My appreciation for artisan cheese developed while living in the Netherlands as a grad student. Saturday mornings usually included a visit to the local cheese vendor at the Leiden farmers market, which nearly always ended with way more cheese than I could consume in a week.

The Netherlands, home of the windmills, tulips and those ‘special’ coffee shops, is world renowned for its cheese. According to www.Holland.com, the Dutch produce a whopping 1.4billion pounds (650 million kilos) of cheese every year and rank among the top five cheese producing (and cheese loving!) nations in the world. In fact, on average the Dutch eat 31.5 pounds (14.3 kilos) of cheese per person per year.

Having invited a few friends for a spontaneous get-together one summer evening, I had an opportunity to showcase some cheeses I bought earlier that day. My display included firmer cheeses like Gouda and Edam, deliciously displayed alongside Maasdammer, the legendary large holed cheese, and of course a hearty portion of the original Leidse cumin cheese known for its piquant and somewhat tart flavor. A hodgepodge of snacks and mix of drinks completed our table arrangement. That night I discovered what NOT to pair with cheese.

 - Fruits like watermelon, mango and papaya taste delicious on their own, or as part of a fruit medley, but not with with cheese. The texture and high sugar content of these fruits often subdue rather than compliment the flavor of cheese, defeating the purpose of a cheese plate.

- Spicy peppers, even when stuffed with cheese, are not a perfect pairing. Most cheeses are overpowered by the bold flavors of spicy foods including pickled veggies and certain cured meats. Bite-sized sandwiches are a better option if you’re set on mixing and matching flavors.

- Flavored crackers and garlic toasts will not make your cheese smile. To bring out the flavor of semi-hard and goat cheese varieties keep it simple with plain water crackers or thinly sliced baguette.

- Vodka and gin -tonics are just not meant to be consumed with cheese. Unless you’re planning to shake up cocktails, spring for traditional wine or beer pairings when planning a cheese reception.

For a unique twist on the traditional favorites, try adding a few smoke-cured cheese varieties to your next display. Some of my favorites are smoked Gruyere, Provolone, Gouda or the Georgian Suluguni cheese. 

     It’s not for nothing Russian’s say that Monday is a difficult day. Most of us think that the weekend was too short and we didn’t have enough time not just to relax, but to finish work we had to do around the house. We wake up on Monday morning hating the alarm, hating our jobs, hating the world a little bit. It’s great if we had a good weekend that filled us with positive emotions. But what if something happened on the weekend that pushed you out of your equilibrium? Then you come to work and find out that on top of all the work that was left over from last week, there is an urgent project that’s due in 10 hours and a last minute meeting that will take at least 2 hours of your already non-existent day.

     If you haven’t figured it out yet, we are talking about stress. We all feel it, some more often than others. Some of us know how to deal with it and stay productive. Others struggle, day after day, with work related, family related, life related stresses, becoming less productive and more stressed. This eventually leads to health problems, which stress us out even more. Today, we will give you some pointers on how to deal with this stress. We are not going to try to tell you the utopian ‘Take a vacation!’ Who has the time? All of the tips below will take you 5 minutes and are guaranteed to lower the level of stress you are feeling at any specific moment.

1.       Go for a brisk walk outside. Even if you can only go out for 5 minutes and take a lap or two around your office/home, it will get your mind from the source of the stress you are feeling and calm you down. This time will also help you collect your thoughts and shed light on the problem from another side, opening possibilities you couldn’t see before.

2.       Read something funny, not serious, and not related to your problem. Research has proven that reading is the number 1 way to take stress off – 67% of your stress is guaranteed to go away during reading! According to scientists, nothing compares to reading when it comes to taking stress off, not even alcohol and yoga! Again, if you only have 5 minutes, either read a funny article in a magazine, or start on some paperback love romance. You won’t need much attention for anything like that and whether you finish, or not is not going to be the point. The point is to get your mind off of things.

3.       Meditate. This one may be the hardest for some, as getting all thoughts out of your head only sounds easy. Not all of us can do this. During meditation, try a deep breathing technique (those who do yoga, know about this technique). Deep breathing helps your body relax and makes your brain concentrate on the breathing, not anything else.

4.       Drink some herbal tea. Caffeine is the worst enemy during stress, so drinking coffee or black tea will only do more harm. Make yourself some chamomile tea, for example, enjoy a cup and you will feel a lot better. Russian Shoppe can offer a great variety of herbal teas for your stressful days at home and office.

5.       Hit a pillow. This is the most primitive, but very effective way of dealing with stress. You can technically hit anything, but a pillow will do less damage to your body parts. If you are home, hit a pillow several times and see the wonders it will do. If you have a lot of stress at work, you may want to bring something soft to get your anger out every once in a while. Starting boxing or kickboxing is another option. You can do that at lunch or right after work, and imagine that the punching bag is your stress embodied into something tangible.

     Though we hope that your life is a nice picnic on a sunny day on a daffodil meadow, if you ever encounter anything stressful, try any of the 5 pointers above and you’ll be surprised how quickly your problems will seem very much solvable and not that big. Enjoy yourself!

     Several months ago we already wrote about the pleasure of bath salts and how a spoonful of components created especially for this experience can make your day relaxing and rejuvenating. Today, we would like to broaden your knowledge of therapeutic baths and tell you about how else you can make your bath time better and more beneficial for your body. In this post we will concentrate mostly on things you can find in your kitchen.

     First of all, we will talk about sea salt. Sea salt is known to moisturize your skin, making it look younger and more vibrant. This simple additive will help you fight stubborn cellulite and strengthen your nails, as well as relax you after a hard day of work. You can either purchase special sea salts (Russian Shoppe, of course, offers a great variety), or simply buy table sea salt at your local grocery store.

     Baking soda is another surprisingly beneficial ingredient that can be added to your bath regimen, making your skin soft and silky smooth. Just try adding 200 grams of your regular cooking baking soda to bath water and see how it will change the appearance of your skin in just weeks.

     Milk! Yes, milk. You may say that everything so far sounds like we are cooking some kind of an elaborate dish. Well, though all these ingredients can be found in any kitchen and are not thought of as skincare products, you will be surprised to find out that many people, including celebrities, turn to them to look better and feel healthier. Milk has a lot of vitamins and minerals that raise the skin’s elasticity and its rejuvenation properties. Add 1 liter of warm milk to a bath full of water and soak yourself in it for approximately 20 minutes.

     Lavender is another great additive and more than likely most of you know why. This herb is one of the best in lowering stress and getting your mood back on track. It also helps get rid of any inflammatory processes on your skin, as well as headaches and migraines. Adding just a tea-bag of lavender, or some lavender oil, will do wonders for your day.

     Honey is a great moisturizer as well. Additionally, honey will heal any skin cracks (like on your feet, for example) and will infuse your skin with the great abundance of vitamins and minerals that it has in it. Mix 2 spoons of honey with warm water in a glass and then add this mixture to your bath. Make sure to take a warm shower after the bath, as you may be a bit sticky.

     There are times when you want to take a relaxing bath , but just having water in it doesn’t seem enough.  At times like these, most of us are sorry we don’t buy different bath ‘gadgets’ and of course don’t want to run to the store to purchase them. Well, now you know that more than likely, you can find something to bring that extra ‘oompf’ to your bath time in your kitchen. Just make sure not to add all of the above at the same time – that may turn out to be something edible. 

      It’s not a secret that women like flowers. Even those women, who say that they would rather receive something else, secretly enjoy the gesture and no matter how much they growl, when you leave, they will stare at that bouquet for hours and imagine things unimaginable. There seems to be no physiological reason for this, at least none has yet been found.

     Some research suggests that proximity to nature relaxes, which is why women that are surrounded by flowers seem to be happier and calmer. This makes sense; after all, we are animals that genetically feel closer to nature than the city. However, it doesn’t explain why women start feeling more romantic when flowers are given to them.

     A very interested study was done by Doctor Guéguen – a French scientists – to show the correlation between the presence of flowers and women’s mood. As a subject he took several dozen women and one by one placed them in a room, where he showed them a video of a man. The man was not doing anything out of the ordinary, but half of the women were placed in a room with three vases of flowers, and the other half, in a room with no flowers. After each spent some time looking at the man in the video, she was asked if she found him physically and sexually attractive.

     This is where the interesting facts start! For those women, who looked at the video of the man in the room with flowers, he seemed to be much more attractive than for those women, who did not have flowers surround them.

     The experiment went further, with a real man being present in a room, where the same women were asked questions that had nothing to do with romance or flowers. Half of the women were interviewed in a room with flowers, the other half, well, you get the point. When the researcher left the room, the young man present during the interview asked the woman for a date. A whopping 81% of those women surrounded by flowers answered ‘Yes’, compared to only 50% of the women that were in a flowerless room. That’s a 31% difference! And the guy didn’t even have to do anything!!

     This incredible experiment shows that women are more prone to romance not just when they are given flowers, but when they simply have flowers around them! So if you are cheap, you may want to take her to a meadow and then ask her out. If you can read between the lines, you should know that $15 spent on a bouquet of roses (daisies, tulips, carnations, etc.) will get you a result that is… well, like Visa says ‘Priceless’!

     Though this post has nothing to do with the products we sell, Russian Shoppe just wanted to remind all the men out there – cherish your women and don’t underestimate the power of flowers!

     In the past several years, the juicing craze has gotten completely out of control. People juice everything: pineapple, beets, cucumbers, kale, tomatoes, etc. etc. There are high-power juicers and cold-presses, juicers for one and for an entire platoon. But do we really know all there is to know about how good, or bad juicing can be for your health? If you juice, do you know what conditions you may have and how drinking different juices can affect them?

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