In an exciting week during which Michael Pollan got a world peace award from Yoko Ono, testicles became the new, hot cut of meat, and Alice Waters was terrorized by a mountain lion, we found ourselves sobered by the sad revelation that Berlin’s cannibal restaurant was a hoax all along (it was just a stunt pulled by the German equivalent of PETA). So we’re really in need of the uplifting schadenfreude of this week’s James Weird Awards:
• Biomedical researcher James Gilpin has launched Gilpin Family Whiskey, a whiskey distillery that uses the urine of elderly diabetics as a base for the spirits. Each bottle is labeled with the name of the “donor,” and is safe to drink — though Gilpin claims the distillery is a commentary on Britain’s water purification systems’ usefulness “to harvest the biological resources that our elderly already process in abundance.” [Wired UK]
• A now-fired cook at a Marlton, New Jersey, restaurant was held on $25,000 bail for allegedly putting “body hair” in a local policeman’s bagel intentionally, possibly in retaliation for the officer giving the cook a traffic ticket. According to the police report, the arrest happened when the officer found “human hairs that had been torn from (the cook’s) body” in his breakfast sandwich. [Courier-Post]
• Employees of a Vienna, Austria, restaurant known for its venison (maybe it’s Steirereck?) were arrested Thursday for spending the past two years selling over 1.2 kilograms of cocaine to restaurant customers. In the course of the arrest, police also found 55 grams of the drug, plus guns, bullets, and €2,000 hidden away at the high-end spot. [Austrian Independent]
• A hapless burglar in North Charleston, North Carolina, tried to break into a restaurant through a grease vent and wound up getting stuck for nearly seven hours. He was eventually found by an employee showing up early for work, who found his foot sticking out of the vent above the stove. [KWTX]
• A Waffle House patron in Tulsa was arrested for swinging a broom around and striking two people. The cleaning-supply assailant was picked up after a mild police chase, after which he was shockingly found to be intoxicated. [RTT News]
• A brother-and-sister team pleaded guilty to robbing a Popeye’s restaurant in Rochester, New York, of over $1,000 and hitting a manager with a golf club. The sister had been fired from a different Popeye’s just before the heist. [Democrat & Chronicle]
• An elderly driver who meant to put her car in reverse accidentally put it in drive, plowing at full speed into a south Florida restaurant. Six people had to go to the hospital, and countless tables and pieces of glassware were injuried. [CBS12]
• The owner of Cafe Longo, a mafia-themed venue in Providence, Rhode Island, is being sued by a friend in Fort Lauderdale who owns Cafe Martorano, a similarly gimmicky restaurant. In a fully improbable turn, both restaurants show mob movies on flat-screens, serve meatball salads, and play Frank Sinatra on the jukebox. [ProJo]
• A Food-4-Less employee in San Luis Obispo, California, called police after receiving a suspicious-looking letter addressed to the grocery store manager. After careful opening, it turned out to be a thank-you note for a particularly helpful store employee. [SLO Trib]
