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Attend a cooking class at Studio of Good Living in San Francisco and you’ll soon discover a new world full of culinary adventures. More than just a cooking school, the Studio of Good Living shares the art of living well with all its students!
Studio of Good Living offers exceptional cooking classes and events in the Bay Area and Beyond. Want to learn how to cook or brush up on your cooking skills? Take a class with us! Escape to San Francisco for a Taste of San Francisco or indulge yourself with Cook, Shop, Spa. Burned out? Drop into Live Well, Eat Well for yoga lovers. Continue the journey with the Art of Dinner Blog and view our video classes for new ideas to spice up your dinner table. . Need a change of scenery? Join us for a total culinary and lifestyle retreat in beautiful Maine. Discover the possibilities with Chef Phoebe Schilla and the Studio of Good Living. Life is Beautiful by Design.
 One of the questions that I am asked most frequently about what I do is: Where do you shop? The answer is a long list of places all over the San Francisco Bay area. It depends on where I am cooking, convenience, and who has the highest quality ingredients available. I typically go to the Farmer’s market on the weekend for most of my produce shopping. For fish, I highly recommend Cook’s Seafood in Menlo Park—I rarely purchase seafood anywhere else. On the other side of the bay I recommend Monterey Fish Market. I shop Whole Foods for items such as flour, sugar etc.
 Most Tuesday mornings you will find me at Bianchini’s Market in Portola Valley. Portola Valley has a remote quality that makes it feel very unique. It is undeveloped and whenever I am there I find it hard to believe that I am just 40 minutes away from an urban city center. You will probably see a doe and her babies meandering by the side of the road. If you are driving only a few miles over the speed limit, or come to a ‘rolling stop’, the local law enforcement will surely stop you. It’s that kind of town. The easiest way to get to Portola Valley (from SF) is to take 280 south to the Alpine Road exit. Bianchini’s is located just off of the freeway, on the main road through town. It is family owned and operated. Bianchini’s opened as a full service grocery store in 1998. It now has a second store in San Carlos that opened last spring. What I like the most about the store is the commitment to quality and their support of local farms.  Of course, they do carry long distance items such as bananas and pineapples but they really make an effort to bring in local produce. I believe that they have some of the best local produce in the area. Chanterelle mushrooms when they are in season, a bounty of tomatoes and stone fruit in the summer, squash and apples in the fall. The meat department is also excellent. They do a fantastic job trimming and tying roasts, and the butchers are extremely knowledgeable. They carry high quality grass fed beef from Marin Sun Farms, items such as waygu brisket, as well as Mary’s air chilled chicken. They have high points for customer service too. The only department that I am not impressed by is the seafood department. However, it is worth a stop if you are driving thru Portola Valley.
One of the questions that I am asked most frequently about what I do is: Where do you shop? The answer is a long list of places all over the San Francisco Bay area. It depends on where I am cooking, convenience, and who has the highest quality ingredients available. I typically go to the Farmer’s market on the weekend for most of my produce shopping. For fish, I highly recommend Cook’s Seafood in Menlo Park–>Portola Valley has a remote quality that makes it feel very unique. It is undeveloped and whenever I am there I find it hard to believe that I am just 40 minutes away from an urban city center. You will probably see a doe and her babies meandering by the side of the road. If you are driving only a few miles over the speed limit, or come to a ‘rolling stop’, the local law enforcement will surely stop you. It’s that kind of town. The easiest way to get to Portola Valley (from SF) is to take 280 south to the Alpine Road exit. Bianchini’s is located just off of the freeway, on the main road through town. It is family owned and operated. Bianchini’s opened as a full service grocery store in 1998. It now has a second store in San Carlos that opened last spring. What I like the most about the store is the commitment to quality and their support of local farms. Of course, they do carry long distance items such as bananas and pineapples but they really make an effort to bring in local produce. I believe that they have some of the best local produce in the area. Chanterelle mushrooms when they are in season, a bounty of tomatoes and stone fruit in the summer, squash and apples in the fall. The meat department is also excellent. They do a fantastic job trimming and tying roasts, and the butchers are extremely knowledgeable. They carry high quality grass fed beef from Marin Sun Farms, items such as waygu brisket, as well as Mary’s air chilled chicken. They have high points for customer service too. The only department that I am not impressed by is the seafood department. However, it is worth a stop if you are driving thru Portola Valley.
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I love a good chardonnay. It’s such a likeable wine! Especially when it’s not too oaky, has good acidity and moderate alcohol levels. The 2007 Craggy Range ‘Kidnapper’s Vineyard’ really fits the bill. And it’s under $20/bottle.
 Campervan cookin' Craggy Range is a very special winery located in Hawkes Bay, New Zealand. Hawkes Bay wines are typically fly under the radar in the United States. However, the best wines are really wonderful. It is by far my favorite wine region in New Zealand.. Craggy Range makes some of the best wines in Hawkes Bay. They are incredibly passionate about the wines that they produce.
I was first exposed to Craggy Range about 7 years ago when I tasted (and was impressed by) their Bordeaux Style blend ‘Sophia’. A year later my boyfriend (now husband) and I found ourselves on a plane to New Zealand with the purpose to check out the land from whence hobbits came (or at least where the movies were filmed) and to taste some wine. We rented a campervan outside of the Auckland airport, and away we went. The campervan was a little shaky, to say the least, the maximum speed was 40 miles per hour, and that was going downhill in a stiff breeze. Pete proposed halfway through our trip so New Zealand remains a special place for the two of us.
 The growing wine stash Aside from being madly in love we were really impressed by the wines of New Zealand. We hand carried a total of 3 cases home. (We were very lucky that we could bring liquids on board the plane and our luggage was heavy. Very heavy.) We did have an appointment to visit Craggy Range Winery and we were incredibly impressed by the technology, architecture and setting of the vineyard. Steve Smith, Master of Wine showed us around the winery personally and when he heard that we were traveling and sleeping in a campervan offered to put us up in one of Craggy Ranges’ guesthouses for the night. It was an unexpected and generous offer, one that I haven’t forgotten. So I am very happy to declare the 2007 chardonnay delicious and delightful. It received 91 points from Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate, so I’m not the only one that thinks so.
Serve this Chardonnay lightly chilled with chicken or white firm fleshed fish. It was particularly lovely with Braised Chicken Thighs with Calvados, sautéed apples and cream.
Some of you may ask what I did today. My answer is this:
 Sausage Class 101 I made sausage. Lots and lots of dee-lish-ous sausage. Last month I signed up for a Sausage 101 class with Ryan Farr of 4505 meats. (4505meats.com) The class was awesome; fun and hands-on. Ryan’s sausage making skills are impressive to say the least. Sausage is one of those things that I simply don’t make at home, but I really appreciate a high quality fresh sausage and it’s hard to find!
Today we made three different sausages and took home about two pounds of each. (Alert: Sausage Party at the Schilla House tonight!) The sausages we made were: Maple Breakfast Sausage, Pork and Pecorino Sausage and Chicken and Beer Sausage. Ryan really made sausage making easy and fun—the hallmarks of a good teacher. There were 12 students in the class. Small enough so that we all could ask questions and get our hands dirty and big enough so that the work was evenly divided.
The Maple Breakfast sausage was delightful. It has a slight sweetness from the maple syrup, a hit of pepper, and a whiff of sage. On a biscuit with gravy it would be absolutely divine. (Go see 4505 meats at the Ferry Building Farmer’s Market if you want to try one.) Next up was the Pork and pecorino sausage which had an exceptional flavor and mouthfeel—it was saturated with flavor with out being heavy or cloying. The texture and flavors of 4505 sausages make them stand out from the pack. They all have an ethereal quality to them and are beautifully balanced and textured. Last but not least was the chicken and beer sausage which was so much more than just chicken and beer! It is enriched with cream and eggs. Dried apricots lend a sweet note to the savory character of the beer. This particular sausage would be lovely served with some sauerkraut, sautéed apples and a glass of Riesling on the side (a full bodied Belgian Style Ale would be lovely too).
Ryan also teaches whole hog and whole lamb butchery classes which I’m looking forward to taking later this year. I’ll let you know how that goes! Check him out at the Ferry Building Thursday Farmer’s Market from 10 to 2 if you want to try some of the best sausage I have had in recent memory.
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One of the questions that I am asked most frequently about what I do is: Where do you shop? The answer is a long list of places all over the San Francisco Bay area. It depends on where I am cooking, convenience, and who has the highest quality ingredients available. I typically go to the Farmer’s market on the weekend for most of my produce shopping. For fish, I highly recommend Cook’s Seafood in Menlo Park—I rarely purchase seafood anywhere else. On the other side of the bay I recommend Monterey Fish Market. I shop Whole Foods for items such as flour, sugar etc.
Most Tuesday mornings you will find me at Bianchini’s Market in Portola Valley. Portola Valley has a remote quality that makes it feel very unique. It is undeveloped and whenever I am there I find it hard to believe that I am just 40 minutes away from an urban city center. You will probably see a doe and her babies meandering by the side of the road. If you are driving only a few miles over the speed limit, or come to a ‘rolling stop’, the local law enforcement will surely stop you. It’s that kind of town. The easiest way to get to Portola Valley (from SF) is to take 280 south to the Alpine Road exit. Bianchini’s is located just off of the freeway, on the main road through town. It is family owned and operated. Bianchini’s opened as a full service grocery store in 1998. It now has a second store in San Carlos that opened last spring. What I like the most about the store is the commitment to quality and their support of local farms. 
Of course, they do carry long distance items such as bananas and pineapples but they really make an effort to bring in local produce. I believe that they have some of the best local produce in the area. Chanterelle mushrooms when they are in season, a bounty of tomatoes and stone fruit in the summer, squash and apples in the fall. The meat department is also excellent. They do a fantastic job trimming and tying roasts, and the butchers are extremely knowledgeable. They carry high quality grass fed beef from Marin Sun Farms, items such as waygu brisket, as well as Mary’s air chilled chicken. They have high points for customer service too. The only department that I am not impressed by is the seafood department. However, it is worth a stop if you are driving thru Portola Valley.
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