On Monday the 2007 Michelin Guide was released for the San Francisco, Bay Area and Wine Country.  This is the first Michelin Guide for the Bay Area and as a Bay Area resident I found the results very exciting.  The item that made the top mention in the New York Times (and many other outlets) was that Thomas Keller now has two restaurants that have earned Michelin three stars: The French Laundry and Per Se.  This is an amazing accomplishment and I extend Thomas Keller a hearty round of congratulations.

The French Laundry was the only Bay Area restaurant to receive a 3 star rating.  Four others, however, received 2 star ratings.  These are Restaurant Michael Mina, Aqua, Manresa, and Cyrus.  Of these, Manresa and Cyrus were also listed this month as one of America's top 50 restaurants by Gourmet Magazine.

While I haven't been to any of these restaurants I want to. One in particular, Manresa, located in Los Gatos, CA, is no more than 20 minutes from my home.  Sadly, Husband and I have wanted to go to Manresa for quite a while but just haven't gotten around to it.  I remember a couple of years ago hearing about the joys of the Manresa experience from friends who had gone there.  They are full fledged foodies and techno geeks who entered each and every course into their palm as they ate and added comments about the dishes.  While the comments towards the end of the meal were less plentiful - I'm sure the wine pairings had nothing to do with that Smile - the descriptions they logged were extremely detailed and interesting. We saw them a few weeks after the experience, and got the entire meal recounted back play-by-play.  It sounded amazing! 

Cyrus is also on my list of restaurants to go to.  In fact, I almost went last month when I was in Healdsburg.  Cyrus was within walking distance of the bed and breakfast we stayed at.  But we opted for a lighter meal that night because because it was the last night of a four night wine country trip and we just weren't sure we could handle, or appreciate, that much food.  Next time we'll schedule Cyrus for the first night of the trip so that we can fully enjoy the experience.

The Bay Area Michelin report also gave one star ratings to several Bay Area restaurants.  I've been to a few of these including Bouchon, Gary Danko, Masa's and my current favorite from San Francisco - the Fifth Floor.  I find I really enjoy experiencing this class of restaurant and remain amazed at how many outstanding restaurants are located near to where I live.  Bay area residents are truly fortunate to live in such an area and have restaurants of this caliber available.  Not only do I congratulate all of the restaurants in the Michelin guide but I also congratulate Bay Area residents for having access to as many outstanding restaurants as we do...

I'm organized, probably overly organized, so when I cook I prep out all of the ingredients before cooking/assembling.  As I make dishes and messes I take care of them either by washing (rarely) or more likely by putting them in the dishwasher.  So by the time I get something in the oven or simmering on the stove I do not have a whole lot left to do other than enjoy a glass of wine. 

Husband has adapted many of these traits but one which I just don't see a solution to is the mess factor.  I think he just gravitates to messy dishes or I subconsciously don't choose those types of dishes.  It seems that whenever he cooks the kitchen needs to be hosed down.  Take the recent adventures in (attempting) to cook home made Tortillas - detailed here and here.  Clearly, flour is a primary ingredient in Tortillas.  So even before we started I could almost picture flour pasted all over the counter and the floor.  But, of course, I wasn't fully prepared for what was to happen.  Remember that newly renovated kitchen? Well, as with many kitchens now days, our kitchen has display shelves for "showcasing items".  So after Husband was done with the Tortillas and I went to clean-up I found flour not only on every counter and pasted to the floor but it was also on the faces of several cabinets,  deep back on our display shelves and even on the upper shelves (the later resulting from filling the flour canister and "poofing the bag"!).  And the Tortillas didn't even come out well! Sigh - it’s a good thing he is really a doll and the vast majority of his meals are awesome!  So at least now I have my expectations adjusted for the next Spouse cooking adventure...

I've been thinking about tea a lot lately.  Perhaps it is in anticipation of the cool weather because I tend to drink a lot more tea in the cool months than I do in the warm months.  But I've also been seeing more articles, discussions and information about tea recently than in the past.  I think this is a good thing.  Tea is often underrated compared to coffee.  Don't get me wrong I love coffee but I also really enjoy tea. But as with coffee the tea must be good tea - no Lipton tea bags here.

For quite a while now I've been buying my tea from Simpson & Vail , a specialty tea supplier that has been in business for 75 years.  While some new popular tea shops have recently appeared,  I really like the large number of tea choices and unique tea accessories Simpson & Vail provide.  They also tend not to be as overpriced.  I lean towards drinking straights rather than tea blends.  It's not that I don't like blends but I think instead it's that I don't feel I've explored enough tea to have gotten to the blending stage yet.  Case in point is that only within the last year did I stumble upon white tea which is my current favorite.  Until last year I was primarily a Black tea drinker, with Assam dominating the list, and loved to add both milk and honey to the tea.  Looking back I see this as more of a coffee substitute than a real tea experience.  Not that I'm knocking milk and honey in tea but that recently I've really grown to enjoy the tea on its own and with black tea I still feel I have to add to it to enjoy it. So in pursuit of less added sugar I started exploring green teas.  My favorite green tea to date is Dragonwell but that's probably only because the white tea has me so obsessed that I haven't really tried many more green teas after my order of white tea arrived.  This is probably my loss because I also have Silversprout and Gu Zhang Mao Jian green teas in the house right now and I imagine if I gave them a chance I'd probably really enjoy them.

So what is so good about the white tea?  I'll give you my perspective in a minute but first I'd like to point you to a recent article I found by Richard Romando on White Tea which describes white tea and how to brew it.  For me the sweet mellow taste of white tea is what I most enjoy.  My current favorite is Pai-Mu-Tan from the Fujian province of China that has an elongated leaf with white tips and gray-green leaves.  One thing I've seen raised a few times is the cost of white tea.  I'm not sure I agree.  The Pai-Mu-Tan white tea I buy from S&V is $2.05 an ounce and the most expensive white tea S&V currently sells is $10 an ounce.  So while some of the high-end whites can be more money you can find reasonably priced and very good white teas.

An issue I have with both white tea and green tea is how it is brewed. For green tea it is critical, to avoid a bitter taste, not to boil the water.  While I haven't found a bitter taste in white tea when boiled its flavor does change  and so the water for white tea should also only be heated to 175 to 185 degrees.  This is an issue for me because I use one of those automatic water boiling pots.  These are great but if you don't want boiling water you have to stand and watch it to stop it before it boils.  So my current dream small appliance is a water heating pot that lets you specify the temperature you want the water.  I know I probably have very little chance of it coming to market soon but hey if everybody starts drinking white tea demand will increase and maybe my dream will become a reality.  In the mean time I'll go watch the water boil and then enjoy my pot of white tea.

A few recent events have gotten me thinking about how one learns to cook.  The first event was that I stumbled upon an article describing "How to boil water"   At first I thought it was a joke but no it really did describe how to boil water.  Still unphased, I thought ok well that'll be good content to write about.  But then the other day I was talking to a sister of a friend and she said "a lot of women my age don't know how to cook" - she's 28.  She had recently taken a cooking class and wanted to learn more about how to cook.  I think it is great she is learning and I wish her all the best.  But it’s a bit difficult for me to relate - I've been cooking all my life. 

The earliest memory I have of cooking must be from when I was in or just before kindergarten.  I had a Betty Crocker pudding maker set.  You'd add this powder, some milk and shake it.  Sure my mom would help but I was cooking.  Also afriend had one of the cake baking ovens and we used to make cakes and frosting.  It was great fun.  Later in something like third grade I remember making brownies with my sister - and eating the whole batch before my parents came home from bowling!  By sixth grade it was cooking at Girl Scout events and in home economics.  In high school I was baking cookies for friends, treats to take in for sharing in classes, cooking dinners when I wanted something my mom wouldn't make - like tacos, and working as a short order breakfast cook on weekends.  And ultimately, in college I was cooking my way into Husband-to-be's heart via his stomach with those amazing brownies I learned to cook in third grade.  

Without cooking my life would have been much different. So in many ways I feel sorry for the women who are of just now learning to cook - to me they've missed out on so much.  How can we help?  I'm not sure but I guess the first step is realizing that not everyone can just walk into a kitchen, boil some water and make spaghetti let alone lasagna or macaroni and four-cheese.  If you're one of those who can't cook and would like to learn it would be interesting to hear what types of things you want to learn. Or if you have suggestions on how to help people learn more about how to cook that would be interesting to.  Just click add a comment to this entry so we can all see what you have to say...