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Dining Sales Spike Upward; Demand at Food Banks Breaks Record

• Break out the bubbly: The National Restaurant Association is reporting that sales — from fine dining to fast food — are up. [USAT]

• This year’s holiday season brings record-breaking demand at food banks; in some areas, bread lines have become commonplace. [WP]

• Samir Mahmoud Itani, a Texas business man, has agreed to pay $15 million for his company’s role in mislabeling expired food and selling it to the U.S. Military. [CNN]

• After a customer received a receipt with “F#$@ you” printed twice on it, a manager and employee of a Sacramento Burger King have been fired. [AFP/Google News]

• Los Angeles County is considering its own solutions to expedite start-up independent food vendors, much like Pasadena’s Mama’s Small Business Kitchen Incubator is doing. [L.A. Times]

• Drinking glasses from Warner Brothers Studio Store, adorned with popular cartoon and movie characters, were found to have 1,000 times the federal limits allowed for lead in children’s products. [AP/Google News]

• The Food Network announced that the upcoming tenth season of Ace of Cakes will be the show’s last. Pie, meanwhile, is off in a corner gloating. [AP]

• Why settle for just one Thanksgiving fowl when you could have a large bird stuffed with two smaller ones? The turducken rears its head(s). [NYP]

• Farmers on Virginia’s coast can’t keep up with demand for Haymans, an “ugly, sugary, creamy-white” heirloom sweet potato that is only now becoming known outside the region. [WP]

Dining Sales Spike Upward; Demand at Food Banks Breaks Record