The experiment, designed to identify which ordinary experiences are most likely to make the everyday more special, used hypnosis to induce participants into a trance to heighten communication with the subconscious mind. Participants were then asked to visualise a series of everyday scenarios and scientists measured their subjective and physiological enjoyment to each situation, by recording electrodermal activity using electrodes attached to the fingers, and measuring heart rate using electrocardiogram connected to the chest and torso.

After extensive testing, the study revealed that the top three mood-boosters are a glass of chilled lemonade, biting into a homemade, freshly baked cupcake and turning on the radio to hear the start of your all-time favourite song.

While simple lemonade may top the chart of every day enhancers, it seems a message from your loved ones does not have quite the same effect; a funny text from family or friends only just squeezed in to the top ten experiences that give us the feel good factor.

Shopaholics and impatient drivers might also be surprised to hear that bagging a bargain and finding the very the last car parking space fared even worse; discovering an item in the sale that you’ve been lusting after came in at 11th while avoiding the frustration of searching for a place to park by driving straight into the last space was bottom of the table.

Each of the three enjoyment measures (subjective ratings; electrodermal activity and heart rate) were combined to obtain an overall enjoyment ranking for each type of stimulus.

Top 12 things that make a day more special

A glass of chilled lemonade

Biting into a fresh, homemade cupcake

Hearing your all-time favourite song on the radio

Smelling and eating a slice of warm Apple pie

A clear blue sky on the morning of a day trip

Adding a dollop of Dijon mustard to a steak

A comforting bowl of tomato soup

The traffic lights going green just as you approach

The smell of a sausage sandwich in the morning

A funny text message from your loved ones

Finding a coveted item has been reduced in the sale

Getting the last parking space in a busy street

Kirstin Knight, Sainsbury’s Head of Product Brand said: “We know that food and drink are life’s simple pleasures but this research reinforces our belief that the satisfaction associated with simple, good quality, everyday food is what really brightens up your day.

“The experiment has shown how our mind and body rates our experiences and highlighted that some of the main drivers in helping to make the everyday special are food and drink.

“At a time when customers have to make difficult decisions about their spending, our bySainsbury’s products give consumers thousands of affordable, different ways of getting that perfect pick me up!”

Goran’s tasty reminder of home

GORAN PETKOVIC, head grill chef at the Treehouse Bar & Grill in Chayofa, was born in Leskovac, South Serbia.

It’s a country rich in culture and innovative, grilled dishes, and Goran invites you to prepare and enjoy this delightful, South Serbian recipe.

Leskovacka muckalica

(Yugoslavian spicy Goulash)

Serves 4 persons

Ingredients

1 large onion

1 green pepper

1 red pepper

50g garlic

Perijil

4 tomatoes

100g bacon

300g pork

2 small dried chillis (or to taste)

Mustard, salt, pepper, ketchup, cayenne pepper

Method

Take and chop finely 1 large onion, 1 red & 1 green pepper, 50g of garlic, 4 ripe tomatoes and a handful of parsley. Then lightly simmer all these in vegetable oil, while adding 1 teaspoon of black pepper and 1 teaspoon of salt. Reduce all the ingredients and leave to the side.

Take your fresh pork and dice to a reasonable size (it’s important not to make it too small, as the meat will be grilled) take the diced pork and place directly on your grill/BBQ, turning until cooked through completely.

Then place all the meat with the reduced vegetables, adding, ½ litre of water and leave to cook for an hour on a low flame.

Finally, in the last 10 minutes, add, 1 tablespoon of English mustard, 100g of ketchup and ½ tablespoon of cayenne pepper (according to taste).

Finally, serve in large traditional Serbian lepinja, or a large Yorkshire pudding to you and me.

Prijatno! (enjoy!).

Jamie Oliver’s Fabulous Feasts are bringing a wealth of experience and expertise in food and stadium catering to Lord’s this summer and helping them present the new and improved Lord’s FoodVillage.

There’s a selection of eight delicious new outlets in the Lord’s Food Village, serving everything from flame-grilled burgers, crispy, beer batter-coated fish and chips, a selection of hot, wholesome pies, spiced and marinated chicken on a bed of summer salad, juicy hot dogs loaded with tasty toppings, spicy curries complete with crispy poppadom shards, fresh baps crammed full of pulled meats and chargrilled veggies, and burritos stuffed full of delicious spices and flavours.

Across the board Jamie Oliver’s Fabulous Feasts will be using fresh, local ingredients wherever possible to make sure that quality is second to none, guaranteeing spectators loads of choice and the most delicious food throughout the major matches.

“I’m thrilled that Fab Feasts have won the contract for Lord’s – it’s a real honour. Lord’s is such a historic place and I can’t wait for people to see what we’ve got planned. It’s going to be food like you’ve never seen before at Lord’s; we’re talking big flavour, lots of choice, and dishes that are guaranteed to put a big smile on your face. I believe we can really add something to the matches that happen there.” Jamie Oliver

Source www.lords.org

A uniquely themed pop-up restaurant has opened on the River Thames in London.

Propstore is a London Café Bar which has been built using the scenery and props from National Theatre productions such as Hansel and Gretel and the Curious Incident of the dog in the night-time.

And the culinary production is taking centre stage, a place where drinkers, diners, theatre-goers and tourists alike can play spot the prop among an eclectic mix of more than 1,000 items on display.

Don’t worry if your cultural knowledge isn’t up to scratch, each item is clearly marked the pop-up is in situ until the 28^th September.

The succinct street food menu is traditionally English with a twist, available all day including bank holidays.

The bar stocks English wine, Greenwich based meantime draught beer and gin from micro distillery Sipsmith.

At the weekend the riverside café bar turns into a live music venue. Normally the theatres costumes and props are stored in a Brixton warehouse which holds more than 10,000 items.

Hopefully the novel theme will encourage more patrons to become theatre-goers.

“The Oscar of the gourmet world,” is how the magazine describes the Celler de CanRoca, in Girona.

During aLondonceremony at the Guildhall, brothers Joan, Josep and Jordi Roca were presented with the award for their family-run business.

Danish restaurant Noma, the defending title-holders, hit the headlines recently after 63 diners suffered an upset stomach on the same night because a chef who was unwell passed on germs through the food.

Noma’s owner, René Redzepi, had been top of the list for the past three years and, despite the poor publicity, he still came runner-up.

Among the world’s top 50 restaurants in the world, five are Spanish, and three of them feature in the top 10.

After Celler de Can Roca, the Basque eateries Mugaritz and Arzak, both in theprovinceofGuipúzcoa, are fourth and eighth respectively.

Until 2010, when Noma began its reign as the World’s Best Restaurant, El Bulli, owned by super-chef Ferrán Adrià and now closed, had dominated the list for four years.

Quique Dacosta, formerly El Poblet but now bearing the name of the chef and owner and based in the Dénia area of Alicante, tumbled from 12th to 26^th place this year, and the Basque Country’s Asador Etxebarri, in the province of Vizcaya, fell from 31st to 44th.

El Celler started out from humble beginnings in a small premises, just next to the house of the parents, Josep Roca and Montse Fontané, owners of Can Roca, a bar-restaurant opened in Taialà-Germans Sàbat, a popular neighbourhood on the outskirts of Girona.

Their first premises were small. In 1991 they set their sights on can Sunyer, a country house, a hybrid of modernist and colonial styles built in 1911 by the architect Isidre Bosch i Bataller, standing just a few metres away from the family home. After purchasing it they adapted it as a banqueting hall called la Torre de CanRoca. Fifteen years later, in November 2007, – the new Celler was relocated to the Tower. The former 170 square metre premises were quadrupled by a new and more comfortable premises: 200 square metres of kitchen, 200 of winery, 200 of dining room and 60 for the hall, plus a welcoming garden.

Why not see their advert on page 17 to check out the menu & telephone number

A special evening not to be missed!!

Organised through the Agency for Employment and Local Development the event takes place on Saturday 20th April 2013, between 11am – 2pm at the Farmer’s Market inSan Isidro.

Those working together to make the day a success include the Tenerife Cabildo, Artisan cheese-makers and the Control Board of Wine for Abona.

There will be cheese and wine tasting and you will also be able to buy the items.

The ‘best before’ date is appropriate for the vast majority of foods and indicates the period for which a food can reasonably be expected to retain its optimal condition (e.g. it will not be stale) and relates to the quality of the food.

The ‘use by’ date is the required form of date mark for those foods which are highly perishable from a microbiological point of view and which are likely after a relatively short period to present a risk of food poisoning, and relates to the safety of the food.

During the presentation of the Strategy ‘More food, less waste’, which seeks to achieve halving food waste by 2025, the Minister explained that now every manufacturer should evaluate the reasonable time in which yogurt can be consumed.

Consumers from now, will know that until the new date yogurt keeps all its organoleptic properties, but thereafter does not mean that their use is harmful. “We will not put two dates (use by and preferred) it’s for crazy consumers,” he added.

This measure is part of the strategy to try to reduce food waste, which inSpainrises to 7.7 million tonnes and worldwide accounts for a third of the production worldwide.

Thus, Spain is the sixth in the European table of food waste, behind Germany (10.3 tons), the Netherlands (9.4 tons), France (9 tons), Poland (8.9 tons) and Italy (8 , 8 tons).

The more food, less waste strategy covers five major areas that affect the rules of government, businesses and food chain operators and society in general, as it will help develop policies that promote a change in attitudes and systems work and management of restricting the waste and reduce environmental pressures aimed at engaging all sectors of society.