Written in the stars
A revolution in Christmas-cards. Write it in the stars with an iOS device via stars.akqa.com.
A revolution in Christmas-cards. Write it in the stars with an iOS device via stars.akqa.com.
At the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles the largest pop-up book in the world introduced the premiere of ‘The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug’. For five days the book promoted New Zealand as holiday destination. See the book here.
Are you in a winter dip? With the Positivo cocktails of Happy Drinks, your body and soul will get a heartwarming energy boost en brings the summer back into your glass. 0% alcohol, 100% positive. The ‘Positivo’ cocktails is made with balsamic vinegar, strawberries and pepper and this combination makes every pessimist positive. The ‘Positivo Classico’ is more powerful and intense than the ‘Positivo’ and gives you a thrill. The recipes are only available in Dutch.
2014 will be another special ‘orange’ year. With the Winter Olympics, the World Cup and Kings day coming, brewery Heineken is seeking a Chief Orange Officer by February 1, 2014. The new Chief Orange Officer will bring the orange feeling at home and abroad and the first coaches the legion of supporters. With an orange car and an orange suite, the Chief Orange Officer will visit all the orange events and if the Netherlands are world champion in Brazil, the annual salary will be doubled.
The Polish artist Pawel Althamer will show his latest collection on the second, third and fourth floor of the ‘New Museum’ in New York from February 12 to April 13, 2014. Part of his collection is ‘The Neighbors’ where the artist involves the visitors to make an ambitious artwork. On the fourth floor of the museum, a white wall will be covered by paintings and drawings made by the visitors. Visitors can show their arts and will be part of the exhibition. At various times during the exhibition musicians will provide live music.
The Hanjie Wanda Square is a new shopping center in Wuhan, China. In 2011 a contest was held with various national and international architects. The design of UNStudio’s was chosen as winner. The building has luxury design and combines modern and traditional elements with simple materials. The focus of the design is on the visitor flows, from the three main entrances visitors are guided to two central spaces. The facade consists of 42,333 spheres with 3.1 million LED lights that can be combined to create a beautiful lighting effect.
It remains difficult to make a perfect cocktail, you often pour too much or too little of an ingredient in the cocktail. With the ‘Perfect Drink’ you can now easily make the perfect cocktail with the right amount. The digital kitchen scale is connected with an app and tells you what ingredient you need to add, considering the weight during the preparation and indicates when to stop adding an ingredient. You will get the perfect cocktail. The app has a large database of cocktail recipes but you can also add a recipe yourself.
With the new search engine ‘Accor Meeting Hotel Finder’ of Accor Hotels, MICE- and meeting planners can search easily for a suitable location for their conference or event. They can search for a location based on the geographical location, type of event, accommodation and hotel segment. When the meeting planner has selected a location they can directly request for an offer or book the location. The search engine has more than 1,000 locations and 10,000 rooms in 90 different countries of which 65% in Europe and 23% in Asia Pacific.
No mayonnaise, ketchup or curry with the fries but a chocolate dipping sauce?! Japanese fast food chain Lotteria will serve its fries with a Lotte Ghana chocolate dip called ‘Dipping Fries’ in the months January and February. The salt of the fries and the sweetness of the chocolate makes a unique combination. We have tried the fries with chocolate at the office and… A few colleagues thought it was pretty good but most prefer mayonnaise!
A driving tram through the city of The Hague and during the trip a high-quality four-course dinner while passing the highlights of the city. Around February 2014 this will be possible in tram restaurant Hoftramm. The driving tram will be transformed into a modern and elegant restaurant and has all amenities including a kitchen, bar and toilets. Tram restaurant Hoftrammm will be a route through the center of The Hague six days a week and the guests will get served a four-course dinner with a matching beverage package. To achieve the tram restaurant there is currently a crowdfunding campaign.
Network club INCH (international network connecting hotelschool graduates) has decorated a hotel suite at the Hotelschool The Hague campus Amsterdam in collaboration with Balsan DUO carpet. The design studio of Balsan DUO has designed the room together with architect Frank ter Horst. The hotel suite is themed unruliness, spontaneity and to act unconventional. Balsan has placed a striking carpet with 4 designs on the floor and they also decorated the wall and the window frame with the same carpet. There is a bed of 2m by 2m in the middle of the room, a maxibar and enough space to move freely.
Start 2014 without a hangover. The organizers of the ‘Chocolate Club’ celebrate New Year Eve with a conscious clubbing night. Drink alcohol-free super-drinks and elixirs with natural ingredients and watch the fireworks over Amsterdam from a hot tub or dance the night away in the ‘Amsterdam Dansmakers’–studios. Recently we mentioned the rise of superfoods, this is the first healthy clubbing concept that we came across. See the video of the previous edition in July.
Take an adventurous book, combine it with a shoestring travel guide and bake it with delicious recipes to a practical cookbook. That must have been the recipe for ‘Gastrovan – Met je neus in de boter'(proverb: hit the jackpot). This recipe was created by Sjaak Borsboom, Jeroen Simons and Olivier van der Ree after a summertour with their campervan through the Netherlands, France and Spain where they cooked for more than 200 people. The combination of funny stories, describtion of exclusive destinations and local recipes will be mouthwatering for every foodie.
Saturday 11 January the chubby Gasconne pig ‘Pumba’ will be honored. The pig entered the Lindenhoff farm as a 20 kg piglet and is now, at the age of five, ready to be roasted next to open fire for 50 hours (!). Organizers Baaf Vonk and Roel van Vliet from Varkensroosteren.nl work together with restaurant Old-School in Amsterdam. The cooks are already working on mouthwatering recipes like ‘schwein with sauerkraut and Schwarzbier’, pig belly with Korean kimchi or American pulled pork with chutney.
Floske Kusse and Tine Sommeijer want to stimulate city-inhabitants to get more acquainted with local shops. Therefore they’ve started City Food Route. The website provides a map of the neighbourhood with shopping tips for the menu and recipes and relaxed places to get a cup of coffee and relax. The first tour through the old East of Amsterdam is online and soon a tour through the less-known parts of ‘De Pijp’ and ‘Rivierenbuurt’ will follow.
This’ BTTR Gourmet Garden is an all in one package which you only have to place in a little sunlight. The only thing required is that the box is sprayed 2x a day, this spray is included in the package and costs $ 19.95.
Grubwithus is a site that organizes group meals in a restaurant aimed to meet new friends.The evenings have a fixed price (about $ 20) and time (2 hours). For now it is only offered in San Francisco and Chicago.
The Bottle is a smart arlternative for plastic bottles. Water you drink from this bottle is purified by an ingenious carbonfilter. Through this filter chlorine, lime and organic bacteria will disappear from the water. The Bobble is available at € 11.95 at the Bijenkorf and Schiphol Amsterdam Airport.
Cotton candy with foie gras was served at several Grammy pre-parties.
The Mazooka shoots marshmallows and great is great for parties or “food fights”. The Mazooka can shoot a as far as 10m and is made by the Marshmallow Fun Company.
If you are young and / or fit, it’s hard to believe that certain food or habits like smoking can harm your body. This device the size of a mouse sends a beam of light to your body and then collects the reflected ‘light. It can then be determined how many wavelengths are absorbed by the body, and thus how many antioxidants the skin contains on a scale from 1 to 10.
Taste of Art will team up with Pocketmenu, a company that builde mobile websites for restaurants. On the new plates QR-odes will be printed that, when scanned with a smartphone, will direct you to the (mobile) website of the restaurant.
A British art student, Ben Huttly, designed vetgetable packaging that is 100% biodegradable. By laser cutting the labels you avoid using polluting ink and it is also is also filled with seeds so the buyer can harvest his own vegetables.
The Spanish food brand Gallina Blanca offers followers the posibility to tweet ingredients and you will receive a response with a recipe.
It sounds too good to be true, simply fill plastic bottles with water and UV-A rays kill all viruses, bacteria and parasites, known as SODIS (Solar Water Disinfection method). Problem is that it cann’t be checked if the water is really clean. Students of the University of Washington now developed the PotaVida, an electronic sensor that can determine if the water is clean or not.
There are already numerous providers of ‘today only deals’. Bevvy offers one-day-deals exclusively for clubs and bars. Currently only in the US.
Whoopaa is a new Dutch social platform that makes a distinction between your online business and personal identity. Or: “The social platform to connect, integrate and manage your social identities”.
This Potato Clock is a set of two wires and conductors which generate power of the peel of potatoes and sends it to a digital clock. Available for $ 11.08 on Amazon.com … excluding potatoes.
The most famous spring water from Belgium, Spa, came up with a new campaign. Through www.spaloveinabottle.nl you can send a free postcard to the love of your life (or someone else who can use a bottle of water )….
At the so called ‘Divorce-hotel’ you can divorce in comfort from your partner. The hotel offers in one place, all the experts you need concerning your divorce.
At restaurant Marlow & Sons in New York, guests can purchase bags, purses and clothing made from the animals they have just eaten. So, bags of leather and garments of wool and rabbit fur.
Due to a design contest in London, visitors of the city can now sleep on the roof of the Southbank Centre. Guests can sleep in a temporary one-bedroom apartment. The winning design was created by David Kohn Architects.
The Dutch topchef Marco Westmaas discovered a new special products while abroad. The chef who regularly visits foreign countries, looking for new products and ingredients, has discovered a black chicken in Asia. The chicken is supposed to have a medicinal effect.
Ever wondered why fast food restaurants get away with misleading advertisements? The website Media Dumb collected all advertisement photo’s and actual photo’s. Very amusing and hilarious!
Especially for Valentine’s day, The British supermarket chain Sainsbury’s launches a heart-shaped cucumber.
When entering the theater of Amsterdam, visitors receive a keychain with a RFID chip attached, which is connected to your Facebook-account. You can automatically update your profile by holding the keychain in front of the SowiSocial-desks.
To make a Norwegian village more attractive for tourists, an international contest was set up. The Swedish architect company Jägnefält Milton came up with the idea to use the existing railway for riding hotelrooms. The rooms do float as well and can be stacked.
A 9 month lasting crowdfunded and crowdsourced project in a restaurant in New York. Each month the restaurant will be runed by a different group of people. After 9 months the restaurant will be demolished.
Through the site ‘Digibiertje’, (potential) guests can order a code online to show that code in the pub. They then get their second beer for free. There must be a minimum number of participants for the action.
De Library of Heritage in Antwerp, Belgium, has published a handwritten cooking book from the 17th century online.