My morning began with a quick and easy ride into Manhattan, a cup of Mexican style hot drinking chocolate and a panel discussion between Ruth Reichl (a woman I have to utmost admiration for) and successful restaurateur Drew Nierporent (owner of Montrachet, Nobu, Tribecca Grill,  Rubicon, et al) on the subject of restaurant reviews. 

First, let me say that there is something unbelievably humbling about surrounding myself with people that know infinitely more about food and wine than I do. Ruth's mastery of subjects that I grapple with, like how to keep you – my dear readers – engaged and following along with me through my culinary journeys, leaves me hanging on her every word. Drew's diligence and awareness of the widely expanding food media (including blogs) astounded me. 

They tackled such subjects as: Whom are restaurant critics responsible to?  Well, if employed by a newspaper or magazine, the critic's primary responsibility is to his/her media outlet and their charge is to sell papers.  However, most restaurants do not advertise.  In fact, restaurants are one of the few businesses in our society that advertising hinders – If you, dear reader, saw an ad for your local up-scale Italian restaurant, would you go there?  Conversely, if that same publication reviewed the restaurant and said it was great, would you go? 

Alas, the spark of debate!  As Drew explained, "A bad review can close a restaurant. I don't want to wake up one morning and read my obituary in the newspaper?"

In preparation for this panel, Drew reached out to Mimi Sheraton (The most brutal critic in New York's restaurant history).  He quoted her as saying, "It's okay to slap a man in the face, just don't cut him with your ring."

In fact, Drew brought out a report that one of his staff wrote to him on the subject of Ruth's reviews for the New York Times from 1993 – 1998, much to Ruth's surprise! This report detailed the 260 reviews she conducted for the New York Times within that timeframe, outlining her preferences, style, and approach to reviewing. 

He went on to inform us that two of her reviews received five stars,13 received three stars and 134 received 2 stars.  However, of all those two star reviews, she wrote glowing editorial for many. 

Ruth explained that she – and the New York Times – put a lot of thought into the star-system.  She feared that giving a restaurant more than two stars would be akin to killing it with faint praise.  You see, many diners write off three-plus star restaurants as too stuffy, too expensive, or too formal.  So by writing a three-star review and giving it two stars, she kept the restaurant approachable for diners – they came in with reasonable expectations.

Drew told a story of when he first opened Montrachet and the then-New York Times critic, Brian Miller made a reservation under the name "Benson."  Drew came in to work on his day off, ensured the kitchen staff provided him an exemplary meal, and then following him out of the restaurant – taking pictures of him and his date.  He received his three stars.

A few months later, they received a call for a reservation at 8:00pm... "I'm sorry, we don't have a table at 8:00pm on Saturday night, I can give you a table at 9:00pm,"  he offered.  "What is the name?  Oh, Benson, wait, I have an opening after all." 

Drew reserved table number three – table number two sat his mother – for the Benson party.  When he asked the maitre d' how Benson liked their food, the maitre d' replied "I don't know, they are speaking French," alas, not the food critic's alias after all.

I came to realize that I make a terrible critic – I have a predisposition to enjoying most restaurants.  They really have to provide me with crappy food or offensive service for me to balk or complain.  I walk in expecting to have a great time.  I am always so enthusiastic and hopeful about each of my restaurant experiences. I appreciate how much work goes into running a restaurant and so I walk in rooting for the kitchen staff.  I want them to do a great job and I look forward to sharing their passion.  I prefer to call my blogs "experiential storytelling."  I believe that is why each o f your enjoy reading my stories.

So, unlike technology reviewers that write their analysis based in hard-fact comparisons, a food review must communicate its writer's experiences if he/she is to sway anyone to expand their palate, explore new restaurants or experiment with recipes.  Essentially, good food is the eaten embodiment of passion, it is love shared from kitchen to plate. Just as a good chef must love food to achieve greatness, a good food writer must convey passion to sway readers.

After pontificating the meaning of the restaurant review, I moved on to more hedonistic learning… drinking wine.  My second seminar, entitled "How to Taste Like an Expert," consisted of a blind tasting.  Michael Green, the wine and spirits consultant to Gourmet Magazine, discussed how to look at, smell and taste wine.  I eagerly anticipated testing my wine identifying skills.

Our first wine had a golden straw color that looked like a bold California Chardonnay.  However, at my first sniff, I picked up uncharacteristic notes – like cat pee and green peppers, then heavy oak treatment (vanilla, honey, toasted brioche) – but no citrus. Stumped, I kept tasting (and tasting) – purely in the interest of identification —- of course

The second wine had a light yellow color, an acidic nose and notes of green apple, lime and peaches – I immediately thought of a Mosel River Riesling.  (I was right – yea).

When we transitioned into red wine, I knew immediately that the first wine was a Pinot Noir.  The clear ruby color and the cherry and smoke nose  gave it away.  However, he served the wine at cellar temperature, so the fruit elements were subdued.  I mistook it for a burgundy – It came from Santa Barbara.  Michael said, "don't feel bad – the temperature tricked you.  If you taste this wine at room temperature, you'll see that it is far more fruit forward that it displays here." 

The next wine stumped us all.  We knew it to be a Cab from the leather and tobacco – but what jumped out at me here was the wine's intense licorice/anise/fennel notes.  This wine was earthy and not fruit forward at all.  We all thought it to be an old world wine – it came from Australia.

He gave us a classic example of Bordeaux and stumped me completely with the Rioja (the only wine I could not identify at all).  I did not know that Spanish wines use American oak.

The wines of our tasting included:

• Chardonnay "Robert Young Vineyard" Chateau St. Jean 2005 LAlexander Valley, California
• Erdener Treppchen Kabinett Riesling, Meulenhof 2005, Mosel Valley Germany
• Pinot Noir, Lincourt 2005, Santa Barbara, California
• Cabernet Sauvignon, Tapestry 2002 McLaren Vale, Australia
• Saint Estephe, Chateau de Pez, 2004, Bordeaux, France
• Rioja Gran Reserva, Bodegas Montecillo, 1998, Rioja Spain

Good and sauced, I made my way back to the hospitality pavilion for a lunch of samples – Tillamook and Kerrygold cheeses; Colivita olive oil, a variety of wines by the glass, more of the *Peruvian appetizers, and another wonderful sample from Chef John Bech (owner of three Louisiana restaurants), of Jumbo Louisiana shrimp and andouille sausage over silver queen corn cheese grits.

* BTW:  The dish that looked like polenta with a metallic sauce is in fact a Peruvian mashed potato with a lobster cervechi and mayo salad with slices of avocado.  The pink sauce is a sweet (mango/papaya) mayo and the dark metallic sauce is made from Peruvian black olives.

I watched as Sara Moulton handed out her fantastic strawberries and talked about ergonomics of kitchen remodeling with an expert from Best Buy.

Sara Moulton's Stuffed Strawberries>>

From Sara's Secrets for Weeknight Meals, Broadway Books, 2005

• 8 large strawberries (about 1 lb)
• 2oz low-fat cream cheese (about ¼ cup), softened
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• ¾ oz bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons chopped candied orange zest (chopped up candied orange slices will do)

Cut each strawberry in half lengthwise through the cap.  Arrange the strawberry halves, cut side up, on a serving plate.   Trim a think slice from the bottom if necessary to make each half sit evenly.  Using a small spoon or melon baler, scoop out a hollow in the center of the cut side of each strawberry.  Reserve the strawberry scraps for another use (or eat them).

Combine the cream cheese and the sugar in a small bowl; stir in the chocolate and orange zest.  Divide the cream cheese mixture among the hollows in the strawberries and serve or refrigerate, covered for up to 1 hour (no longer).

At the lunch, I met Iron Chef Morimoto (whom I have affectionately dubbed the Miamoto Mushai of sushi aka the Sushi Samurai), Charlie Palmer, Roberto Santibanez, Laurent Tourondel and Jose Andres.

I then made my way back to Conde Nast for blogging discussions with Ruth Reichl, Tyler Coleman of www.drvino.com, Ben Leventhal of www.eater.com, Ed Levine of www.seriouseats.com, and Ganda Suthivarakom of www.eatdrinkonewoman.com. 

Fact: more than 70,000 blogs go up and nearly 6,000 go dormant each day.

One of Ruth's largest concerns is that professional journalists have a standard code of ethics that prevents them (usually) from accepting free meals in exchange for good reviews.  Most print publications hold their staff to these standards.  Bloggers, however, are often independent and not beholden to editors with moral and ethical standards, so many do accept free meals (For the record, either my dining companions or I pay for all my meals – unless I am a guest in someone's home).  

We talked about many issues that reminded me of work, demographics, traffic, balancing editorial and advertising needs, etc.

Then, I went to see Jaques Torres' chocolate demonstrations.  Charming, funny and fun, Jaques engaged his skills as a showman as he demonstrated how to make a Haunted Halloween Castle from chocolate.  Within an hour and a half, he built the entire thing from scratch while we nibbled away on chocolate covered raisins. 

Of the three restaurants we could chose from, I opted to dine at Le Bernadin.  Now, many of you know my opinions of Chef Ripert and his ode to perfection.  I thought, "If he can create perfection each night for a regular patron, what would he do for Ruth Reichl?"

Well, my curiosity paid off in spades.  We enjoyed one of the most magnificent seafood and wine parings of my lifetime…

When I walked into the restaurant, the Maitre d' recognized me and welcomed me back (that is impressive).  The wait staff remembered me and welcomed me back.  The assistant sommelier remembered me and asked me what I thought of the wine I had (the Rully) on my last visit!  It's been at least four weeks and they see hundreds of people a night.  I was blown away (and so were the other attendees

We began our meal with a white soy-yuzu marinated fluke; seaweed and spiced "rice crispies" appetizer paired with a Reisling St. Remigiusberg, Tesch, Nahe 2006 that tasted like lime jello and jolly ranchers candy – but bone dry. The saltiness from the fish perfectly balanced the acidity of the Riesling to form an ideal pairing.

Our second course surpassed my wildest expectations!  He poached Escolar (a fish found off the coast of Hawaii in extra virgin olive oil and served it with sea beans, potato crisps and a light red wine Bernaise.  They paired this course with a superb bottle of Samur Champigny from Domaine Hureau, Loire 2005.  Unlike any other Cabernet Franc I have tasted, this wine had a lighter body, intense smokiness, leather and velvet tannins. 

For the main attraction, Chef Ripert prepared a pan-roasted monkfish that he served with truffle mashed potato emulsion and a red-wine brandy sauce.  They paired the monkfish with a Bourgogne Pinot Noir from Domaine Jean Michel Gullion, 2002.  The sommelier explained that a large proportion of these grapes came from Gevrny Chambertan, from younger vines.  So, we expected to find a wine  nearing Premiere Cru quality Burgundy. 

We slipped into something sweet… a spiced sweet potato tart with red wine caramel, chestnut maple whipped cream and pistachio and vanilla salt paired with a phenomenal nearly 20 year old bottle of Vouvray.  The Vouvray Moelleux, Vignobles Brisbarre,Loire, 1989 had a very petrol nose.  I feared that it would taste as strangely as it smelled, but it opened up on my palate to become a medium bodied floral wine with enough residual sugars to carry the pasty nicely and still maintain its own delicate character.

Our meal wound down with their signature petit fours, macaroons, financiers, and raspberry gummy candy, which I enjoyed with a cappuccino.  We hopped in the bus to back to the hotel, drunk, full and well into a fantastic food high.

I wanted to write down all my adventures for you last night, my dear readers.  However, by the time we arrived back in the hotel (I took a hotel room in NYC so that I could drink unfettered with driving responsibilities), I passed out.