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Food

It's Wednesday, February 27, and a Failed LA Food Festival Is Drawing Fyre Comparisons

Plus, that good samaritan Girl Scout Cookies buyer is facing federal drug charges.
barbecue on plate
Photo via Flickr user Marco Verch

Welcome to Off-Menu, where we'll be rounding up all the food news and food-adjacent internet ephemera that delighted, fascinated, or infuriated us this morning.

NEWS

  • At this point, anything that goes to shit is going to be compared to the Fyre Festival, so brace yourselves for future headlines about “The Fyre Festival of Presidential Campaigns” and “The Fyre Festival of Online Retailers.” But based on the accounts of anyone who attended the Los Angeles Beer and World BBQ Festival, those Fyre references seem legit. Eater reports that the event was doomed from the start, with too many people smashed into a too-small space, too few beers for the crowd, and a delayed start because the health department had some minor issues with a couple of vendors. “Seriously the worst festival I’ve ever been too!!!!!! [sic]” one woman commented on the event’s Facebook page. “Whoever planned it should rethink what they are doing with there [sic] life.” At least nobody had to suck dick for Evian.
  • On Monday, a group of Girl Scouts were selling cookies outside a Bi-Lo grocery store in Mauldin, South Carolina, when a man gave them 540 bucks and bought all of their cookies so the girls could, in his words, “get out of the cold.” But because this is 2019 and we can’t have anything nice, the man has since been identified as Detric “Fat” McGowan, and he has also since been arrested by the DEA on a number of serious charges including conspiracy to distribute heroin, cocaine, and fentanyl. “Nobody was hurt. Nobody was threatened,” a Girl Scouts of South Carolina spokesperson told FOX Carolina. “We had no reason to believe that this man was anything other than one of our valuable customers that is helping Girl Scouts power awesome experiences through the Girl Scout Cookie Program.” Put those Thin Mints in the freezer, Detric. They’ll keep.

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It sucks to get ripped off, like when you buy a Dutch National Team soccer jersey from an online seller with a reliable-sounding name like TOPSHIRTZ4U, but when it arrives, you discover that it would barely fit the smallest Build-A-Bear. Anyway, an unidentified woman called the cops in Craigavon, Northern Ireland to report that she’d been scammed by her drug dealer. In a Facebook post, PSNI Craigavon said that she paid over £200 ($266) for what she’d hoped was cocaine, but it turned out to be brown sugar. “If you've been scammed by your dealer and would like pay back, call 101, PM us, or phone Crimestoppers,” they wrote. “A dishonest drug dealer. What's the world coming to?!”

  • If you went to even half of your Film Theory classes (Liberal Arts College 4-lyfe), you saw that scene from Cool Hand Luke where Paul Newman wins a bet by choking down 50 hard-boiled eggs in an hour. And how ‘bout this forced transition, because hard-boiled eggs just ended a prison-wide food strike at the Coyote Ridge Corrections Center in Connell, Washington. According to the Tri-City Herald, around 1,700 of the 2,065 inmates had refused their prison issued “breakfast boats”—which included a muffin, breakfast bar, PB&J sandwich, oatmeal or cereal and dried milk—because they wanted something hot to eat instead. Prison officials have agreed to swap the muffin for hard-boiled eggs, in addition to making a couple of other improvements. HEY GUYS, WE’VE HEARD THAT NO MAN CAN EAT 50 EGGS.