September 17, 2015

Aggressive ice cream man bullies Dutch village

Filed under: Food & Drink,Weird by Orangemaster @ 4:08 pm

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The town of Maarssenbroek, Utrecht is being intimidated by the local ice cream man and the story reads like a creepy Halloween tale.

The ice cream man rings his bell at night, drives too fast and gives children ice cream to then push their parents to pay for it. He’s also been cited for a lack of hygiene and ringing doorbells of former clients. He even dares sell ice cream on Sundays, which pisses off certain folks who still think Sunday is actually mentioned in the Bible as a day of rest.

Some say it’s the people pissed about the Sunday who are fueling the discussion and make life difficult for an ice cream man trying to make a living, others including parents of ice cream interested children say the guy’s antisocial and has to go.

Why anybody would be selling ice cream in pouring rain with 15-16 degrees at the moment is beyond me.

(Link: www.rtlnieuws.nl, Photo of unrelated Dutch rocket ice lolly)

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September 16, 2015

Flashing boobs for beer at an Amsterdam cafe

Filed under: Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 4:53 pm

In a stunt claiming to support breast cancer but mainly getting some excellent free publicity, Café Ruig in Amsterdam will be the first café in the world to accept ‘Titcoins’, the digital coin of the porno world.

Women can soon go to Cafe Ruig, flash their boobs, let the bar staff take a picture that will be uploaded to the Titcoins site and will get a beer in return. The bar will eventually get real money for their Titcoins and part of the money is said to be going to Pink Ribbon to support breast cancer research.

‘Ruig’ means rough, and yes, the story seems a bit rough. The owner thinks tourists will go for it, but has no clue if it will be a success. He does have enough beer just in case. However, Pink Ribbon claims it is unaware of the stunt and has said it will not accept the money, but didn’t give a reason.

There’s so much wrong with this idea although it is funny. The idea of bar personnel, surely a barman – I doubt a woman would be up to doing this – having pictures of random racks on his mobile phone bothers me quite a bit. I’d rather just pay for my beer the old fashioned way.

(Link: at5.nl)

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September 9, 2015

Palestinian and Israeli restaurateurs make chick peace

Filed under: Dutch first,Food & Drink by Branko Collin @ 8:35 pm

chick-peas-personal-creationsIn July a vegetarian Palestinian restaurant opened its doors on the Weimarstraat in the Hague called Love & Peas.

The pun refers to the fact that the two men running the place hail from opposite sides in a war. The manager, Muawi Shehadeh, is Palestinian and the chef, Yuval Gal, is Israeli.

“When we met three years ago we immediately started cracking politically incorrect jokes about our backgrounds”, Gal told AD, “and that created a bond.”

The paper notes that this isn’t the first joint Palestinian-Israeli restaurant in Europe — London has its Ottolenghi chain.

Ynet quotes the Israeli ambassador to the Netherlands, Haim Divon: “My wife Linda discovered the place on a social network site. The idea of Israeli-Palestinian cooperation got around and became the talk of the day here because everyone likes this new venture. […] It’s truly hard to believe we’re sitting in a restaurant in The Hague. The hummus is really tasty.”

(Photo by Personal Creations, some rights reserved)

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August 27, 2015

Unilever wins against vegan mayo makers

Filed under: Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 10:05 am

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Even though Dutch-British food giant Unilever had dropped its case against American vegan mayo maker Hampton Creek for its eggless mayonnaise Just Mayo, the American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has ruled that Just Mayo is not mayonnaise and is not ‘healthy for your heart’, either.

Mayonnaise has to contain eggs, so Just Mayo needs to change its name and probably its logo currently featuring an egg on it. As well, Just Mayo claims to be ‘healthy for your heart’, but apparently it’s mostly fat: a 14 g serving (one tablespoon) contains 90 calories, 75% of which is fat. In comparison a 13 g serving (one tablespoon) of Unilever’s Hellman’s Real Mayonnaise has 90 calories, 100% of which is fat, but doesn’t claim to be a good choice. The definition of tablespoon is still used in many countries and fluctuates, making calorie counting a pain.

Instead of Unilever getting bad publicity for bullying vegans and spending money to attack Hampton Creek, the FDA did their work for them.

(Link: nos.nl, Photo of Chick peas by abrunvoll, some rights reserved)

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July 27, 2015

Students repurpose fruit and veg for designer products

Filed under: Design,Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 12:32 pm

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A group of students at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam is currently working on making leather out of fruit and possibly vegetables for their graduation. The ‘Fruitleather’ project claims to deal with ‘one of Rotterdam’s biggest social issues, food waste’.

The group claims that market sellers in and around Rotterdam throw away approximately 3500 kilos of rotten or other unsellable fruits and vegetables on a daily basis. The goal of the project is to repurpose all that food that isn’t trash in their view by producing large-scale amounts of fruit leather and turning them into different products.

Do the products smell of fruit? Won’t they be eaten by bugs or animals? How sturdy are they? What about actual vegetables? It would be nice to know more.

(Link and photo: fruitleather-rotterdam.com)

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July 23, 2015

Drugstore caught selling baby formula out the back

Filed under: Food & Drink,General,Health by Orangemaster @ 12:06 pm

The manager of a drugstore in Etten-Leur, Noord-Brabant was caught selling a pallet of baby formula out the back of the shop before the product hit the shelves. However, this apparently happens often around the country, as managers receive their bonuses based on their turnover rather than their margins. If they are always able to sell their pallets of formula in one go, it’s no surprise some of them will move product this way. Almost everyone in the Netherlands has noticed that baby formula can only be bought one or two tins at a time due to a constant shortage.

The media tends to blame the Chinese who buy up baby formula, but that’s only half the picture. The shortage is not caused by individual Chinese buying up units or even a pallet out the back, but mainly by Dutch producers of formula who can sell it at three times the Dutch price on Chinese websites where only a select handful of foreign companies are allowed to do business. According to the Telegraaf in 2013, Chinese resellers can make millions selling Dutch baby formula to the Chinese whether it comes directly from Dutch companies or Chinese selling it themselves. I’ve read that ambitious traders who buy pallets get the product into China through Hong Kong, even a few tins at a time if need be.

Sure, the Chinese can buy domestic formula, but since the scandals of 2008, expecting parents would rather buy quality foreign products, and big European companies know this all too well.

(Link: nieuws.nl, Photo of a poster protesting Nutricia by Martijn van Exel, some rights reserved)

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July 8, 2015

Vegetarians in Amsterdam going for world record

Filed under: Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 10:36 am
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On 10 July the Dutch Vegetarians’ Union will attempt a world record: getting 1900 people to eat together at a very long table and score the longest vegetarian dinner table record. Last year the world record was set at 1750, and the year before that Mechelen, Belgium had the honours with 1000 participants.

The big banquet will be held at the Museumplein in Amsterdam, a big park surrounded by the Rijksmuseum, Stedelijk Museum and the Van Gogh Museum where large events often take place. Some 20,000 volunteers will be dishing out kilos and kilos of vegetables and tortilla wraps for the dinner party and everybody who wants to eat is invited. The union wants to point out that ‘meat production is the second major polluter of the environment after heavy industry’ and that ‘food can taste great without meat’.

Key words? Free food.

(Link: www.parool.nl, Photo: veggieunwrapped.com)

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June 25, 2015

‘Van Gogh ice cream taste like potatoes’

Filed under: Art,Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 1:49 pm

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The city of Ede, Gelderland, working towards profiling itself as a food town (Dutch), has produced Vincent van Gogh ice cream that it said to taste like potatoes for its Vincent van Gogh year 2015. The special taste was inspired by Van Gogh’s The Potato Eaters, which hangs in Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum.

Earlier this year the mayor of Ede presented Vincent beer. Vincent beer, Van Gogh ice cream and tons of other food will be available during the two-day event Food Unplugged on 26 and 27 June, with 600 food professionals in attendance.

(Link and image: www.gelderlander.nl)

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June 16, 2015

Cafe in Utrecht gives away profits and thrives

Filed under: Art,Food & Drink,Literature,Music by Orangemaster @ 11:40 am

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Cafe Averechts in Utrecht has been around since the 1980s and continues to flourish amidst dwindling profits in the hospitality sector. The cafe’s ‘reverse’ approach to profit-making is the key to their brand of success: it is entirely run by volunteers.

Before anyone thinks ‘why would anyone work for free’, it is important to know that all pop venues in the country rely on volunteers. If you were to remove all pop venues that make a loss in the Netherlands, not a single one would be left standing and the country would be a cultural desert. Even the Paradiso in Amsterdam is subsidised by the city and in order to enjoy a favourable tax rebate as such, patrons pay a membership fee with their tickets. That’s right, the most famous Dutch club in the world needs government money.

During the week Averechts features a small stage with music, poetry and the likes as well as vegetarian food (vegan on demand) at a low cost. It also has lots of beers and more than 20 kinds of whiskey. All profits made go straight to charities and any tips are doubled (you put in one euro, the house matches it, we imagine) to send even more money their way.

Averechts is also a great place to celebrate King’s Day if you’re in Utrecht.

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(Photos: Cafe Averechts)

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June 8, 2015

Google, KLM and government favourites with Dutch students

Filed under: Aviation,Food & Drink,General,IT,Technology by Branko Collin @ 10:09 pm

klm-plane-steven-straitonSwedish marketing agency Universum has been polling Dutch students on who they want to work for after graduation.

A whopping 12,000 students from 32 universities and polytechnics were asked about their career preferences. Major Dutch companies such as Philips, Shell, KLM, Heineken and Endemol were named, but large American companies such as Google and Apple also made their appearance.

Both law and arts & humanities students named the national government as their preferred employer, followed by Google for the former and KLM for the latter. Business students like KLM and Google the best, engineering and physics students prefer Google, followed by Philips.

Compared to last year, TNO, Coca-Cola, IKEA and De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek failed to make the top 5 in any of the categories.

(Link: ANS, photo by Steven Straiton, some rights reserved)

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