"nigeria" news and stories

As you folks know I really enjoy premium spirits. I'm a quality over quantity kind of guy, and was brought up from a young age to really enjoy life and all it has to offer. I was taught that when we celebrate we should pull out the champagne, when we want to relax then sip something sublime. The thing is that most mixers just don't do justice to a fine liquor.

For the past few months I have been seeking out premium mixers, especially tonic water and hard to find ones like bitter lemon. I finally narrowed down the field to the top few, but none were what I would call premium. I then caught news about some new mixers coming to market. Several are just in test stages and one that seems very promising is in the pre-production phase and will be coming out later this spring. (Yes I will have a review and interview with the creator)

I had heard about Fever-Tree premium mixers from the UK but they haven't been available in the US. For the past 18 months they have been taking Europe by storm, but with always a limited availability. Well now things have changed and they are coming to the US market. I was sent some samples to try a few weeks ago, but a severe bout of the flu had me on my back for almost two weeks. Finally, with great anticipation, I felt well enough to open them up, and I am so glad I did.

Chocolate bars designed to stand up to hot climates are nothing new. There's actually a Wikipedia page about the U.S. Military's attempts to create heat resistant sweets. However, Nigerian food scientists have apparently made some progress in creating non-melting chocolate, according to a recent LiveScience article. Cornstarch is apparently what keeps this new blend from melting. This new chocolate is also supposed to be a lot more pleasing to the palate than other earlier attempts, some of which tasted "little better than a boiled potato."

One of the other recent attempts at heat-resistant chocolate was the Desert Bar that was distributed to U.S. troops during Operations Desert Storm and Desert Shield. From what I've read, these bars were never released commercially, but I swear I remember Hershey selling some sort of non-melting chocolate bar in the 80s or 90s. Anybody else?

[Via Whitley Strieber's Unknown Country]

Growing up, many children are told to clean their plates during meals. This is partially because parents want their children to finish their vegetables and mostly because no one wants to waste food. The most popular reason to clean your plate? "Because there are children starving in Africa." Whether this sort of statement has an effect on children is difficult to say, but it did have an effect on a restaurant in London.

The Obalende Suya Express, a West-African barbecue restaurant, is enforcing a £2.50 fine for patrons whose eyes are bigger than their stomachs and leave food on their plates. They host an large, popular buffet every Sunday night and the restaurant owners noticed that people were taking food just because it was available, even if they had no intention of eating it. The owners said that they felt guilty dumping out all the wasted food at the end of the night. Now, large red signs warn the customers about the fine. The money collected from the fines goes to Oxfam, a poverty-relief charity.

The only downside? When customers learn to take only what they are willing to eat, the charity won't be getting as many contributions - not from this restaurant anyway. Other restaurants, including chains like TGI Fridays, donate food and goods to charity already, but perhaps this will encourage more business to do so when they can.

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