The Italian Catholic Federation is hosting a polenta and stew fundraiser on March 8, 2026 from 11 to 1 pm in Castroville, California.
For tickets and more information, click the following link:
https://www.castrovilleicf.com/events
Reposted by Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
Chinese-American Shrimp in Lobster Sauce from Golden Star Chinese Restaurant in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget
One of my Taiwanese work colleagues in Chicago, Illinois gave me the Chinese name of Pan Ro-She, meaning silk thread because of my hair.
My colleague was somewhat appalled that I ate Chinese, Taiwanese, and Chinese-American food with equal gusto and remained thin. She said Chinese-American food was not good, because I did not gain weight eating it.
“What kind of rice are you eating at these Chinese-American restaurants,” she wanted to know.
(The Taiwanese like pork-fried rice; one of the reasons they immigrated to pork belly trading Chicago.)
“I want to be thin,” I said in the 1980s Calvin Klein era.
“I like Chinese-American food, because of all the vegetables, the right size of protein, and tons of rice,” I said in defense of dishes like shrimp with lobster sauce that I recently ordered from Golden Star Restaurant in Salinas, California.
My Taiwanese colleague objected to shrimp with lobster sauce, in particular, because “there’s no lobster in the sauce. It’s all egg.”
Some cooks like Maggie Zhu from omnivorescookbook.com use pork as a flavoring agent in their lobster sauce. At Golden Star they seem to use wild onions as the flavoring agent and no cornstarch slurry sauce as a sauce thickener.
However, with those modifications, Golden Star seems to follow Zhu’s recipe. I think Zhu’s recipe is very good for making shrimp with lobster sauce. The lobster sauce should taste like a silken bisque with the addition of vegetables and shrimp.
Zhu uses shaoxing wine, chicken broth, oyster sauce, salt, and pepper to form the basis of her sauce. She mixes cornstarch and water on the side to thicken the sauce, but as I mentioned I do not think Golden Star uses slurry.
Once you make the sauce, the next step is for cooks to stir-fry shrimp till cooked and set it aside. Next, you add garlic, ginger, and onion to the wok as seasoning and stir-fry it till the smell of garlic rises. Then, you add the sauce and vegetables, shrimp, and slurry, if you are using it.
When the sauce boils, turn off the wok. Drizzle in the egg and let it sit before swirling it to make threads. As the final touch, sesame is added before serving.
At Golden Star, the chefs add peas, carrots, mushrooms, and water chestnuts to their version of shrimp in lobster sauce. I like this dish, because it is delicious, but it is nice to know that the carrots have Vitamin A, the peas have Vitamin C, the mushrooms have B Vitamins, and the water chestnuts have antioxidants and fiber.
For a really great Chinese-American shrimp with lobster sauce that is reasonably priced, healthy, and delicious, you cannot beat Golden Star in Salinas, California.
(Note: There is parking behind the restaurant and a passageway out to Main Street where they are located.)
By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
Eating Sichuanese Gan Bian Dry-Roasted Green Beans with Monterey County Shrimp from the Golden Star Restaurant in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget
Like many Americans I grew up eating stir-fried Chinese-American food that is inspired by the cuisine of Hong Kong and the southern Guandong Province of China. (Specifically, this is the type of food I ate as a child at the Ho-Ho Inn in Detroit, Michigan where my sister worked.)
When I moved to Chicago, Illinois to attend the University of Chicago, I was able to expand my cultural horizons by trying the food of two inland regions of China – Hunan (where Chairman Mao Zedong was born) and Szechuan (written as Sichuan in the Pinyin transliteration system adopted by the People’s Republic of China).
The House of Hunan on Michigan Avenue in Chicago is rather fancy with black lacquer tables and chairs and red silk seat cushions. I asked to dine there when my mother came to visit me in college. The food was mildly spicy and paired well with Burgundy wine according to the waiters.
The Szechuan House located along the Chicago River between Michigan Avenue and State Street was close to where I lived in the Marina Towers that look like two tall corncobs. The Szechuan House had a great buffet on Sundays with lots of seafood. I tried to eat there once a month when I worked at EY. The food was very spicy I noted, but I thought they just added extra pepper to their stir-fry dishes.
However, when I read Fuchsia Dunlop’s 2003 cookbook Land of Plenty: Authentic Sichuan Recipes Personally Gathered in the Chinese Province of Sichuan, I realized that the cooking techniques used in Sichuan are somewhat different from those used in Hong Kong.
Dunlop is the first Westerner to have attended and graduated from the Sichuan Institute of Higher Cuisine in Chengdu, China. As an introduction to her recipes, one of the cooking methods she describes is gan bian where food is cut into small sizes and fried in very little oil until the food is slightly dried out, fragrant, and even a little blistered.
One of the most famous recipes for the gan bian cooking method is made with green beans and pork. Golden Star Restaurant in Salinas, California modifies this recipe to use local shrimp in place of pork. The shrimp was probably marinated for several minutes in soy sauce to not sear and stick to the wok when dry-roasted.
At Golden Star, once the green beans are dry-roasted, the chef added a seasoning trio of minced fresh garlic, peeled and minced ginger, and crushed red Sichuan peppers to the green beans and tossed them.
In Golden Star's version, the green beans were set aside and shrimp added with very little oil to dry-roast. The high wok heat quickly cooks the shrimp. Shaoshing wine or sherry is added for flavoring before the green beans are added back to the work.
The shrimp and green beans are tossed till steam rises with sesame oil added just before serving.
I loved this meal. There were many fresh green beans, which may be due to the fact that southern Monterey County is warm and has a longer growing season for green beans. Green beans are a rich source of Vitamin C and fiber, making gan bian shrimp at Golden Star Restaurant in Salinas, California a great deal in addition to being delicious.
When this item is in season, I highly recommend it as a reasonably priced, healthy, and delicious meal.
Note: There is parking behind the restaurant with a passage to Main Street where the restaurant is located.
Text and photo by Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
Hoedown Party for Scholarship Fundraising at Hidden Valley Music Seminars in Carmel Valley, California on April 19, 2026
The 3rd Annual Hoedown Party for Scholarship Fundraising is being organized by the Carmel Valley Women’s Club and Foundation.
Tickets are $75 each and include a BBQ dinner, music, dance, and a silent auction.
Ticket information and more details about the event follow:
The Women’s Club website also has information:
https://cvwomensclub.org/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=97406&module_id=660240
Reposted by Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
46th Annual Quilt Show on May 1 – 3, 2026 in Pacific Grove, California Orientation by Ruth Paget
Quilts by the Bay, the 46th Annual Quilt Show organized by the Monterey Peninsula Quilters Guild will be held on May 1 – 3, 2026 at Chautauqua Hall in Pacific Grove, California.
For information about submitting a quilt and/or eventual ticket information, check out the Guild’s website below, which also has information about the organization’s meetings and seminars:
https://www.mpqg.org/quiltshow
For general information on quilting, especially in the United States, the Kids Britannica website below gives a good introduction. I like the discussion of patterns used in different regions of the US, which is sometimes inspired by religious beliefs.
https://kids.britannica.com/students/article/quilt/276621
At its most basic level, many quilts begin as a square of fabric that is sewn together with other squares to form the top part of a quilt. For a discussion of squares and quilt frames, tied quilts, and crazy quilts, see the fabric chapter in Old-Time Country Wisdom & Lore: 1000s of Traditional Skills for Simple Living by Jerry Mack Johnson (Published by Harvard University Press).
This book also provides 8 different geometric patterns that can be used for quilt making as well as a drawing of the common stitch used to sew and connect quilt squares. Quilting has traditionally been used to “recycle” fabric from worn out clothes, but new fabric is often used in projects that are classed as art.
The Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. has gathered many documentaries about quilting in the US. Use the search feature to look up quilting oral histories for your state or just enjoy browsing through the youtube videos at the website below.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_7JvsKwCWfk
Finally, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, England has put together An Introduction to Quilting and Patchwork that draw on its collections from Europe, India, and the Far East. The site discusses the use of patchwork through the ages, even including as padding under suits of armor for warmth and added protection from weapons.
For an informed yet chatty discussion of the history of quilting, check out the Victoria & Albert Museum website below:
Gong through the information above on this site will enhance your appreciation of the quilts on display at the 46th Annual Quilt Show on May 1 – 3, 2026 at Chautauqua Hall in Pacific Grove, California.
Note: I first learned about slave quilts that are believed to hide landmarks along the Underground Railroad in their design at the colonial Frances Land House in Virginia Beach, Virginia at a temporary exhibit when I lived there. The following video from the LA County Library in California also deals with this he topic of slave quilts:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XLo05HGd43c&t=315s&pp=2AG7ApACAQ%3D%3D
By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
I am a big fan of the Japanese yakisoba stir-fry one-pot meal with vegetables, pre-cooked chicken, and wheat noodles that comes as a kit at Costco in Sand City, California.
In the photo below, you can see the exact seasonings by placing your thumb and forefinger on the image and spreading them apart to enlarge the print size.
The instructions are listed on the label for tender-crisp vegetables and warm meat and noodles: After heat oil to sizzling, you cook the vegetables for 2 minutes. Then, you add the meat and cook it for 2 minutes. The noodles take 1 minute. All together, the instructions call for 5 minutes of cooking time.
I have modified those instructions, because I like tender and sizzling hot stir-fries to 5 minutes for the vegetables, 5 minutes for the chicken, and 5 minutes for the noodles. I spend 15 minutes of constant cooking, which I still consider a reasonable amount of time cooking. I also add 4 tablespoons oil instead of the 2 called for in the original recipe.
The yakisoba kit pictured below is arranged to cook the dish in three steps.
I use a wok with a cover to cook the dish. I place the cover over the dish at the end of cooking to keep the contents warm while my family assembles at the dining room table.
I use the pictured tongs to toss and turn the yakisoba ingredients. Japanese cooks use extra long chopsticks to do this, but I like the better control I have with tongs. To open the tongs, pull on the plastic end outwards. To close the tongs, push the end back into the tool.
The yakisoba kit is set up to let you lift out the contents as needed. The vegetables that into the wok with sizzling oil include broccoli, carrots, yellow bell peppers, red bell peppers, celery, and red onion. The video shows how to gently toss the vegetables with oil before adding the pre-cooked chicken. The hot oil draws out water from the vegetables along with their flavor.
The photo and video below show steam rising from the sizzling hot vegetables. (I was cooking, photographing, and filming at the same time for the embedded shots.) When you add the pre-cooked chicken to the vegetables, you will get a burst of steam as pictured below. The quick video shows the oil sizzling by the top and bottom of the tongs. The sizzling oil is flavored with vegetable juices.
The photo after the quick video shows what the vegetables and chicken should look like before adding the noodles. The noodles first go on top of the vegetables and meat. You turn the noodles so that these items are mixed into the noodles. (See video.)
The final product is mostly vegetable and meat with the noodles soaking up the vegetable and chicken flavored oil. At this point, you can stir in the soy seasoning mix, if you would like. My family uses 1 packet for the three of us, which we stir in at the table.
The yakisoba is a one-pot meal that disappears with minimal clean-up.
The three of us ate two portions each. If you add in the olive oil and water we drank, the cost of the meal was about $7 each. That is a pretty terrific price for a Sunday lunch this is also multicultural.
If you want to try Japanese food without a large financial investment, the yakisoba one-pot meal kit at Costco in Sand City, California might be a good option for you.
For history about Yakisoba, fortunenoodle.com provides an extensive discussion on the topic at the link below:
Yakisoba History by fortune noodle.com
Text, photos, and film in this yakisoba making online exhibit by Ruth Paget, author Eating with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
Briant Ancestors of Ruth and Florence Paget by Ruth Paget
Ruth and Florence Paget are related to the Briant Family through their ancestor George Robert Carpenter.
G1 refers to Generation 1 and so on.
Mother Lines
G1 – Florence Paget
G2 – Ruth Pennington (Married Name: Paget)
G3 – Beatrice May Sawle (Married Name: Pennington)
G4 – Daisy May Bardsley (Married Name: Sawle)
-daughter of Edward Charles Bardsley and Etta Pearl Carpenter
G5 – Etta Pearl Carpenter
-daughter of George Robert Carpenter and Phoebe Throop
G6 – George Robert Carpenter
-son of Benjamin Carpenter and Elizabeth Eaker
G7 – Benjamin Carpenter
-son of Barnard Carpenter and Phoebe Avery
G8 – Barnard Carpenter
-son of John Charles Carpenter and Ruth Horton
G9 – John Charles Carpenter, Jr.
-son of John Carpenter, Sr. and Sarah Thurston
G10 – John Carpenter, Sr.
-son of Benjamin Carpenter, Jr. and Renew Weeks
G11 – Benjamin Carpenter, Jr.
-son of Joseph Carpenter I and Margaret Sutton
G12 – Joseph Carpenter I
-son of William Carpenter and Abigail Briant
G13 – Abigail Briant
-daughter of John Briant and Mary Alice Briant
Born: about May 27, 1604 in Shalbourne, Wiltshire, England
Died: February 22, 1687 in Rehoboth, Bristol, Massachusetts – buried in East Providence, Providence, Rhode Island, US
G14 – John Briant
-son of Mr. Briant (first name unknown) and Mrs. Briant (name unknown at this time)
Born: about 1580 in Shalbourne, Wiltshire, England
Died: August 20, 1638 in Shalbourne, Wiltshire, England, UK
G15 – Mr. Briant (first name unknown at this time)
Born: Estimated birth between 1515 and 1575
By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games