Chef Report

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. — A south Florida couple was happy to not be sharing their home with millions of bees. Jesus Molina said he and his girlfriend were ready to buzz off after a swarm of bees invaded the kitchen wall of their Miami Beach apartment.

Molina said the bees were there for at least two and a half years. The couple finally had enough and called in the professionals.

“So we’re trying to, like, get rid of most of them, but without professional help we can’t. So now we almost … They’re biting me!’” Molina screamed, running from the home during an interview with reporters.Beekeepers removed more than 3 million bees from the apartment. They also extracted nearly 60 pounds of honey. more…

Homeless Philadelphians, Chef Foo may soon be teaching you the finer points of cooking.

Thanks to a deal reached with prosecutors, Susanna Foo, a nationally acclaimed chef and restaurateur, is to teach cooking to the city’s poor and homeless instead of facing trial for allegedly striking a Parking Authority ticket writer.

Foo, 63, of Villanova, was to have had a hearing yesterday in Municipal Court on assault charges arising from the Sept. 29 incident. Instead, prosecution and defense attorneys told Judge Francis Cosgrove that they had agreed to drop a simple-assault charge if Foo stays out of trouble for six months and devotes 50 hours to community service.

She will perform that community service for Project HOME, whose cofounder, Sister Mary Scullion, said she was excited to learn of the idea yesterday from the law firm defending Foo. “We have different programs that could utilize her expertise,” Sister Mary said in a telephone interview. “She’s such a phenomenal restaurant person.” more…

Follow up to this story

Fiance: Officer Miscarries After Fight With Chef

Susanna Foo’s alleged victim has miscarriage

JACKSON TOWNSHIP, N.J. (AP) — An Ocean County woman who police say tried to poison her live-in sister and her sister’s boyfriend by putting rat poison in their sandwiches has been charged with two counts of attempted murder.

Dana Simons, 43, was arrested Friday after her sister called police to report finding rat poison pellets in the couple’s sandwiches on two separate occasions.

The sister, 51, and boyfriend, 50, did not eat the sandwiches and were unharmed.
The first time Simons’ sister noticed something odd was earlier in the week, when Simons brought home sandwiches for the couple that appeared to have a blue-green pellets mixed in with the chicken. more…

Martha Stewart threw rival talk-show diva Rachael Ray into her wicker-and-jute ring this morning, and, in her inimitably patrician way, gave her a verbal smackdown for daring to air her show with Barry Manilow at exactly the same time Her Martha-ness did.

At 10 am in New York, both Martha (on NBC) and Rachael’s (on ABC) shows featured the ageless crooner Manilow as a musical guest, and Martha was none too pleased. “I’ve never actually met Rachael Ray,” said Martha during her opening monologue, with a rather unmistakable chortle. “I think she’s very fun…lively…uh…young woman,” continued the domestic queen, racking her brain for adjectival possibilities. “She has Barry on her show today … Now that’s kinda weird.” more…

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BAGHDAD, Oct. 9 — Hundreds of Iraqi army and police officers became violently ill after breaking their Ramadan fast Sunday evening at a base in southern Iraq, in what authorities are investigating as a possible mass poisoning attack.

At least 10 people died and 1,200 were sickened at a base in Numaniyah after eating a chicken dinner that may have been laced with cyanide, according to recruits and an army colonel with knowledge of the investigation. He said the food was undergoing laboratory tests.

Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, a spokesman for the Iraqi armed forces, said the head of the base’s mess hall and several other employees there had been arrested. But he said that only 350 to 400 people fell ill, that four had to be treated at a hospital and that none died. more…

MADRID, Spain Millions of anchovies — a protected species in the European Union — died in northern Spain after an unexplained mass beaching, officials said Friday.

The fish, all juveniles, were found stranded along large stretches of Colunga beach, 60 kilometers (37 miles) east of the port city of Gijon, a normally pristine seaside landscape in the province of Asturias.

Anchovies, known as “bocartes” in northern Spain and considered a culinary delicacy, cannot be fished along northern Spanish and French coasts due to an EU protection order meant to allow fish stocks to recover from “absolute decline,” said Luis Laria, chief coordinator of a marine protection unit working with the government.

“It’s a bit of a disaster,” Laria said. “We can’t fish them because they’re so rare, and now they’ve killed themselves.”

“More than 3 tons have been found so far, and our main — untested — hypothesis at the moment is that they tried to flee from predators and accidentally beached,” Laria said. Had the fish grown to maturity, they would have represented more than 100 tons, he said. more…

A parking authority officer allegedly attacked by a celebrity chef has miscarried, says the officer’s fiance.Parking authority officer Juanita Lewis is recovering in her West Philadelphia home. In Monday, NBC 10 spoke with her fiance, Phillip Rhedrick.”She’s not doing good emotionally. Devastated. Shocked. Terrified. She’s under a lot of pressure,” said Phillip Rhedrick.Rhedrick says Lewis is having a tough time. Since Friday, the parking authority officer has been recuperating from what police are calling a beating by Susanna Lan, also known as Susanna Foo. Foo was later arrested by police.Rhedrick also told NBC 10 over the weekend that Lewis, a mother of five children, was two months pregnant and miscarried after the confrontation.Witnesses tell police that Lewis was issuing a parking ticket to a deliveryman outside Foo’s restaurant near 15th and Walnut when Foo started swinging.Rhedrick says Lewis had not had any problems with her pregnancy before she was attackedNow, the couple has hired an attorney. more…

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A chef at a restaurant in the Westin Copley Place hotel pleaded not guilty to a murder charge this morning after prosecutors and police said he stabbed a bartender Friday night during an argument at work.

The chef, Ivan Sosa, 37, appeared in Boston Municipal Court this morning in a white jumpsuit. He kept his head bowed and said little during the brief proceeding as his mother and sister looked on. A judge ordered the Dorchester man held without bail until his next court appearance scheduled for Oct. 17.

More than 50 friends and relatives of the victim, Carlos E. Borrero, Jr., 30, packed the courtroom. Borrero’s mother and wife were overcome by grief during and had to be carried outside.

According to police and prosecutors, Sosa and Borrero got into an argument early Friday night at Turner Fisheries, the hotel’s popular seafood restaurant. The pair tussled in an employee-only area and then police say Sosa grabbed a knife. He is charged with stabbing Borrero four times, including once in the chest, which punctured his lung and heart.

Police responded to a report of a stabbing at 4:27 p.m. at the Back Bay hotel and found a Borrero bleeding from a knife wound. more…

Philadelphia police are taking a closer look at restaurateur Susanna Foo’s alleged assault of a Philadelphia Parking Authority employee because the alleged victim suffered a miscarriage over the weekend.

Juanita Lewis, 38, was seven weeks pregnant and writing a ticket when the confrontation occurred next to Foo’s Center City restaurant Friday afternoon, according to Phil Rhedrick, who identified himself as Lewis’ boyfriend.

Though Rhedrick was not at the scene, he described Foo as “real violent, punching, kicking, scratching… She was just outraged.” Lewis, he said, “tried to ward her off.”

The police report of the incident says the 63-year-old Foo - arrested under the name Susanna S. Lan - struck Lewis in the stomach and the face with an open hand after seeing Lewis ticket a van making a delivery to her restaurant. Foo was arrested and spent the night in a holding cell before she was released on her own recognizance Saturday morning.

Thomas J. Bader, an assistant professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, said direct trauma was unlikely to cause a miscarriage so early in a pregnancy. It is later - when the uterus has expanded with the fetus - that direct trauma could seriously injure the baby, he said. more…

Susanna Foo

(AP) A waitress filed a $20 million lawsuit Wednesday against a high-end Japanese restaurant in one of the city’s trendiest areas, claiming its head cook groped her, molested her with kitchen utensils and sexually harassed her.

Satomi Southward, 31, of Fukuoka, Japan, said that from January 2005 into spring she worked without incident at the Megu restaurant, in Manhattan’s TriBeCa area, but in the following months became the victim of sexual “ridicule and insult.”

“I felt very miserable,” Southward, who worked at Megu for 15 months, said during a telephone interview. “I felt I don’t deserve this. I had low self-esteem (because of the harassment) and was unconfident about myself.”

The divorced, single mother of a 2-year-old boy says in court papers she was a waitress in Seattle when Megu’s head chef, Mitsuo Endo, invited her to work at his restaurant.

In papers filed in Manhattan’s state Supreme Court, Southward says that starting in the spring of 2005, Endo began “to degrade, humiliate and intimidate (her) by continually touching Southward’s breasts, buttocks, thighs and hips with his own hands or with various kitchen utensils.” more…

BOISE, Idaho (Reuters) - A 2-year-old boy who drank a spinach shake died from E. coli in a case that is likely related to the U.S. health scare around spinach, a health official said on Friday.

Kyle Allgood, of Chubbuck in the heart of Idaho’s potato country, died on Wednesday night at a hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah, said Ross Mason, a spokesman for the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare.

“His mother or someone in the house made him a spinach smoothie,” Mason said.

“It’s pretty likely that he died of E. coli,” he said.

The outbreak of E. coli had killed one person and made at least 157 ill. Farmers have stopped harvesting their spinach crops and supermarkets are no longer selling the vegetable traditionally known as a healthy food as investigators seek to find the source of the problem.

It was not clear if the child had eaten the spinach before or after officials warned against eating fresh spinach, Mason said. more…

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - A grand jury will decide whether country singer Hank Williams Jr. will stand trial on misdemeanor assault charges filed after a cocktail waitress said he yelled obscenities and choked her at a local hotel.

Criminal Court Judge Gwen Rooks ruled Monday that probable cause was established and bound the case over to a Shelby County grand jury.

The waitress, Holly Hornbeak, testified that she had red marks and bruising on her neck and that she was hoarse the next day.

A private attorney hired by her parents demanded $250,000 from Williams two days later, but Hornbeak denied that the case was being driven by money.

“It was a serious attack and this is not something you take lightly,” said Hornbeak, who was 19 when the incident allegedly occurred in the Peabody hotel’s lobby bar March 18.

Afterward, she said, Williams’ publicist, Kirt Webster, gave her his phone number and offered her tickets to a Williams concert that weekend.

Williams, 57, who lives in Paris, Tenn., remains free on his own recognizance. Assault carries up to 11 months and 29 days in jail and a fine of up to $2,500.

Williams sat quietly as his attorney, Leslie Ballin, sought to portray the incident as “a hijacking” rather than as an assault.

“She didn’t go to a doctor, she didn’t take pictures of these alleged red marks and bruises. C’mon now,” Ballin said later as Williams stood at his side smiling. “Talking about victims? I’m representing one here. This is an attempt at a financial hijacking. There was no assault.”

Williams would not comment on the case. more…

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A grand jury will decide whether country singer Hank Williams Jr. will stand trial on misdemeanor assault charges filed after a cocktail waitress said he yelled obscenities and choked her at a local hotel.

Two ex-waitresses at an East Side bar are suing their former employer, having filed a multimillion-dollar sex-harassment lawsuit, accusing their former bosses of ordering female employees to be weighed as part of a scheme to keep track of their weight.

Alexandria Lipton, 25, and Kristen McRedmond, 27, filed suit in New York Supreme Court against the Sutton Place Bar and Restaurant on Second Avenue near 54th Street.

The two women claim they were humiliated and sexually harassed by their boss, whom they knew only by his first name, Neil. Lipton claims the manager kept tabs on waitresses’ poundage by ordering some of them onto a scale in the restaurant’s office.

“When they got in the office, they were told and/or coerced into getting onto the scale,” Lipton said.

Lipton said she didn’t work that day, but when she came back and refused to tell the manager her weight, he guessed it.

“He looked me up and down, looked at the bouncer standing next to him and goes, ‘135,’ and he looks at the bouncer and they nod to each other, and he writes my weight down on a pad of paper,” Lipton said.

The two ex-employees are represented by attorney Rosemarie Arnold, who said Redmond physically resisted when a beefy manager tried to pick her up to get her on the scale while another manager looked on.

Arnold said no men were subjected to being weighed; only female workers were singled out for the weigh-ins. more…

Alexandria Lipton, 25

They had worked together for a half-dozen years in the posh hotel restaurant in the Back Bay. But after they argued last Friday afternoon, Ivan Lorenzo-Sosa , 37, assaulted his longtime co-worker, then fatally stabbed him, a prosecutor said yesterday.

Carlos E. Borrero Jr. , 30, the father of an 8-year-old boy, was stabbed in the chest, hand, thigh, and bicep, said Cory Flashner , a Suffolk assistant district attorney. The wound that killed him punctured his lung and heart, Flashner said yesterday in Boston Municipal Court, where Lorenzo-Sosa was arraigned on charges of murder.

Borrero was a bartender and Lorenzo-Sosa a cook at Turner Fisheries , the hotel restaurant. Prosecutors said the motive behind the stabbing and the nature of the argument remained under investigation.

Flashner said a video camera inside the Westin Copley Place , where the men were fighting about 4:30 p.m., caught part of the confrontation , though not the actual stabbing.

“The incident ended when co-workers restrained” Lorenzo-Sosa, he said.

During the arraignment, some among the dozens of Borrero’s relatives and friends stared at Lorenzo-Sosa, who wore a white jumpsuit and kept his head lowered. As his mother and sister sat expressionless behind him, Lorenzo-Sosa was ordered held without bail. A not guilty plea was entered on his behalf. more…

HUNTINGTON — About 25 minutes into eating his cheeseburger, David Francke’s eyes glazed over and he pushed back from the table. “There’s no way,” Francke said. “I’m giving up on it. If I don’t, it would be everywhere.”

“It” is the brand new Bubba’s Big Bad Single Wide Burger at the almost-famous restaurant, Hillbilly Hotdogs that gives new meaning to the phrase “Biggie Size.”

Weighing in at 5 pounds, with seven pieces of cheese on 31/2 pounds of fresh meat from Logan’s on a custom-baked bun from Brunetti’s, The Single Wide got a grand introduction Friday afternoon as the restaurant, just a couple of blocks from Marshall’s campus, filled with students cheering on Francke, a 25-year-old med school student at Marshall from Charleston.

Francke earned the chance to be the first customer to take on a Single Wide since he holds the record (4 minutes) for eating Hillbilly Hotdog’s massive Homewrecker, a 15-inch hotdog with ALL the trimmings — the equivalent to eating 10 hotdogs.

Francke, who disposed of the Homewrecker in record time, said he was pretty confident about taking on the Single Wide, since he was still a bit hungry after knocking out a Homewrecker. more…

A California natural foods company was linked Friday to a nationwide E. coli outbreak that has killed one person and sickened nearly 100 others as the company issued a recall of certain brands of spinach, including the Trader Joe’s brand.

There are five Trader Joe’s stores in southeast Michigan.

Grocers across the country pulled spinach from shelves, and consumers tossed out the leafy green.

Food and Drug Administration officials said that they had received reports of illness in 19 states.

The outbreak was traced to Natural Selection Foods, based in San Juan Bautista, Calif. The company has voluntarily recalled products containing spinach.

Natural Selection Foods has recalled all of its fresh spinach and any salad with spinach in a blend because they are possibly contaminated with E. coli. The affected packages have best if used by dates of Aug. 17 through Oct. 1. Consumers with questions can call the company at 800-690-3200. more…

Police say cook killed co-worker at Westin

A confrontation in an employee area of a popular seafood restaurant in Copley Square led to homicide when a cook fatally stabbed a co-worker, bringing the Friday night dinner rush to a crashing halt, police said.

Potential patrons and curious passersby gathered last night near the suddenly off-limits Turner Fisheries at Copley Place where a sign read: “Closed until further notice.”

“I’m honestly in shock; I can’t believe it,” said Amber Mann, who had brought her boyfriend to Turner Fisheries for his 19th birthday dinner.

Boston police said officers received a 911 call at 4:27 p.m. indicating someone had been stabbed at the Westin Copley Place hotel, which houses Turner Fisheries.

Police arrived to find a 30-year-old male suffering from grievous knife wounds. He was rushed to Boston Medical Center.

“He has since died,” said Deputy Police Superintendent Daniel Coleman about two hours later. The stabbing occurred in a restricted area for employees in the hotel and restaurant complex, he said.

The suspect, Ivan Sosa, 37, of Dorchester, was arrested and charged with murder, police said.

According to a police official with knowledge of the investigation, the suspect was a cook and the victim a co-worker. Police would not release the victim’s name. more…

CHICAGO — Don’t come between foodies and their foie gras.

That was the message sent by Chicago diners who dug into foie gras dishes Monday, on the eve of the city’s ban on foie gras. High-end restaurants had special foie gras tastings to protest the ban, and even a few down-home sandwich and pizza joints added it to their menus for the occasion.

At the 676 Restaurant & Bar on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, chef Robert Gadsby topped foie gras with Pop Rocks candies, wrapped it in prosciutto, and blended it into hot chocolate as part of an “Outlaw Dinner” that also featured such controversial ingredients as wild morels, absinthe, unpasteurized imported cheese, and hemp seeds. While the seven-course, $140 dinner was completely legal, all the ingredients have been banned at some point.

Gadsby called the foie gras ban ridiculous.

“What’s next?” asked Gadsby, who also hosted an Outlaw Dinner last month at his Noe Restaurant & Bar in Los Angeles, where foie gras will be subject to a statewide ban by 2012. “They’ll outlaw truffles, then lobster, beluga caviar, oysters. There are diners who eat to fill a hunger urge, and there are diners who eat to be dazzled. If you take away the luxury ingredients, how can you dazzle them?”

(CBS/AP) NEW YORK A waiter at a trendy brasserie linked to celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain was charged with stealing credit card information from customers.

Dennis Szyller is accused of using the information to make 12-thosuand dollars in unauthorized purchases.

The district attorney’s office says the customers dined at Les Halles in Manhattan between May, June or July. more…

HONOLULU (AP) _ The state health department says nine people on Maui have suffered food poisoning since last month after eating spam musubi.

The state says the nine got sick after eating the rice-spam-and-seaweed treats from several vendors.

So far, the poisoning has affected mostly young children between the ages of 3 and 9. Two were taken to the hospital emergency room.

The state is now investigating places that sell and make spam musubi on Maui.

Sanitation inspectors on the island are also conducting random checks of retailers to make sure they are storing musubi at proper temperatures. more…

CLARKSTON, Ga. A bride wounded when a man opened fire on a crowded wedding party at an Ethiopian restaurant says she did NOT know the shooter.

Twenty-five-year-old Mahehelosh Mangesto says she and her new husband were dancing near the stage at Ledet in Clarkston Sunday night when — quote — “The guy came out of nowhere and started shooting us.”She tells The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in an interview yesterday that she is glad she wasn’t killed.DeKalb County police charged 37-year-old Debebe Abebe yesterday in the shooting. The suspect fled in a car a short distance before police caught him.Witnesses say the gunman shot the groom — 33-year-old Samson Abraham — in the back and the bride in the calf. The two had been invited by the restaurant owner for a champagne toast to celebrate their wedding.A spokeswoman for Grady Memorial Hospital — Denise Simpson — says Abraham and a friend of the bride — 30-year-old Ashelash Gezaie — remain hospitalized. They were both listed in stable condition yesterday.The bride and two other men injured in the shooting were treated at a hospital and released. more…

(AP) BOMBAY, India When Hitler’s Cross restaurant opened four days ago in a Bombay suburb, local politicians and movie industry types were on hand to celebrate beneath the posters of the Nazi leader and swastikas.

The owner insisted then — and still does — that the name and theme of his new eatery is only meant to attract attention, even if it has outraged Bombay’s Jewish community.

“It’s really made people very upset that a person responsible for the massacre of 6 million Jews can be glorified,” Elijah Jacob, one of the community’s leaders, told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

But owner Puneet Sablok has refused to back down, and apart from Bombay’s 4,500 Jews, there’s been little controversy in India, where Holocaust awareness is limited, Hitler is regarded as just another historical figure and swastikas are an ancient Hindu symbol, displayed all over to bring luck. There are just 5,500 Jews in all of India.

“It’s just to attract people. There is no intention to hurt anyone,” said Sablok about his spacious restaurant, which serves pastries, pizza and salad in Navi Mumbai, a northern suburb of Bombay, which is also known as Mumbai.

Those objecting to the restaurant plan to ask the local government to force a name change, said Daniel Zonshine, Israel’s consul general in Bombay.

“Instead of Hitler’s name being an example of extreme evil, this is like giving legitimacy to Hitler. It’s not right to advertise his name in public,” Zonshine said. more…

A chef from a ritzy Manhattan hotel was discovered naked and strangled in the living room of his Westchester County home, authorities said yesterday.David Webb, 44, had just returned home from an eight-hour shift at the tony Benjamin Hotel and was preparing to take a shower when he answered the door wearing only a towel after 1 a.m. Monday, cops said.

A housemate found Webb, known for his love of music and extravagant clothing, dead on the floor. An autopsy later ruled the death a homicide.

Since Webb’s strangulation bore a resemblance to Tuesday’s mysterious slaying of Martin Barreto, a former press aide to Mayor Rudy Giuliani, New Rochelle police have contacted the NYPD.

“We’ve been in contact with New York City about similarities in the cases, but, as of now, we have no other concrete similarities,” said New Rochelle Detective Lt. Christopher Hearle. more…

WHITE PLAINS — Eric Buffong said that ever since he was a 7-year-old girl named Erica, he knew deep down inside that he was really a man.

Now the 27-year-old chef has wound up in the middle of a court battle that took on statewide significance last week, when a judge ruled that his status as a transgender person qualified him for protection under the New York State Human Rights Law in a lawsuit against the upscale Tarrytown restaurant where he formerly worked.

Buffong is suing the parent company of Equus, a five-star restaurant in The Castle on the Hudson in Tarrytown, claiming he was mistreated and fired from his job as a line chef last year after a co-worker brought in a copy of his 1998 White Plains High School yearbook, in which he appears in his senior portrait as Erica Buffong.

Lawyers for the restaurant sought to dismiss the lawsuit on the grounds that Buffong had no standing to sue under New York law.

State Supreme Court Justice Joan Lefkowitz, expanding on previous rulings, held that even though the state’s human rights law does not specifically mention transgender people, they are nonetheless entitled to protection under it.

Buffong began working at the restaurant, which serves $230 Beluga caviar appetizers, in May 2004.

He said that about eight months later, after a co-worker brought in the yearbook and showed it to the other employees, he became the target of jokes and ultimately constant harassment.

He said his name on the work schedule was changed from “Eric” to “Erica,” jokes were made about his anatomy and lifestyle, and he was routinely asked inappropriate questions.

“Prior to this, I had never had any problems with anybody about who I am,” Buffong said.

Buffong said that when he complained to the executive chef, David Haviland, he was told: “That’s not my problem. Just deal with it.”

Shortly afterward, his work schedule was reduced from five days to four, then shifted from nights to mornings, before he was fired in May 2005, Buffong said. more…

ROME - Lovers of pesto, the tangy green pasta sauce, are bracing for increased prices or even shortages after unseasonable hailstorms in northern Italy destroyed much of the most prized variety of basil, the key ingredient in the Genoese specialty.

Hailstones the size of tennis balls smashed glass panes on scores of greenhouses and pummeled fragile basil plants this month, wiping out entire crops near the town of Pra, west of Genoa, the capital of the Liguria region in northwest Italy.

“The heart of basil production has been hit,” Andrea Sampietro, director of the Ligurian chapter of Confagricoltura, an Italian farmers’ lobby, said Monday.

Local authorities estimate that some 35 producers suffered a total of nearly $6.5 million in damages. Farmers have asked the government to declare a state of natural calamity, so they can receive funds to repair the damage. more…

KENOSHA, Wisconsin (AP) — It might sound like a chocoholic’s dream, but stepping into a vat of viscous chocolate became a two-hour nightmare for a 21-year-old man Friday morning.

Darmin Garcia, an employee of a company that supplies chocolate ingredients, said he was pushing the chocolate down into the vat at Debelis Corp. because it was stuck. But it became loose and he slid into the hopper.

“It was in my hair, in my ears, my mouth, everywhere,” said Garcia, who has worked at the company for two years. “I felt like I weighed 900 pounds. I couldn’t move.”

The chocolate was 110 degrees Fahrenheit, hotter than a hot tub, said Capt. Greg Sinnen of the Kenosha Fire Department.

Co-workers, police and firefighters tried to free the man but could not get him loose until the chocolate was thinned out with cocoa butter. more…

COLUMBIA, S.C. - The dead mouse a teenager says he found in his salad at a Spartanburg Ruby Tuesday appears to be the result of a prank, the restaurant chain said Tuesday.

“After a very thorough and patient review of findings, we have concluded that our company, its restaurant, and our many hardworking team members are the victims of a hoax,” the Maryville, Tenn., company said in a release.

On July 30, 17-year-old Edward Viehman said he found a mouse in his spring mix salad. Since the incident, the restaurant, which gets ready-to-eat salad items from a distributor, has said it was not to blame.

An examination of the mouse, which Ruby Tuesday said was 6 1/2 inches in length, has shown that there were no rodent hairs or fecal matter present in the salad mix. No salad was not found in the mouse’s stomach.

Those factors indicate that the mouse couldn’t have entered the restaurant in the salad bag and had not been in the salad mix for a long time.

The report also concluded that the mouse was not captured at the Ruby Tuesday in Spartanburg because of its clean record on previous pest and health inspections. Health officials have said the restaurant scored a 98 out of a possible 100 on its last two surprise inspections, including a visit two weeks before the incident. A spokesman for the chain also said the location was sprayed for pests just days before.

The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control shut down the popular salad bar after the incident, but did not find any evidence of mice infestation. In its own report, DHEC recommended the restaurant “examine the product more closely during hydration and placement on the salad bar for customer service.” more…

Related story 

With Chicago’s ban on foie gras taking effect in less than two weeks, restaurants are holding farewell feasts and plotting a legal challenge to the law.Some are even planning to flout the spirit — and possibly the letter — of the law by giving away the pricey duck livers and charging an exorbitant price for the accompanying garnishes, the Chicago Tribune reports.

“My guests like it, they expect it to be on my menu and it’s going to continue to be,” said Michael Tsonton of Copperblue Restaurant. “If we’re the first ones to be hauled off to jail, so be it.” more…

Celebrity chef GORDON RAMSAY has been slammed by road safety campaigners for driving without wearing a seat belt.
In a scene for his British TV show THE F WORD, which has already been screened, Ramsay can be seen warning some female passengers, “Seat belts on please, ladies.” However, the chef doesn’t take his own advice and drives off without fastening his own seat belt, much to the annoyance of road safety campaigners. more…

Celebrity chef Kylie Kwong blamed a single glass of white wine for landing her in a Sydney court today.It cost her $750 and the loss of her driving licence for three months.

The chef and author, who fronted the ABC TV cooking series Kylie Kwong: Heart and Soul, had downed the drink at her Paddington home four hours before police pulled her over in Surry Hills last year, the court heard.

But the 35-year-old, who has prepared countless meals for diners at her popular Billy Kwong restaurant and before that as head chef of the acclaimed Wockpool, said she had not eaten all day.

She returned a blood alcohol reading of 0.07.

Kwong pleaded guilty in the Downing Centre Local Court today to low-range drink driving over the incident on November 30. more…

The mouse a teenager says he found in his salad at a Ruby Tuesday in Spartanburg may have been put there as a prank, a spokesman for the restaurant chain said Friday.”That would seem to be one of the distinct possibilities, maybe even the most likely,” said Rick Johnson, a spokesman for the Maryville, Tenn.-based company.

Edward Viehman, 17, said Sunday that he found a mouse in his “spring mix” salad. Since the incident, the restaurant, which is supplied ready-to-eat salad items from a distributor, has said it was not to blame for the rodent. more…

This is a follow-up story. 

Starting with the spring mix, 17-year-old Edward Viehman added a couple other items to his salad before topping it off with honey mustard dressing. Sitting down, though, he found something that was hard to swallow.

A mouse.

“He took a bite, and the next thing I know he was spitting gobs of salad out of his mouth,” Alexis Garrett said. “He got up and ran to the bathroom. It was a dead mouse — fully formed, dead, wet, probably at least 7 inches long. We called (the state Department of Health and Environmental Control), and tried to do all the proper things.” more…

Also..

Eek! A mouse! Ruby Tuesday diner gets surprise at salad bar

COLUMBIA, S.C. - A South Carolina teenager says he found a mouse in his salad at a Ruby Tuesday restaurant, but state health department officials said Tuesday initial indications are the Maryville-based restaurant is not to blame.

The state Department of Health and Environmental Control shut down the popular salad bar after the incident Sunday but did not find any evidence of mice infestation or droppings.

That was little consolation to rising high school senior Edward Viehman, who said he noticed the mouse on his plate just after his first bite. more…

A 21-year-old woman represented by a Newport Beach law firm has won a $3.25-million jury verdict in a food poisoning case against a Dana Point restaurant.

An Orange County Superior Court judge has yet to rule on the verdict, which was handed down July 11.

Alexis Sarti, of San Clemente, suffered a rare form of food poisoning after eating an ahi tuna appetizer at the Salt Creek Grille. Bremer, Whyte, Brown & O’Meara LLP represented Sarti in the lawsuit.

Tim McCune, president and co-founder of Salt Creek Ltd., which runs the restaurant, said he and co-founder Pete Truxaw are appealing the jury’s verdict.

Also…

O.C. restaurant hit with $3.2 million verdict

A San Clemente woman left with permanent nerve damage after eating an Ahi tuna appetizer at Salt Creek Grille was awarded $3.2 million by an Orange County jury.

The Dana Point eatery plans to appeal the July 11 verdict for Alexis Sarti, 22. She sued the 10-year-old Craftsman-style eatery after a near fatal incident stemming from “cross contamination” of her raw fish with campylobacter jejuni, bacteria found in raw poultry.

The bacteria attacked her nervous system, causing temporary double vision and paralysis from head to toe after the April, 2005 incident, according to the lawsuit she filed last year.

A jury ordered Salt Creek to pay her $3.2 million in damages, considered one of the largest punitive fines levied against a California restaurant in a case involving this specific bacteria, said Sarti’s Newport Beach attorneys Keith Bremer and Tyler Offenhauser.

TAMPA, Fla. — A six-member jury found restaurant owner Lawrence Storer not guilty of manslaughter Thursday for running over and killing a man who robbed him. more…

A bar waitress checking to see if a customer was legally old enough to drink looked down to see a familiar photo.

It was her own.

The 22-year-old waitress, whose name was not released, called police last week and said she had been handed her own stolen driver’s license by a woman trying to prove she was 21.

The woman, who became suspicious of the delay as the waitress went to call police, fled the Moosehead Saloon, but her companion provided her name.

Maria Bergan, 23, of Lakewood, was charged Sunday night with identity theft and receiving stolen property. She was arrested at her home in suburban Cleveland. more…

Maria Bergan

Tampa, Florida – Jurors are now decided victim or vigilante in the the trial of a restaurant owner charged with killing a robber..

A restaurant owner charged with killing a robber took the stand in his own defense today.

Lawrence Storer is on trial for manslaughter, after he chased and ran over his armed attacker, Shantavious Wilson.

Storer’s entire defense rests on his shoulders now. A blow to his case came this morning when his lawyers tried to introduce a witness who was also robbed by Wilson in 1998, but the judge ruled the woman could not testify, due to legal reasons.

Now Storer’s own words could make or break him.

When asked if he knew Wilson’s weapon was only a pellet gun, Storer replied, “It looked real to me.” more…

A Tokyo restaurant employee threw boiling water over an armed robber early Monday, forcing him to flee the scene empty-handed, police said.

At about 3:40 a.m. on Monday, a man broke into the Bamiyan restaurant in Itabashi-ku, threatened a 43-year-old female part-timer with a knife and attempted to steal money, local police said.

However, another employee who was in the kitchen filled a bowl with boiling water and threw it over the robber. He fled the scene without stealing anything. more…

(Burlington, Vermont-NBC) July 27, 2006 - A nightmare has come true for a Burlington, Vermont woman.

Bridget Zurn says she recently opened up a Lean Cuisine salmon basil meal and found a mouse in it.

Zurn says she knew something was wrong after opening the package and smelling a rotten odor. That’s when she saw the head of a mouse, including its teeth and hair.

“As I’m poking at the salmon, I see three hairs sticking up on the side of the dish,” said Zurn. more…

A TOPLESS waitress from New Jersey faced criminal charges after police found a severed hand and six human skulls in her home.

Linda Kay, 31, was due to be arraigned for improper disposition of human remains. Police said she was arrested on Friday.Officers responded to a report of a man wanting to kill himself with a hammer, but instead discovered a hand inside a jar filled with formaldehyde on a dresser in a bedroom. Six human skulls were found in an upstairs bedroom, South Plainfield Police Captain Paul Brembt said.

“The Middlesex County medical examiner responded to the scene and determined that the hand and all the skulls were from humans,” Capt Brembt said. more…

Also…

Woman in Severed-Hand Case a Court No-Show

Stripper’s home ‘cult-like’

A waitress who went on trial yesterday for allegedly throwing her newborn son from a fifth-floor window told the court she didn’t know she was pregnant before giving birth in a bathroom, and killed the baby to avoid losing her job.Zhang Weixian, a 20-year-old from Yunnan Province, told the Zhabei District People’s Court she felt sick to her stomach on February 26 and asked her boss if she could have the day off work. She then returned to the dorm room provided by Shaoxing Restaurant on Xizang Road N.

At around 6pm, she went to the washroom and soon gave birth, she told the court. The unmarried woman said she only has a primary school education so she didn’t realize she was pregnant until she had the baby. more…

A D.C. restaurateur was sentenced today to 18 months in prison for failure to turn over more than $2 million in sales taxes that his four restaurants collected from customers during a six-year period.

Gholam H. Kowkabi, 46, of suburban Vienna also was required to pay $1.77 million in restitution to the D.C. government as part of a plea agreement. The deal allowed him to plead guilty in February in U.S. District Court to one count of mail fraud and one count of failure to pay-over collected sales taxes to the city. The D.C. government and Kowkabi also reached agreement to resolve tax liability issues related to his restaurants filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2004 after the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue began investigating him, according to prosecutors.

Under the plea agreement, Kowkabi admitted to knowingly filing tax forms with false monthly sales figures while pocketing about 80 percent of the 10 percent sales taxes that his customers paid as part of their restaurant checks. The fraud began in 1998 and continued into 2005 at the four restaurants Kowkabi owned in the District: Sole Restaurant at 3050 K St. NW, Restaurant Piccolo at 1068 31st St. NW, Alamo Grill at 1063 31st St. NW and Tuscana West at 1350 I St. NW. more…

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. Massachusetts authorities say a restaurant worker stabbed his boss to death because she repeatedly reprimanded him for putting pans through the dishwasher.

Ryan Jones is being held without bond. Prosecutors say he stabbed Valerie Oranski 20 times with a steak knife. The manager’s body was found Saturday on a restroom floor at a restaurant in Dartmouth.Jones allegedly had made daily comments for several weeks to co-workers about wanting to kill the manager. Prosecutors say he said a masked man killed Oranski. more…

A robbery Wednesday night at the KFC at 1707 Cotton Grove Road has resulted in one arrest, according to a news release from the Lexington Police Department.

Officers allege that Eric Eugene Lilly, 23, of Twelve Oaks Drive, robbed the restaurant about 11:30 p.m. Wednesday. There is no information available about the amount of money stolen nor whether it was recovered. No employees or customers were harmed in the course of the incident. more…

WINDER, Ga. Winder police have arrested a 21-year-old man in connection with the shooting death of a man at a Mexican restaurant in April. Police Lieutenant Dennis Dorsey says police arrested Yonlenon Roblero on Saturday night and booked him into the Barrow County Jail on a charge of murder. Police say additional charges are possible. more…

Philadelphia - The family of a young culinary student are looking for the person responsible for killing their son on his way home from meeting with friends.

Tyrone Moore/Stepfather: “I want the killer caught. It’s as simple as that. I want the killer caught.” Tyrone Moore expresses his desire for justice in the slaying of his stepson, Patrick Spencer.

It was Sunday, April 9th. The 19-year-old culinary arts student at Community College was returning home after meeting with friends. He was walking home, when he was gunned down on the 1100 block of Orianna Street. Not far from his home. more…

It was not a hate crime. It was not a random act of violence. Police say it was arson for hire- that left a father and son critically burned at the Steak Thyme Restaurant. West Chester Police say the suspect turned himself in Thursday morning. 22 year-old Joshua Hunter of Xenia is behind bars on third degree felony arson charges.

Investigators say Hunter told them Steak Thyme owners Musa and Essa Shteiwi hired Hunter to set the restaurant on fire. The Shteiwis were injured in an explosion July sixth, before Hunter arrived to do the job. Police believe the Shteiwis were at Steak Thyme checking the site before Hunter was to set it off later that night. The father flicked his lighter right before the explosion. more…

Arrest Made In West Chester Restaurant Bombing

Police in West Chester say that explosions that happend a local restaurant might be tied to the manager’s son.

Joshua Hunter (courtesy: Cincinnati Police Dept.)

ARLINGTON, Tenn. — Police say a grocery store employee stabbed eight co-workers Friday morning, critically injuring four before a witness tackled him.

The suspect, whose name wasn’t immediately released, was arrested and then taken to a hospital after complaining of chest pains, Memphis Police Sgt. Vince Higgins said. Higgins said authorities hadn’t determined a motive for the attack.

The attack started in the manager’s office of the Schnucks supermarket in Arlington, on the outskirts of Memphis, then spilled out into the store, Higgins said.

By the time the suspect was tackled, six women and two men were bleeding from stab wounds, he said. Police said two large kitchen knives used in the attack were found at the scene. more…

The Memphis store where several workers were stabbed.

EASTON, Conn. A top chef at a Connecticut grocery chain is accused of beating up a female colleague in a dispute over cold hors d’oeuvres.

The 60-year-old executive chef for the Stew Leonard’s grocery stores, George Llorens, is charged with assault. He’s due in Bridgeport Superior Court on July 31st.He allegedly punched another chef, Pascaline Pruvost, in the face and head on July as they prepared food for a private wedding. Police say he was apparently upset because her canapes were cold. more…

Also… Police Say Chef Beat Up Co-Worker