Caught World Cup Fever? Been watching the games? Have you been immersing yourself in terms like "Total Football" or "Catenaccio"? We ourselves have been totally obsessed about the Cup since it began. We've watched games when we could, TiVo'ed others. We've read World Cup blogs, live blogged, snuck peak at live feeds at work, and have been reading far more English newspapers than we ever thought we would. We've been so obsessed with it, in fact, that even though there's two more games left, we are already mourning the end of it and have vowed that this time, this time!-- we will continue on with our rediscovered love of soccer and start paying more attention to the Premiere and Champions Leagues. Hell, we have already marked Euro 2008 on our calendars (June 2008). ...

The Michelin Guide will release its first San Francisco edition next fall. This follows in the footsteps of the New-York guide, whose first edition they released late last year. We can't hardly wait to put our hands on this. Which places will have the 3 stars rating, the one which means a restaurant is a trip destination on its own? The French reviewers are fussy, so the down-to-earth Chez Panisse might be out of favor.......

A short PSA: yesterday we (aka. SFist Sam) investigated the food of Provence. Since no one has done more for the PR of the Provence area than Peter Mayle --except maybe for those guys Cezanne and Van Gogh-- we have to mention he will be signing his new book, Confessions of a French Baker, Saturday at noon at the Ferry Building's Sur La Table. The French baker is the one prominently featured in A Year in Provence, of course. He also will be at a ticketed event tonight at the Clay, tomorrow in Danville, and Saturday at 6pm in Sebastopol (cf. info at the very bottom of this post). As it is about food in France, we will review the book, hopefully next week, as we only received it today. Last week, we started our epic "battle thai," with a lackluster visit to Osha Thai. We usually give at least two visits to a restaurant, but we were not particularly in the mood to go back there. We instead opted to visit Marnee Thai. We had checked out Thai Chef, a block away from the original Marnee, and at the time really felt we should see how the reference in the neighborhood fares against the new young guns....

In the movie Barbershop, Isaac is this white guy who talks, dresses and acts like the other characters, even though they all are African-Americans. And we were thinking of him when we got our hands on Thomas Keller's latest cookbook, Bouchon: here is this American chef who talks about France's culinary traditions, who cooks according to century old French recipes, who even bears an Alsatian name. Bouchon is Keller's other restaurant, the French bistro......

You're out with your best buds at a hip brasserie, savoring that contented feeling of good friends and good eats. The conversation's buzzing and the mood's high -- but you also notice, out of the corner of your eye, some desperate-looking folks staring pointedly at the empty plates on your table and the green and white striped receipt curling up on its little plastic tray. You reluctantly divvy up the check, put on your coats, and head out the door. "Does anyone want to get dessert?," someone says. Well, sure we'd love to get dessert! But ... where? Where? Why doesn't this city have any decent places to go in the evenings where you can sit down with your buddies and get a nice slice of cake, a homemade pie with the flaky crust, or even just a fricken' cookie or nut-studded brownie? Sure, there's Just Desserts -- but the cake's always dry (and how much lemon poppyseed can one person consume in a lifetime anyways?). And there's Tart To Tart, but if you're not already at Ninth and Irving, that's pretty much not an option either. Sweet Inspirations? Dry cake, plus never any place to sit. Citizen Cake? Too 'spensive! The coffee places never have good sweets, plus you know, you're not really in the mood for the bad lighting of a coffee place at night, and the bars are just right but, well, beer and sweets are not the world's best combo. We'd just like a place with casual seating, decent prices, evening hours (say, until 11), and relatively moist cake -- that perfect place to cap off that conversation with those friends of yours without hogging a seat at the boiterie. Is that so much to ask, San Francisco? Where do you guys go with your friends for non-intoxicating evening fun? ...

In tech news, stoned graphic designers were stunned when they realized that they had no idea that Adobe was going to swallow Macromedia whole. South Park laughs to keep from crying. After singlehandedly sparking off a department-wide investigation into drinking on the job after showing up to work drunk, Fireman Steve Gritsch manages to get a DUI! We're thinking it's a quiet protest against the Muni fare increase In the California Gubenatorial " ">Where......

Alder Yarrow has written up the results of the UK-based Restaurant Magazine's top 50 list. You can set aside your obligatory "English food sucks" jokes, as The Fat Duck in the village of Bray, Berks, England has claimed the top spot, besting El Bulli in Spain (foams are soooooo 2004). Coming in at number three? Yountville's The French Laundry, winning best restaurant in the Americas. Berkeley's Chez Panisse was the "Highest Climber," rising to......

"Can you do anything with radishes other than carve them into little shapes?" a friend asked when we told him about our farmer's market haul from Sunday's Jack London Square market. "Of course," we replied confidently, waiting until his back was turned before scurrying off nervously to check our cookbooks.

We confess that we, too, used to use spring radishes for garnish rather than flavor, though they have the same bite we like in their close relatives the turnips. At best, we've put the ubiquitous Cherry Belle radishes onto a crudité platter, where our guests usually just ignore them. We decided it was time to expand our horizons.

Organic satsuma oranges made for a nice snack as we shopped at Tuesday's Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market, but we thought we'd mention the dried mandarins at Everything Under the Sun's [PDF] stall. These brittle, bitter wheels aren't exactly an accessible snack on their own, but a moment in our spice grinder turned them into a flavorful powder with a multitude of uses. We particularly liked this dust as a coating for Cointreau-flavored chocolate truffles,......