• A calamari crisis was narrowly averted Sunday at the Gilroy Garlic Festival when vendors appeared to have run out of the squid, only to find 1,000 extra pounds in nearby warehouses. [NBC]
• Forbes Island and the Tonga Room rank among America’s “weirdest” restaurants on this silly list. [CNBC/SFGate]
• Safeway continues to struggle with neighborhood resistance to their expansion plans in Rockridge, mostly because the store is going to double in size and bring in “crappy” ancillary retail like Shoe Pavilion. Other Safeway expansions in Berkeley and Albany have also proven controversial. [Chron, Earlier]
• Smaller wineries with direct sales programs like wine clubs fared better during the economic downturn than the industry as a whole, in part because they succeeded in cutting out the middleman. [Biz Times]
• Watch Justin Bieber as he “cones” and pulls other pranks on fast-food drive throughs. [Perez Hilton]
• The drought continues in the southwestern U.S., where many cattle ranchers are taking steer to auction early rather than struggle to feed and water them. [USAT]
• Turns out high sodium intake is a concern for many babies, who get salt overload from eating canned and jarred food. [Daily Mail UK]
• Defying its namesake decadent dessert, Cheesecake Factory will roll out a “SkinnyLicious” menu of fifteen entrees under 590 calories and twelve appetizers under 490 calories. [USAT]
• Chewing food up to 40 times might be an effective means of consuming fewer calories. Because you get tired of sitting there chewing? [Daily Mail UK]
• Down in Louisiana, SnoWizard snowballs is being sued by eight other makers of the frozen dessert, which are fed up with SnoWizard’s owner trying to trademark sugar and water. [WSJ]
