November 8, 2018

Dutch scientists to spend millions studying lettuce

Filed under: Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 4:44 pm

An amount of 5.7 million euro is going to be spent doing research on 500 types of lettuce. The goal is to come with new kinds of lettuce. This project is called… LettuceKnow (yup, in English – in Dutch, lettuce is ‘sla’), which will be subsidised to the tune of 4 million euro, while a company that provides seeds will shell out 1.7 million euro.

“With this research, we want to find out how lettuce grows exactly and how we can ensure that its resilience against pathogens and climate conditions can be improved,” explains Professor Guido van den Ackerveken from Utrecht University. “Maize [corn] and tomatoes have been properly researched and new types have been created. Now it’s lettuce’s turn,” he adds.

Puns aside, the lettuce shown here, Valerianella olitoria aka corn salad, is one of my favourites, which I had never seen before moving to Europe.

(Link: rtvutrecht.nl, Photo of Valerianella olitoria lettuce by Rasbak, some rights reserved)

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October 23, 2018

Fire brigade called up for burning hot sauce

Filed under: Food & Drink,Weird by Orangemaster @ 10:57 am

Last weekend a fire broke out in Rotterdam after a resident said they smelled something odd and found it difficult to breathe.

An ambulance showed up on the scene, but it wasn’t clear to them where the fire was. As well, the fire brigade couldn’t find a gas leak.

Eventually a hazardous materials expert was dispatched to the scene, and after searching, they figured out that the odour came from a flat where someone was cooking with very hot sambal, aka hot sauce.

And yes, this does sounds like the plot for a fantastic 1970s hot sauce commercial. There’s a lot of sambal in food here, especially if you order or cook Indonesian or Surinamese food.

(Link: rijnmond.nl)

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October 8, 2018

Student sushi chef gets his own pop-up restaurant

Filed under: Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 3:09 pm

Back in May we told you about Kitsanin Thanyakulsajja, a student who ran a sushi restaurant from his dorm room and all the praise he got. Of course, he was doing it for the money, but he also wanted to improve himself as a chef.

Kit is now working in a posh hotel downtown Amsterdam in his own private, pop-up restaurant. He now also has a Bachelor’s degree, the main reason he came to the Netherlands. Since the media has announced that he is working in a ‘real’ restaurant, he is booked solid for all of October, with November and December reservations opening up soon. The cost of an intimate 15-course meal is 125 euro per person. He was also booked pretty solid when he was running Ephemeral, the name of his sushi joint in his dorm room. There, he slept a few hours a night, so he is relieved that era is over.

Kit now has a choice to make between starting his own restaurant, going back to Tokyo or Bangkok, or getting a Master’s degree here in Amsterdam. If he opts for Asia where the level of learning about sushi is the highest in the world, chances are he won’t come back to Amsterdam. To be continued!

(Link: parool.nl, photo: munchies.vice.com)

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October 7, 2018

KLM house number 99, a nod to coffee

Filed under: Aviation,Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 1:57 pm

Back when flying was less democratic, KLM would give
house-shaped bottles filled with Bols genever to folks flying on intercontinental flights in business class, which over time became collector’s items.

This year to celebrate KLM’s 99th anniversary on October 7, a new house, number 99, was unveiled: the first shop of coffee merchant Douwe Egberts, in Joure, Friesland. These houses are so popular that people are already selling them on Dutch online auction sites.

KLM currently serves Douwe Egberts on their flights, in their lounges and in their offices, which would explain their choice. And all of us are wondering what house number 100 will be. OK, not all of us, but KLM and all those collectors for sure.

(Link: nhnieuws.nl, image: klom.com)

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October 4, 2018

Children discover error in 2019 Dutch tax plan

Filed under: Food & Drink,General,Weird by Orangemaster @ 2:01 pm

During an economics lesson, secondary school children in Tilburg, Noord-Brabant discovered a calculation error in the Dutch tax office’s plan for 2019.

While learning about the plan, which apparently can be found online and lets people know what’s coming tax-wise, a girl noticed a mistake. After discussing it and checking with the rest of the class, they sent an e-mail to the Dutch government, telling them about it, but didn’t immediately get a response. The next day, the error had not been corrected.

The economics class did some recalculations the next day and to them it still was wrong, as well as still being wrong online. They sent another message, and at some point, a cake was delivered to the school during their class. The cake had a QR code on it, which made them all laugh, with a personal message from Secretary of State Menno Snel thanking them for having found the mistake.

(Link: waarmaarraar.nl)

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September 30, 2018

‘The Vegetarian butcher is not a butcher’

Filed under: Animals,Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 4:00 pm
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Much in the same vein as ‘soy milk’ is not legally milk in some countries, the Dutch trade show for the meat products sector to be held on 5 and 6 November has decided that popular brand The Vegetarian Butcher (in the Netherlands known as De Vegetarische Slager) is not a butcher.

Funny enough, the company received an invitation to sign up to compete in The Best Butcher of the Netherlands, and didn’t hesitate a second. Once signed up, their shop and restaurant De Vleesch Lobby (‘The Meat Lobby’, in Dutch) in The Hague was out in front with some 3500 votes for the province of South Holland. But we can’t have meat substitutes win, right? In a way, it’s stupid for them to have received an invitation in the first place (nobody bothered to check what they produced), however, it would have made quite a statement if they had won.

At some point, the organisers realised that De Vleesch Lobby didn’t serve meat and decided they cannot be considered butchers. Owner Jaap Korteweg was disappointed to be chucked out of the competition, but one thing is certain: the meat sector can’t ignore the rising popularity of meat substitutes.

(Link: frontpage.fok.nl)

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September 25, 2018

Getting babi pangang on the cultural heritage list

Filed under: Food & Drink,History by Orangemaster @ 12:21 pm

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Dutch-Chinese filmmaker Julie Ng is currently working on a film about the Dutch-Chinese community entitled ‘Wij zijn meer dan babi pangang’ (‘We’re more than babi pangang’). Since the number of Chinese-Indonesian restaurants where the dish is served are disappearing, some 1097 left as documented recently by Marc van Wonderen in his picture book, Ng believes it’s time to protect babi pangang as part of her identity and the collective Dutch one as well by getting it on the cultural heritage list.

Babi pangang is the name of a quintessential Chinese-Indonesian restaurant dish with Dutch, Chinese-Indonesian and Malay roots, consisting of pork in a tomato-based sweet-and-sour sauce, also served in Flanders and made popular in the late 1960-1970s.

Babi pangang is a made-up dish much in the same way that Madras sauce is a British invention and chop suey is an American-Chinese one. However, in the Netherlands when it comes to food, eating Chinese usually implies Chinese-Indonesian since it is the only Chinese food many people here actually know unless they live in big cities or have travelled far enough to know the difference.

(Link: tpo.nl)

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September 6, 2018

Apply as a stroopwafel maker in Waddinxveen

Filed under: Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 1:07 pm
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Dutch media keeps saying that there are all kinds of job openings right now in the Netherlands, and then there’s becoming a stroopwafel maker at Markus & Markus Stroopwafels, which has to be someone’s dream job.

The stroopwafel company in Waddinxveen, South Holland needs a few people to make the Dutch treat from 6 am to 6 pm in the morning. The right candidates also have to be accurate, independent and flexible, and ideally have ‘a Christian mindset’. The company’s treats are made ‘the old-fashioned way’, honestly and with natural ingredients.

You might have to taste them, but that’s not your main role. Applications can apparently be sent in by e-mail until end of business today.

Internationally, more and more countries sell stroopwafels (I saw some made with maple syrup in Canada this summer), while some folks will even complain if you replace them with something else on long-haul flights.

(Link: ad.nl)

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August 12, 2018

Rotterdam artist lives off drawing on bananas

Filed under: Art,Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 9:49 am

Artist Stephan Brusche from Rotterdam, South Holland not only has a banana-filled instagram account, but also a wonderfully concise job description: “I draw on bananas”. Check out his instagram and be prepared to see bananas and other fruit like you’ve never seem them before.

This is Brusche’s day job now, having quit working as a graphic designer. He has been turning the yellow fruit (technically a berry) into works of art for about six years. He uses tools such as toothpicks, a knife, and a ball-point pen to transform his bananas. The entire process, from sketching out an idea to sharing it online, takes two to three hours. And yes, he does it the bananas afterwards, a question he gets a lot. He also seems to do a lot of cutting and sculpting, not just casually drawing. Subjects range from movies to animals to a lot of recognisable symbols and items.

“[One day at work] I noticed I still had a banana left from lunch and figured it would make a fun picture if I just drew a little happy face on it. I discovered how pleasant it actually is to draw on a banana – there is just something about how smooth the ballpoint pen flows on the structure of the banana peel.”

(Link and photo from iSteef’s instagram account: mashable.com)

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August 6, 2018

Sinterklaas treats already in Dutch shop

Filed under: Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 11:20 am

Every year in the Netherlands, you can hear someone say ‘those pepernoten [actually kruidnoten] are already in the shop this year!’, with irritation in their voice. It’s a similar, yearly reaction to anyone from North America like myself who sees the Halloween stuff disappear from shops on 1 November being replaced with Christmas stuff the very same day.

Who sells Sinterklaas treats in summer? The answer is the PLUS supermarket in Almelo, Overijssel. And the owner believes the ‘shock’ is free publicity and he’s probably right. Amusingly, PLUS has been selling kruidnoten since the end of July, for the ‘heck of it’. ‘They’re perfect for the BBQ or next to the swimming pool’, claims the owner.

(Link: tubantia.nl)

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