1 . The Comfort of Cooking
Most people like eating delicious foods since they believe those foods can make them relax and help get rid of (摆脱) the tiredness of daily lives.
Cooking has been found to improve confidence, according to The Mental Health Foundation.
Cooking is a great way to experience different cultures as well. Different countries have different ways of cooking which lead to various featured foods.
Cooking also brings people together. Prepare a meal for the family reunion. Invite some friends to your home. While you are doing the cooking, happy laughter and cheerful voices may fill every corner of the house.
| A．Cooking helps you focus on the present and lessen your stress. |
| B．Cooking can increase your worries. |
| C．Roast duck will remind you of China while curry will take you to India. |
| D．Bathed in strong social connections, you will feel close and connected to each other. |
| E．Everybody likes tasty foods. |
| F．But do you know cooking these tasty foods may have the same effects? |
| G．While cooking, you take control of everything. |
2 . Is it the future that worries me? Did I hurt someone by mistake? Am I expecting too much from life? We are often stuck in these unnecessary thoughts, causing anxiety and making us weak.
What helps me escape from my sadness and depressed thoughts is cooking. I read through quick recipes, find the ones that I can connect to, and search for materials in the kitchen. Every time I cut a vegetable, it is like I am cutting off my problems. All of this not only brings me great joy, but it leads me to discover something I am good at, which I might have never tried otherwise.
Cooking can work as a treatment, which has received some scientific explanations. Mental health experts have talked about the benefits cooking and baking provide for people struggling with poor mental health. Through cooking, these people can get back control of their lives. They can bring back the feeling of joy and excitement that has been long gone from their daily lives. Julia Ohana, an active expert in culinary therapy (烹饪疗法), talked about the significance cooking holds in terms of time control, communication, and problem-solving ability. She believes all these skills combined help people become less depressed and more satisfied.
The excitement when you work on a recipe is unexplainable. You look forward to what you are going to create from your own hands. You have the power to make something great, only depending on the direction you take and your cooking skills.
1. What might be the result if we are caught in unnecessary worries?| A．Forcing us to work harder. | B．Making us hurt others. |
| C．Pushing us to look into the future. | D．Causing anxiety and making us weak. |
| A．By cooking. | B．By walking. | C．By sleeping. | D．By reading. |
| A．Bringing them a lot of money. |
| B．Making them become perfect in their work. |
| C．Making them willing to cooperate with everyone. |
| D．Bringing the feeling of joy and excitement back to them. |
| A．Cook. | B．Eat out. | C．Do sports. | D．Go shopping. |
3 . As most children have a natural interest in both cooking and screens, playing free cooking games online with your child may be an excellent way to introduce them to the world of food at an early age.
Cooking games for kids develop creativity.
Cooking games can improve social skills. Most cooking games offer an in-built social space. For example, playing multiplayer or two-player games allows children to interact with others, solve problems in cooperation, and so on. This is especially convenient for those who have difficulty reaching out to others in the real world. Online games can help them practice their communication skills.
Cooking games boost confidence and independence. When kids take the initiative, finish a task, or follow directions correctly, they feel good about themselves and proud of what they’ve done.
| A．If they have trust in their own skills |
| B．When they learn how to solve disagreements |
| C．Cooking games promote math and reading skills |
| D．Many cooking games are more than just a fun activity |
| E．Playing in the kitchen helps kids learn to solve problems |
| F．They encourage kids to try new things and think outside the box |
| G．Therefore, they eventually feel more confident making friends in real life |
4 . Advice for Cooking on a Tight Schedule
From my experience, there are three main reasons why people don’t cook more often: ability, money, and time.
Think ahead. I usually think cooking is a pain when I’m already hungry and there is nothing ready to eat. So think ahead of the coming week. When will you have time to cook? Do you have the right materials already?
Make your time worth it. When you do find time to cook a meal, make the most of it and save yourself time later on. Are you making one loaf of bread?
Hopefully that gives you a good start.
| A．Try new things. |
| B．Ability is easily improved. |
| C．Make three or four instead. |
| D．Understand your food better. |
| E．Cooking is a burden for many people. |
| F．Let cooking and living simply be a joy rather than a burden. |
| G．A little time planning ahead can save a lot of work later on. |
5 . Chinese Medicinal Food
Chinese medicinal food (药膳) is a long standing tradition. Early records show that it was in use as far back as the Han Dynasty. Through much improvement during the following dynasties, it has developed into a practical science of nutrition.
Chinese medicinal food not only has become the means of keeping healthy among the people of China, but also spread abroad, especially into Southeast Asia.
There is a wide choice of foods that are used in many different ways to help keep healthy and well-being. It is estimated that there are more than 600 different kinds of resources ranging from fruits, vegetables, meats and seafood.
The Chinese classify each type of vegetable and meat in terms of yin and yang, and combine vegetables with meat in such a way that each cooked dish will be balanced. Also, Chinese people know that food may be changed from one to the other depending on the way it is cooked.
| A．Chinese medicinal food is really rich in variety. |
| B．So it is important to keep the balance when cooking. |
| C．Chinese medicinal food was popular in the ancient China. |
| D．It is necessary to have some Chinese medicinal food every day. |
| E．This is not a simple combination of food and traditional medicine. |
| F．Some foreigners are interested in it and even come to China to learn about it. |
| G．The theory of yin and yang is applied to all Chinese things, including the food. |
6 . Chicken is America’s most popular meat. Many people assume chicken follows a simple rule-of-thumb: Pink chicken turned white means “done.” It’s similar to how we cook other meats. But is this true? To study how cooks at home follow safety recommendations, researchers filmed 75 households in five European countries. From a random but nonrepresentative sample, they also conducted an online survey of nearly 4,000 households in the same countries that say they cook chicken.
Worried that chicken would dry out, most home cooks determined doneness by color and texture (口感) inside the meat, they found. Few bothered with thermometers (温度计), claiming they took too much time, were too complicated to use, didn’t fit in the chicken or weren’t necessary (although easy-to-use thermometers are inexpensive and widely available).
In additional lab experiments, the scientists injected raw chicken breast with bacteria (细菌), which cause millions of sicknesses, thousands of hospitalizations and hundreds of deaths each year in the United States. They cooked the breasts until they reached core temperatures ranging from 122 to 158 Fahrenheit, and they discovered something surprising. At 158 degrees, but not lower, bacteria inside the chickens’ cores was reduced to safe levels, and when cut open its flesh appeared dull and fibrous, not shiny like raw chicken. But meat began changing from pink to white far below this, and most color change occurred below 131 degrees Fahrenheit. Sometimes, the chicken’s core would be safely cooked, but unsafe levels of bacteria still existed on surfaces that hadn’t touched the grill plate.
So what are you supposed to do?
Dr. Bruno Goussault, a scientist and chef, recommends buying and cooking breasts and legs separately. Bring the breast’s core to 165 degrees Fahrenheit, he said, and the leg to between 168.8 and 172.4 Fahrenheit. If you really want to safely measure temperature for a whole chicken, insert a pop-up thermometer into the thickest part of the leg before roasting it, Dr. Goussault suggests. By the time it pops, the breasts will have long cooked. They will likely be dry and far from his standards of culinary (烹饪的) perfection. But you’ll be sure to, as Dr. Goussault says in French, “dormir sur ses deux oreilles,” or, figuratively, “sleep peacefully.”
1. Why didn’t home cooks measure temperature with a thermometer?| A．They could not afford it. | B．It affected the taste of the meat. |
| C．It was not available in supermarkets. | D．They thought it was too much trouble. |
| A．was free of bacteria | B．still remained pink |
| C．appeared to dry out | D．was reduced in size |
| A．The meat does not taste best when bacteria free. |
| B．The leg becomes fully cooked before the breast. |
| C．A whole chicken requires a higher temperature. |
| D．The thermometer should be placed inside the breast. |
| A．Food safety. | B．Simple lifestyle. |
| C．Cooking skills. | D．Kitchen equipment. |
7 . Over the centuries the French have lost a number of famous battles with the British. However, they’ve always felt superior in the kitchen. France has for centuries had a reputation for cooking excellence, and Britain for some of the worst cooking in the world. But according to a recent survey, that reputation may no longer reflect reality.
In the survey, 71% of the Britons said they cook at home every day, while only 59% of the French said they cook daily. British home cooks spend more time cooking each week and also produce a greater variety of dishes than French home cooks.
The reaction in London was predictably enthusiastic. British food has greatly improved since the 1990s. Once upon a time, the menu for many family meals would have been roast beef, potatoes and over-cooked vegetables, but not now. Home cooks are experimenting with the huge range of ingredients now available in British supermarkets and are preparing all kinds of new dishes, using the cookbooks that sell millions of copies every year. As a result, there’s much more diversity in British food now, compared to French food, which tends to be very traditional.
Some French people say that the survey did not show the whole picture. They agree that during the week French women don’t cook as much as they used to because most of them work and don’t have much time. They tend to buy ready-made or frozen dishes, but many of them make up for it on the weekend. There’s also a difference between Paris and the countryside. It’s true that people in Paris don’t cook much, but elsewhere, cooking is still at the heart of daily life.
For many French people, opinions about British food have not changed. When Bernard Blier, the food editor at a magazine, was asked about British food, he replied: “I don’t go out of my way to try it. It is not very refined. You can say that I’m not a fan at all.”
1. According to the passage, nowadays British people ______.| A．cook less at home than the French every day. |
| B．no longer eat roast beef and over-cooked vegetables. |
| C．are more willing to try cooking all kinds of new foods. |
| D．buy more cookbooks than French people do. |
| A．French women cook less often now. |
| B．The French prefer ready-made dishes. |
| C．French women seldom cook on the weekend. |
| D．Cooking is at the heart of people’s life in Paris. |
| A．He would love to try it. | B．He shows no interest in it. |
| C．He considers it worse than before. | D．He considers it better than before. |
| A．The history of British food. | B．The history of French food. |
| C．The change in British food. | D．The change in French food. |
8 . Many of us love July because it’s the month when nature’s berries and stone fruits are in abundance. These colourful and sweet jewels form British Columbia’s fields are little powerhouses of nutritional protection.
Of the common berries, strawberries are highest in vitamin C, although, because of their seeds, raspberries contain a little more protein (蛋白质), iron and zinc (not that fruits have much protein). Blueberries are particularly high in antioxidants (抗氧化物质). The yellow and orange stone fruits such as peaches are high in the carotenoids we turn into vitamin A and which are antioxidants. As for cherries (樱桃), they are so delicious who cares? However, they are rich in vitamin C.
When combined with berries of slices of other fruits, frozen bananas make an excellent base for thick, cooling fruit shakes and low fat “ice cream”. For this purpose, select ripe bananas for freezing as they are much sweeter. Remove the skin and place them in plastic bags or containers and freeze. If you like, a squeeze of fresh lemon juice on the bananas will prevent them turning brown. Frozen bananas will last several weeks, depending on their ripeness and the temperature of the freezer.
If you have a juicer, you can simply feed in frozen bananas and some berries or sliced fruit. Out comes a “soft-serve” creamy dessert, to be eaten right away. This makes a fun activity for a children’s party; they love feeding the fruit and frozen bananas into the top of the machine and watching the ice cream come out below.
1. What does the author seem to like about cherries?| A．They contain protein. | B．They are high in vitamin A. |
| C．They have a pleasant taste. | D．They are rich in antioxidants. |
| A．To make them smell better. | B．To keep their colour. |
| C．To speed up their ripening. | D．To improve their nutrition. |
| A．A dessert. | B．A drink. |
| C．A container. | D．A machine. |
| A．A biology textbook. | B．A health magazine. |
| C．A research paper. | D．A travel brochure. |
9 . “I’ve always loved food,” says Cassie Dawson in the kitchen of her flat in London. “But I’ve become bored with eating out. I’ve had too many disappointing meals and paid too much money for them! At one point, fed up with my complaint, a friend suggested I open my own restaurant. Impossible, I thought. But then I heard about supper clubs...”
Supper clubs are a mixture of a restaurant and a dinner party — you go to a stranger’s house and he/she cooks dinner for you. Like a restaurant, you pay for your food, but like a dinner party, you eat at the same table as other people. They are advertised through social-networking sites with a menu and little information about where the supper club is until just before the meal.
“It’s like running a secret restaurant for one night,” says Cassie. “The next morning, I set the tables and chairs aside. I put the TV back and it’s my living room again.”
Cassie opens her “restaurant” for people about once a month, and she really enjoys the evenings she’s had so far. She uses fresh, local ingredients and a typical meal costs about the same as a takeaway — much less than a restaurant meal. So how does she make money out of it?
“I don’t,” says Cassie. “In fact, at first I was worried about losing money on my club. I’m good at cooking but my maths is terrible! But I was surprised by how cheaply I could make a good meal. This isn’t about money. It’s about a different eating experience.”
And what about inviting complete strangers into her house? Was Cassie ever nervous about that?
“Not at all,” she says. “Almost everyone at the supper club is just interested in having a good meal with other interesting people.”
1. Why did Cassie decide to open her own restaurant finally?| A．To earn a living. | B．To satisfy her friend’s needs. |
| C．To make friends with strangers. | D．To cook cheap and good meals for others. |
| A．Dinner parties. | B．Supper clubs. | C．Fresh ingredients. | D．Invitations to dinner. |
| A．serves meals for free | B．only serves takeaways |
| C．is only open to her friends | D．is only open in the evening |
| A．Worried. | B．Content. | C．Annoyed. | D．Sensitive. |
