Carmel also serves Greek dishes. Woody’s also has fried calamari and Greek salads for adding Mediterranean flair to sports night.
By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
Seven Seas Soup Seafood Tourism in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget
Over the years, I have tried and really enjoyed eating seven seas soup (caldo siete mares) at neighborhood restaurants in Salinas and Monterey County.
Seven seas soup is a tasty seafood tourism food for staycations and on the road trips. Its tomato-based broth usually come with shrimp, crab legs, scallops, octopus, mussels, clams, and white sea fish to make up seven items for the seven seas soup. the vegetables in the soup are onions, carrots, celery, and potatoes. For a seafood soup, seven seas soup is very filling.
Chicago restaurateur and anthropologist Rick Bayless uses fewer seafood items in his seven seas soup, but makes a great broth. I have included his recipe for the soup below:
There are six places listed for seven seas soup in Salinas online which I have listed below:
-Guadalajara Grill - this restaurant is a Blue Zone designated restaurant
-Mariscos El Kora
-Phil’s Fish Market (This might be a special there, so call to make sure it is on the menu.)
-El Zacatecano
-Mariscos Puerto Nuevo
-La Casa del Sazón
Online delivery services usually have a pick-up option, if you want to sample some seafood tourism close to home to brighten up winter.
By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
Cheese Enchiladas for Flavor and Maybe Catering at Super Pollo in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget
Cheese enchiladas, one of my favorite Tex-Mex dishes, is also what I consider a great catering dish for small dinner parties, office meetings, and team events for several reasons:
-you can count the enchiladas out so everyone gets a fair share
-enchiladas can be made with either corn or flour tortillas (flour tortillas are made with lard whereas corn is sticky enough itself to hold a tortilla together)
-enchiladas can be baked in a tray and served buffet style or plated up at a dining venue
-enchiladas can be made with a variety of melting cheeses or with meat
-the dried chiles used to make the sauce in cheese enchiladas can be mild or spicy and contains vitamin c
-cheese and peppers are both plentiful in California because they are produced here, which keeps purchasing costs down
-cheese has both calcium and protein in it
-Spanish rice is the usual side dish for cheese enchiladas. Rice is a grain that grows in California, which also keeps production prices down on cheese enchiladas
-Spanish rice is usually made with chicken broth and tomato juice with a few whole jalapeño peppers added. This rice has protein, Vitamin C, antioxidants, and carbohydrates for energy
I like the cheese enchiladas at Super Pollo and think they could make them as catering items with advance notice. Interested diners could try them first for take-out for 6 to 8 diners to test flavors and presentation before asking about catering.
Super Pollo’s cheese enchilada combination seems similar to the recipe for them in The Best Mexican Recipes by America’s Test Kitchen (the test kitchen is in Boston).
The sauce makes the dish. The sauce is made with stemmed and seeded dried ancho peppers that are toasted with cumin before being ground into a powder. This powder is added to salt and spices with chicken broth added that reduces the sauce to thick brick red.
Some of this sauce is placed on the bottom of the baking dish. America’s Test Kitchen warms flour tortillas in a microwave. You can also do this with corn tortillas, but they crack easily so you need to be careful wrapping the corn tortillas around grated cheese.
The cheese-filled wrapped tortillas are placed seam-side down on the baking dish. Sauce is spooned over the tortillas. Grated cheese is sprinkled on top of the tortillas before baking.
When the cheese enchiladas are done, chopped scallions are placed on top of the enchiladas before serving.
Spanish rice made with chicken broth, tomato juice, and maybe some whole jalapeño peppers is the side with hot sauces served in small dispenser cups.
Cheese enchiladas with Spanish rice are inexpensive to make, easy to prepare and serve, and very healthy in terms of protein, calcium, Vitamin C, and antioxidants. The salt used has iodine in it I assume as well.
i understand how Texas is Football Nation with a great catering dish like cheese enchiladas to serve player and everyone involved in making football games a profitable venture.
Personally, I am a fan of the cheese enchiladas at Super Pollo in Salinas, California and think anyone involved with having to organized catering might want to try this dish.
By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
The University of Chicago Press has put together a list of books about Irish history for Saint Patrick’s Day that the University of Chicago Press has published.
The list of books with their link follows:
https://t.e2ma.net/message/fh5tvi/vl7y5aok
Reposted by Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games