The Marina Dunes Promenade in Marina, California will be hosting a Barter Fair on Sunday, May 16, 2026.
Trading services and/or products of equivalent value is an economics lesson.
The cost is free with more information on the Monterey County Weekly’s online community calendar below:
Reposted by Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
In a recent University of Chicago Booth School of Business article, the authors write about a small Honduran pig farm that used MIA, an AI mentor, to formalize accounting processes, taxation reporting, and marketing campaigns.
These formalized structures helped the small business obtain loans to expand the business.
This lengthy and informative article then expands upon how AI has been used throughout the world to help small businesses grow.
The Booth Review article follows:
Reposted by Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
The Monterey County Weekly online community calendar has listed an important fundraiser for June 7, 2026: Feathers in Flight - Fundraiser for Condors.
The Ventana Wildlife Society is organizing the fundraiser ($150 per ticket).
Information about this event and ticket purchase information follows from The Weekly website:
Reposted by Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
Movies + 3-Course Dinner While Watching the Film now being done in San Jose, California -
I just saw this streaming on TikTok. The video did not say where, but it filled the front section of the theatre where the film was being shown.
Dinner theatre becoming dinner movies is a great way to increase profits even in theatres that are less full for theatre owners.
Been scrolling -
By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
The Monterey County Weekly has listed the Spanish Coversation Club for Intermediate and Advanced Speakers on their online community calendar for several weeks.
The Spanish. conversation club takes place on Sundays in Pacific Grove.
More details about this free event and contact information follow from the Monterey County Website:
https://www.montereycountynow.com/events/#/details/spanish-conversation/18161469/2026-05-17T15
Reposted by Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
Tasmanian Flax Lily Sightings in Pebble Beach, California by Ruth Paget
While drinking my weekly Peerless organic latte from the Market at Pebble Beach (California), I admired the large, puff-ball shaped Tasmanian flax lilies from southeastern Australia and the island of Tasmania originally.
Up close, you can see that Tasmanian flax lilies have spiky pointed leaves with green and white stripes running along the leaves. The leaves bounce in wind and have a white stripes running down the center of the thin leaves.
Tasmanian flax lilies are drought and deer resistant – both very important traits in coastal, wooded areas of California.
You can find Tasmanian flax lilies by the Market at Pebble Beach.
More information about these hardy yet frail looking plants follows:
https://txmg.org/hendersonmg/files/2020/06/FLAX-LILY-VARIEGATED.pdf
Nursery information and purchasing details follow:
https://www.budgetplants.com/variegated-flax-lily
Take a mini trip to Tasmania and Southeastern Australia as you stroll around the Market and Lodge and Pebble Beach, California!
By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
Two German Sandwiches for Tourists in Germany by Ruth Paget
My go-to German “fast food” sandwiches when I lived in Stuttgart (Germany) for five years were schinken-käse-brot (ham and cheese sandwiches on dinner rolls) and butter-brot (open-faced sandwiches like they make in Denmark).
Both sandwiches are ideal for tourists especially tourists who visit German cities and towns on foot.
The place I would order schinken-kâse-brot was Sehne Ihre Bâckerei. Sehne (pronounced ‘zay-nay’) is a national bakery chain like McDonalds that sells bread (supposedly 365 kinds in German) and provides seating for kaffee klatsches (coffee breaks).
They have white bread baguettes, which I always picked up for toast. As a little treat, I would get two schinken-kâse sandwiches. I liked ordering these in German, “Zwei schinken-kâse, bitte – two ham and cheese sandwiches, please.” I drank Gerolsteiner fizzy water with these sandwichs and contemplated braving the 30 below, windy weather outside to go home.
The other sandwich I sometimes ate at home was a butter-brot or open-faced sandwich. I bought the ingredients for these at the Total Gas Station down from our apartment or Ikea’s grocery department downtown.
I toasted rye or pumpernickel bread and spread it with brown, large grain German mustard. On top of this, I would place tinned, smoked trout or smoked salmon and sliced red onion.
I thought this sandwich was very northern German and would drink a Beck’s lager with my Baltic sandwich. Our local Edeka supermarket had many choices of beer in 4-packs so you could sample beers from all around Germany. I was able to get Beck’s from Bremen in northern Germany this way in southern Stuttgart.
These sandwiches are available year-round usually at a pretty reasonable price. Tourists and locals alike can enjoy these while visiting or doing errands in cities and towns in Germany.
Note: Brot bread can be made with spent grain from beer making.
Polar Vortex Memories!
By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games