• Mrs. Fields plans to move beyond cookies and is using Chicago as a test market for a speciality coffee line. If all goes well, the cookie company plans to add breakfast and lunch options soon. [Trib]
• Crime really didn’t pay in this scenario: A former bookkeeper and waitress for Hackney’s Restaurant in Glenview was sentenced to four years of probation after stealing around $180,000. [Trib]
• The FDA is not happy about a line of melatonin-laced brownies dubbed Lazy Larry, calling them potentially unsafe. Maybe folks are just mad that Mr. Larry looks a little … how do we say this — stoned? [NYDN]
• File under strange bedfellows: Kanye has reportedly signed up for cooking lessons with Gordon Ramsay. Evidently the rapper “loves British cuisine.” [MSN Celebrity UK via Food 52]
• Dieting causes brain cells to eat themselves, suggests a new study. But don’t worry, people are already planning to develop drugs to stop this. [LAT]
• A research team at North Carolina State University has received a $25 million federal grant to study the viruses that cause food poisoning, in particular, dangerous noroviruses. [News Observer]
