A typical culinary outing these days consists of being sexually harassed on a boat while your stoned waiter brings you a tofu dish prepared by the vessel’s Vegan Black Metal Chef. But it doesn’t always go that well. Enter the James Weird Awards, your weekly roundup of all the things gone awry.
• A shop in Missouri has drawn negative attention from the health department by selling cicada-flavored ice cream, which it makes using real insects. The ice cream’s a hit with customers, but, according to city officials, “the food code doesn’t directly address cicadas.” [The Atlantic]
• A restaurant owner in San Francisco was also reprimanded by those buzzkills at the health department, which is prohibiting him from selling his trademark grasshopper tacos, or “any other insect-inspired entree” for that matter. The main issue is that the owner bought his insects from Mexico rather than an FDA-approved outlet. “In fact,” ABC reports, the health department said “they do not know of any federally approved source for grasshoppers.” [KGO-TV]
• Four people in Orlando were arrested for feeding the homeless, a breach of city ordinance. The “activists” distributed pancakes and doughnuts to about 30 homeless people; Orlando requires do-gooders to obtain an official permit when feeding 25 or more people in a park. [Miami Herald]
• A Subway employee in Florida was discovered to have been selling marijuana to customers who used the code words “extra meat” in their order. She was taken to jail, prompting a sense of relief among hungry carnivores who simply wanted extra meat. [MSNBC]
• A man in Maine was arrested after he broke into an area restaurant, got drunk at the bar, and fell asleep in the basement. When the boozed-up burglar was awoken by police, he said he had no recollection of the previous night’s events, which is probably for the best, because the previous night’s events sound really depressing. [Boston Herald]
