Cooking World

Hot chocolate or cocoa
Benefit: improves mood and protects from cardiovascular diseases. Cocoa contains set of polyphenols which protect cells from harmful action of free radicals. The use of hot chocolate increases level of hormone serotonin which low level has a negative effect on the mood. Calories: about 195 kcal for 250 of a product and 115 kcal in a powder mixture.
Tomato juice without salt
Benefit: protects from many cancer forms. Tomatoes are rich in licopen, which associates with risk reduction of a cancer of oral cavity, lungs, stomach, liver, mammas, cervix of the uterus, and large intestine. Besides it protects heart from the influence of free radicals, thus, reducing probability of cardiovascular diseases. Calories: 43 kcal in 250 of a product.
Cranberry juice
Benefit: prevents gingivitis. However, this juice very often contains sugar, therefore choose 100 % juice without sugar, or use no more than one glass a day. Calories: 140 kcal in 250 g of a product.
Orange juice
Benefit: vitamin C raises immunity, protects from many disease, such as the cataract and cancer. Orange juice is an excellent source of the folic acid necessary for prevention of fetus development defects. Calories: 115 kcal in 250 of a product.

The newest history of coffee is shared into two periods: before Starbucks and after.
All American nation has passed from the sour filtered coffee to natural espresso. And five years ago to look at coffee as Starbucks began China and Europe.
Moscow waits for Starbucks many years.
Plastic bitterness
Unfortunately, “fast-food�? approach has replaced the idea of the true coffee house in America. You can meet Starbucks more often here, than McDonald’s and it would be possible to triumph over, but coffee in cups in New York Starbucks all of a sudden has disappeared. Cappuccino, latte, phrape they pour only in the paper and plastic glasses, similar to that at McDonald’s.
Europeans drink espresso from special cups alone. Thickness of walls is felt when you make the very first sip. Thin porcelain will change taste.
At Bon restaurant, one of the most fashionable Moscow places, coffee is served in thin-walled cups. Attention to cups is not a whim: in the wine world exists well-known dependence of taste from the form of a glass.

American wines are generally identified by the varietal grape that makes the wine. This approach, of course, greatly differs from many European traditions, where a bottle of wine tells you in which area the grape for this wine grew. With French wine, for example, you drink Burgundy, not Pinot Noir.
Why do they go against the old-aged traditions in the New World? The reason is clearly simple: there are a number of grape varietals grown in the same American wine areas. In Napa Valley, you will find Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah, Pinot Noir and Zinfandel, to name just a few of the red wines. For comparison, Pinot Noir is the red wine grape grown in the vineyards of Burgundy. The French wine drinker knows that if he drinks a red wine from Burgundy, he is drinking that very Pinot Noir. The location tells all.
So to make things simpler, American wineries label their goods primarily by grape varietal.
In certain areas of America titles have become widely associated with particular varietals - to name just a few - the Willamette Valley in Oregon with Pinot Noir, Marlborough in New Zealand with Sauvignon Blanc, and Stag’s Leap with Cabernet Sauvignon.

Mulled wine (from German gluhende Wein — hot, burning wine) is indispensable during cold seasons. This drink is appropriate for long winter evenings and is also very popular among people who prefer outside active rest. Mulled wine is usually cooked from red (rarely white) wine with addition of some sugar and spices, cinnamon and cloves. Sometimes people add rum, liqueur, cognac and lemons to the drink.

Mulled wine is also recommended during the period of recovery of one’s health after infectious diseases, and when physical or psychological emaciation takes place.

Recommendations concerning cooking:
1. The most important thing is to avoid boiling of your mulled wine. Some inexperienced aesthetes can spoil their first impressions. The temperature must be not more than 70 degrees. The wine should be prepared in the flame – proof tableware until a white froth disappears.
2. Dry or semidry red not strong wine is ideally suits for mulled wine.
3. It is very important to remember! Never cool down your mulled wine, because once warmed wine, loses its bouquet and gustatory qualities. Use high (the drink does not cool so fast) and limpid (it is just nice) glasses for drinking mulled wine.

The recipe of a classical mulled wine:

• a bottle (0,75) of red table wine,
• 6 -7 pieces of cloves, nutmeg to the taste,
• 1/3 of a glass of water, tablespoon of sugar.

It is necessary not to over boil your mulled wine. You should better take away enough hot drink from the stove. After that you can pour it to the glasses or to a ceramic teapot.