The New York squat scene has inspired an Australian company’s latest beer. Springwise.com reports that the East Ninth Brewing Company has released a beverage which shares its name with the infamous Doss Blockos building (known for housing squatters during the 1990s) and comes wrapped in brown paper bags (traditionally used by squatters to hide alcohol from the police). With a malty flavour and all-natural ingredients, the beer probably tastes better than it looks; though the company is confident that its design will appeal to people by evoking an underground subculture of art, music and partying.
Pest control
Seagulls with a taste for fast food are taking over the British town of Worcester. Bbc.co.uk reports that numbers of the species have risen because people are not properly disposing of their leftover takeaways. The birds have become such a problem that the council has spent £25,000 over the last five years trying to reduce their population, painting eggs with oil to prevent them hatching, and replacing regular eggs with dummy eggs. However it refuses to take the most obvious approach and cull them, saying that other seagulls would simply move in to take their place as long as the food supply remained abundant. “The message is simple,’ a council spokesman concludes. “If you want fewer seagulls, please help by keeping our city centre free of waste food.”
How about a drink?
Shoppers at Sydney’s Shirt Bar can browse the racks whilst sipping on their favourite tipple, according to Springwise.com. Wine, champagne, spirits and signature cocktails are among the offerings, as well as coffee – in fact, shoppers can even choose their own roast. Styled much like a bar, the shop is aimed mainly at males and stocks a range of designer shirts.
Free for all
They say there’s no such thing as a free lunch but that’s exactly what’s being offered by one restaurant chain in America. According to Latimes.com, Café Gratitude has begun selling the I Am Grateful bowl – a dish comprising kale, quinoa, black beans and garlic-tahini sauce – which can be eaten without any payment attached. The meal does have a suggested value (US$7), but customers are given the option to pay nothing, pay something, or pay the suggested value and add a donation for those who can’t pay. The company’s co-founder, Matthew Engelhart, came up with the idea after seeing how much the changing economy had affected his peers. He wanted to offer a service that would keep his customers, no matter what their financial situation, coming – and so the I Am Grateful bowl was born. Not surprisingly, the dish has been a huge success. “At our Oakland location, we started out selling about 50 bowls a day,” he says. “Now we’re up to as many as 200.” In similar news, Foodchannel.com reports that singer Jon Bon Jovi is planning to open his own pay-what-you-want style restaurant where, in lieu of money, customers can volunteer an hour of their time by helping out in the kitchen.
Sandwich descendant opens shop
Two hundred and fifty years after his ancestor ordered the very first sandwich, John Montague has started a business around the famous food. According to Telegraph.co.uk, the 11th Earl of Sandwich opened a shop in London recently which specialises in hot sammies; including the one that is thought to have started it all (named The Original 1762, it contains hot roast beef, cheddar and horseradish sauce). This is just one of many sandwich-related ventures the Montague family has embarked on – it owns a similar shop in Las Vegas and has another at Disneyworld in Florida.
Guilt-free treat
An American scientist is busy creating his own paradox – healthy ice cream. According to Nydailynews.com, Ingolf Gruen from the University of Missouri is putting the final touches on a creamy confection with the benefits of fibre, probiotic bacteria and antioxidants. Unlike other ‘healthy’ ice creams that cut the amount of fat and sugar, Gruen has left these items in to maintain the decadence for which this treat is known; and simply added other, more nutritional ingredients. Research shows that probiotics are good for gastrointestinal problems such as diarrhea and irritable bowel syndrome; while fibre and antioxidants are known for their many health benefits.
Did you know?
- Caramel was invented by the Arabs, who used it as a hair-removal cream. How they came to discover that it tasted good is anyone’s guess.
- Soup is thought to have originated in Egypt, where it was made from hippopotamus.