Chardonnay - an eminent white wine

The Chardonnay grape is an eminent white wine growing all around the world. This is the most popular white wine. The taste and flavours of Chardonnay are depending upon the origin location and processing methods. It yields a variety of flavours and styles. It is the major grape type in Champagne along with Pinot Noir. Due to its versatile flavours and styles, it expanded like a bush fire in Europe and in other parts of the world such as California, Australia and New Zealand.

As the wine makers paid attention in Chardonnay, it grew well in Chile and South Africa. As it is non-aromatic type, it is compatible with oak. French and American Chardonnay are the richest and complex whites. Although it has fatigue, but its wonderful flavours, richness will keep it popular for a long time.

The original recognition of Chardonnay comes from its boom in the Burgundy and Champagne area of France. Although it is labelled that White Burgundy is made from a less known grape Aligote, but the fact is White Burgundy can't be prepared without Chardonnay grape.

Chardonnay grapes are green-skinned and very thin skinned. According to the genetic science, it is the resultant of cross between Pinot and the Croatian Gouais Blanc grape. Although these two species are extinct, but Chardonnay is still popular.

Chardonnay grapes are generally fermented and aged in oak barrels, which yields the vanilla flavours in the wines. Chardonnay can also be fermented and aged in bottles, but it will not age as long as red wines.

As the Chardonnay wines are generally considered chilled, it clicks very well with chicken preparations and dishes with a lots of butter or cheeses. Chardonnay wines usually have less acid so it can match with seafood.

In America it is made by the malolactic fermentation with some oak. If it is fermented without oak, a soft wine will be produced with some mineral flavours. If it is aged with oak then the resultant wines will have caramel, vanilla and butter flavours with a blend of Smokey aroma.

Chardonnay is also used to make Champagne; the example of 100% Chardonnay Champagne is Blanc de Blanc. Furthermore, Chardonnay can be used to make some sparkling wines.

Chardonnay is now eighth-ranked in world chart of grape cultivation with estimated planting areas of 140,000 hectares. It is planted mostly in Australia, Italy, France and America. Its popularity has caused a repercussion from some wine lovers, who do not like any wine but Chardonnay. This causes the monopoly of Chardonnay in the wine market.

Espresso making is an art form here s how to make a great cup

Ever wondered what the secrets are to making Espresso as good as the coffee house baristas do? Well stay with me a while and I will give away some of their trade secrets so you too can master the art of making a great cup of espresso.

The most important ingredient in making a good tasting espresso is to use pure fresh filtered or rain water. Regardless of what quality coffee grounds you use it won’t override the associated taste of poor water. For most of us chlorine and other chemicals in our tap water will put us at a real disadvantage. It might surprise some to know water can get stale so make sure it hasn’t been sitting around in plastic containers or in the fridge for too long before you use it.

To make a new brew of espresso remember to use very hot water with an optimum temperature of around 203F (95C) or nearly boiling water. If you don’t want to get too technical using a thermometer, just switch the jug off as the water is starting to boil and then count to ten. That has always worked for me.

Of course the next most important ingredient is the coffee. These days there is an abundance of choice and sometimes it’s hard to know where to start. I like to be a little adventurous and try coffees from different countries all over the world. Each one has its own unique flavour. Some I like and some I don’t go back for a second go.

One of my favorites is Arabica coffee which comes from the high country in Brazil or Bogota. Some people like to roast the green beans themselves while others are content to buy them freshly roasted. Either way it is important to make sure the beans are fresh and have a good aromatic smell to them.

Also Robusta is one you might like to try. This variety has more caffeine but is a little less full bodied flavour than Arabica. Generally it should be used for those quick pick-me-up cups but it’s not at all suitable for an espresso that is to be savoured.

Once you start exploring different types of coffee, blending is something you might like to try your hand at. A blend of 70% Arabica and 30% Robusta is a great favorite of mine because it takes away the heavy chocolate taste of the Arabica and gives a mellower and more creamy texture to the brew. Women more often enjoy this blend as it is milder in flavor and is not such an assault on the taste buds. In Australia you can find this blend already ground in the MAP brand (red packet).

From personal experience let me tell you adding a grinder to your kitchen appliances will open up a whole world of espresso coffee tasting for you. Being able to buy beans of any type and bring them home and finely grind them yourself is essentially a defining experience.

Another important point is that the quality of the espresso machine you buy will of course affect the quality of the espresso coffee it produces. Here I should remind you to look for a machine that is easy to clean and maintain as well as one that generates heat by boiler or thermoblock and is capable of producing pump pressure of 9 bar or better. A thermoblock heats water as it passes through the machine on the way to the pump. For a really professional and satisfying brew it is best to avoid the cheaper units that rely on steam to create pressure.

Now that we know all that we are ready to make a top cup of espresso. For the best results pre-warm the equipment by running clean water through the machine is a good idea. Then when you turn the machine on, let the water heat, before running a cup through with no coffee to warm the surfaces and flush the system.

Next you can add the freshly ground espresso roast and then tamp it down slightly with the back of a spoon, just like you would in a tobacco pipe till you feel some springiness - but the coffee shouldn't scatter about.

Then put the hopper in the machine and place a warmed espresso cup at the outlet. Now comes the good part, start the machine and in about five seconds you will have a steady stream of beautiful espresso coffee. For a double shot it will take about 20 seconds to complete.

Making cappuccino is easy this way as all you have to do is warm half a cup of milk in the microwave for about 90 seconds, froth it with the wand and add it to the espresso. If you are like me and love the froth use full cream milk rather than reduced fat milk as it froths better. To make it just like a bought one, sprinkle some cinnamon over the top. However if you really want to create a sensation you could shave some chocolate or sprinkle cocoa on the top. For the sweet tooth you will probably need a teaspoon of sugar.

In a nutshell the secret to making a good cup of espresso at home that tastes just like one from your favourite coffee shop is to start with good quality coffee, keep your equipment nice and clean, use fresh water, don't burn the roast and make sure you grind it properly.

Enjoy.

Curb cravings with cinnamon the spice of life

Do you enjoy cinnamon? Here is a spice that we can enjoy, and that is also healthy for us.

Cinnamon was one of the first commodities traded regularly between the Near East and Europe. Surprisingly, cinnamon is a small evergreen tree. It is the bark that is processed which turns into the ground cinnamon and cinnamon sticks (or quills) we are used to seeing. Its active and healthful components are cinnamaldehyde, cinnamyl acetate and cinnamyl alcohol which are derived from the essential oils in the bark.

Ceylon and cassia are the two most popular varieties of cinnamon, even though there are hundred of varieties. Cassia, the stronger of the two and the less expensive, is more common in North America. Both cinnamons are an excellent source of trace mineral manganese and a good source of dietary fiber, iron and calcium.

Insulin Reduction

By just digesting a ј teaspoon a day, patients with type 2 diabetes had lowered their blood sugar, cholesterol and triglyceride levels. Levels increased when they stopped adding cinnamon to their diet.

Cinnamon normalizes blood sugar levels. This helps to reduce cravings for sugar. This helps to control blood glucose levels by preventing insulin spikes after meals. It reduces serum glucose, triglyceride, LDL cholesterol as well as total cholesterol.

Other Healthy Benefits

Cinnamon has anti-clotting properties; helps prevent the unwanted clotting of blood platelets, which places cinnamon in the category of an “anti-inflammatory” food. This anti-inflammatory benefit can help relieve arthritis as well as relieve pain and stiffness of muscles and joints.

Cinnamon also has anti-microbial actions, stopping the growth of bacteria as well as fungi and yeast Candida. It is so successful as an anti-microbial, that it has been used as a food preservative.

There are so many other helpful benefits of cinnamon, beside the affect it has on blood sugar and its anti-clotting and anti-microbial properties. Just a few benefits of cinnamon are listed below:

Curbs cravings

Supports digestive function

Relieves congestion

Constricts and tones tissues

Boosts brain function by boosting cognitive function and memory

Relieves menstrual discomfort

Improves circulation by thinning blood

Provides calcium and fiber protect against heart disease

Improves colon health, by removing bile salts from the body

Prevents urinary tract infections and irritable bowel syndrome

Helps address tooth decay and gum disease

How to add Cinnamon to Your Diet

Adding cinnamon to your diet can be easy as making toast. Just add a touch of honey and a sprinkle of cinnamon to whole grain bread for an adult version of cinnamon toast. Sprinkle cinnamon onto your whole grain oatmeal or cereals or on yogurt, soups and sauces.

Simmer your favorite tea, coffee or soy milk with cinnamon sticks, creating the perfect breakfast drink or bedtime nightcap.

For an ethnic flair, add liberal amounts of cinnamon to beans or meat in your Mexican dishes. Or add to curries and chilis for a warm, spicy kick. You can also sautй vegetables with cinnamon sticks for unique flavoring and healthful benefits. (Remove the cinnamon sticks before serving.) Let cinnamon add some spice to your life.

Wineries buzzing about cal-ital varietals

Cal-Ital refers to Italian varietals grown in California and is the new buzzword among some winemakers.

California's wine country was largely built on Italian-American grape growers, like Sam & Vicki Sebastiani of Viansa Winery, specializing in Italian varietals.

To learn of the intricacies of Italian wines, Viansa Winery offers a few Italian varietals worth tasting, along with some tips on how to pair them with foods for a complete epicurean experience.

* Sangiovese: A versatile wine, adaptable to many different foods, from pizza to hearty minestrone. "Piccolo" Sangiovese is a medium-bodied wine with a bouquet of raspberries, strawberries, blackberries and a hint of smoky tar to a plum-like flavorful finish.

"Thalia" Sangiovese is a complex, full-bodied wine blended with 80 percent Sangiovese, 16 percent Merlot, 4 percent Cabernet Sauvignon, and less than 1 percent Cabernet Franc. Aged for 15 months in oak barrels, "Thalia" is recommended to be decanted for an hour before serving with selections like veal or grilled duck breasts with cherry chutney.

* Barbera: Viansa's blend of 93 percent Barbera and 7 percent Nebbiolo, the "Augusto" Barbera has flavors of cherries, raspberries and strawberries. It's the perfect wine with cheese and salami. It also pairs well with lamb and rabbit.

* Nebbiolo: With distinctive aromas of strawberries, roses, mint and tar, this red wine is an ideal choice for dishes featuring the earthy flavors of mushrooms and truffles.

* Vernaccia: Viansa is one of the few producers of Vernaccia in the United States. This white wine is famous to the Tuscan region of Italy. It displays flavors of star fruit, mild melons and a crisp acid finish, along with flavors of pineapple, banana, hints of pear, dried fruit and creamy butterscotch, making it perfect to sip by itself.

* Pinot Grigio: Harvested from Viansa's Sonoma Valley Estate, the 2004 "Vittoria" Pinot Grigio has light flavors of apricots, pears and green apples with hints of orange, lingering hazelnut and macadamia flavors. This wine pairs nicely with shellfish, white fish, chicken and veal.

* Tocai Friulano: A new white wine for Viansa boasting aromas of apricot, guava, pineapple and glazed nuts. Viansa pressed whole clusters of fruit and fermented the wine in stainless steel in order to preserve the bright fruit flavors. This new wine is the perfect companion for shellfish like oysters and mussels.

Light and fresh as a salad

No small thanks to weight watchers everywhere, the salad is beginning to take on center stage from an obscure, little corner during the earlier times. Indeed, salad is now enjoying the same popularity of the, well not exactly pizza, but at least fast food.

New diet and fitness methods seem to pop out everywhere on a monthly basis. From crash to yoyo to Low Carb-High Protein, to the After Six, to South Beach to something as crazy as color dieting.

The methods vary mostly in the food composition that must be consumed while on the diet, but what's common to all these are the inclusion of salad in one form or another.

Indeed, the humble salad has found its way even to those fast food counters as health consciousness begins to grow. Even the Fast food king, McDonald's himself, had to yield to the pressure and has started to offer healthy alternatives that includes, you've guess it right, the salad.

There are more than a thousand ways to prepare a salad. This can be served as an appetizer, a main course, dessert and even as a sandwich filling. Although most often associated with all those big nutritional stuff such as the lettuces, romaines, tomatoes, carrots, cucumber and grapes, the salad can also take on the form of a heavier meal.

While chicken and tuna are the most common ingredients, pork, turkey and peking duck have already found their way in bowls everywhere.

Generally, the term salad refers to a preparation of chopped and / or sliced ingredients. Although meat can be incorporated in it, it has to contain at least one or two vegetables and fruits. It can be served dry or with a dressing.

The most common dressings are whipped cream, vinaigrette, thousand island, honey-mustard and ceasars' dressing. And the most common ingredients are lettuce, tomatoes, carrots and cucumber. Eggs have also become a regular ingredient.

The popularity of the salad has grown mostly because of its nutritional value. It satisfies the hunger pangs without weighing in too much on the scale. And this is why it has become a favorite preparation for the health nuts everywhere.

Come to think of it, one need really not be a health enthusiast to enable him or her to enjoy this preparation. With the variety and interesting textures that come up every time, one is bound to find one that he or she can be addicted to.

The best caviar only comes from the best

For ages, caviar, which by definition is the salted roe of a large fish, has been considered a gourmet food and a delicacy for most people and continues to be so up to this day. In the early times, caviar was considered highly valuable and was a dainty choice of food enjoyed by royalty and the privileged few. It was also once served as an appetizer in the Old West. Its reputation of being highly valuable in the early days still continues up to now. Caviar is not one of the cheapest delights available in the market. But even if that is so, it does not stop gourmet food lovers from learning to enjoy them. You can get great deals on any type of caviar if you browse on the Internet. You will be amazed on the different varieties offered by online retailers from around the world and how you could find the freshest caviar from them.

The two main producers of caviar are Russia and Iran, along with the countries Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan. Caviar production is mostly centered in the Caspian Sea and the major importers of caviar are the United States, Japan, UK, France, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland.

When purchasing caviar online, you need to properly scrutinize the source or the shop. Always remember that caviar is very perishable. You always have to be ensured of its freshness and get ones which are very close to its canning date. Therefore, you need to be close to the source or shop as possible so that you get only the fresh ones. Even though the caviar sold in the market is sealed properly to last a long time that does not necessarily mean that you are ensured of its freshness.

Caviar, like any other gourmet food, comes in different varieties. So it is also vital if you would know which variety you want before ordering it.

Almost everybody would like a store that treats them well. It would be a plus for the retailer if they do not have any cases of customer dissatisfaction. You need to read reviews and articles on the Internet or magazines relating to the company or store and see how they do with satisfying its customers' needs. You could also ask your peers if they have had experience with the retailer you are eyeing on.

You also need to find out whether that online store is always busy. It should not only sell caviar but other gourmet products, as well. A factor which makes that retailer busy is its ability to sell its products. If that store is constantly selling their stock, then there is no reason for their products to gather dust in their display areas or storage rooms. You are almost guaranteed that they would only sell the freshest. If that store practically has no time to sit around, then you can also be sure that they have a lot of satisfied customers. They surely have a way of gaining their customers' trust and retaining it.

Keep these tips in mind when browsing for caviar retailers. Remember you deserve the best so it is very important you find only the best among them.

An array of choice in cheese slicers

If you enjoy eating a fresh slice of cheese that is cut right from the block, you probably have some sort of cheese slicer in your kitchen cupboard. While knives can cut some of the harder variety of cheeses sufficiently, it is better by far to use a cheese slicer to get perfect portions of cheese every time. There are a variety of slicers on the market today, and some will work best for individual use and cooking, while others are pretty and functional enough for your entertaining needs. No cocktail party is complete without a cheese platter, and no cheese platter is complete without a cheese slicer.

The History of the Cheese Slicer

The cheese slicer was invented by a Norwegian carpenter named Thor Bjorklund in 1925. His wife had sent a chunk of cheese to his workshop for lunch one day, and the innovative carpenter needed a way to cut off smaller slices. Through that experience, he created the first cheese slicer, which he also patented that same year. The slicer began to be mass produced in Norway in 1927. Since that time, many variations have been created on Bjorklund’s design, allowing every cook to find the perfect slicer to meet his needs. Although they are most popular in some European countries where sliced cheese on bread is a common fare, many styles have gained momentum in the United States as well.

Different Designs of Slicers

There are a variety of designs of cheese slicers, including those that are primarily for functional purposes. These can include many hand-held designs, and can run the gamut in quality and price. If you slice a lot of cheese to use in your recipes and cooking, it is best to find a high-quality and functional design that will last through time and plenty of use.

On the other hand, if your main purpose in a cheese slicer will be for entertaining, there are many styles on the market that are beautiful as well as functional. Some of these designs are crafted out of high-quality wood or even marble, and some come with a built in tray to hold crackers or slices of bread.

These attractive cheese slicers can also make a wonderful gift for the person on your list that seems to have everything. You can throw in a package of delicious French cheese and a bottle of wine to complement, and your recipient has the beginning supplies for a lovely cocktail gathering.