A good place to steal wifi in your car

First off, I apologize in advance for the following comparison to anyone struggling with serious addiction. But my two visits to the new greenish McDonald's in Berkeley (at 1198 San Pablo) brought to mind nothing less than the way a heroin addict I know on occasion used to make a big production out of not just kicking it, and not just turning his life around, but of suddenly becoming the most churchgoing, Eagle Scout-y, all-American straight-arrow he could be. For a couple weeks, he would insist -- with that shaky, desperate persuasiveness the true addict can muster -- that he'd traded the needle for the minivan, and not knowing how else to handle this, his friends and family would all play along. It was an act of collective wishing -- and lying.

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NO Slaughter

​If you go to farmers' markets in the East Bay, you may have seen them: A group of activists from Neighbors Opposed to Backyard Slaughter handing out flyers raising concerns about Oakland's new Urban Agriculture Policy. "The last thing I want my daughter to see or hear are the sounds of an animal being killed next door by a DIY slaughter hobbyist," says a cartoon of a ponytailed man.

NO Slaughter's latest action, according to its website, was to appear at the El Cerrito City Council earlier this week, protesting the fact that the city's Animals Ordinance didn't include any provision regarding animal slaughter. "By not addressing slaughter specifically, El Cerrito left the interests of animals to the whims of the farmer, which as we know from observing industrial agriculture is never a good idea," spokesperson Ian Elwood wrote in an email to SFoodie. "We have seen too many instances of cruelty by urban homesteaders to recount, and there is no reason to believe that without regulation, anyone will do anything differently than what is being done already."More >>

More appetizing than anhydrous ammonia

For Bay Area shoppers, staring eye-to-eye into Christopher Columbus' homely visage is a nostalgic experience. Columbus Salame, like Mother's Cookies or even the It's-It, is a company that deserves the title "local institution." Ice cream and cookie companies may hold a more special place in the heart, however, than processed meat facilities.

Also, the good people at Mother's and It's-It never leaked clouds of noxious chemicals into the region, sickening the locals.

Alas, Columbus Salame did just that. Today the Environmental Protection Agency announced the venerable company will fork over nearly $700,000 in penalties on top of a $6 million upgrade to the refrigeration system that twice failed in 2009, leading to around 420 pounds of gas spewing out of the South San Francisco plant.

Association of the term "anhydrous ammonia" with its products does not figure to be a branding boon for Columbus. How to recover? We asked a branding expert.

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People are apparently quitting Slow Food USA over this.

​On Chow.com this week, former SFoodie editor John Birdsall came out with a shocker of a story. Slow Food USA is losing members, upsetting core supporters, and laying off staff, Birdsall reports. Why? Because it's changing its focus to address the price of good food -- specifically, with the nationwide $5 Challenge the organization promoted in September, which encouraged participants to make a local, organic meal for $5 a person. The new focus on cheap food, Birdsall reports, had Alice Waters in tears. (Side note: Over on Chowhound, they're having a great discussion about the piece.)

What bothers me about this kerfuffle is that the $5 Challenge was the first time in years I felt like Slow Food USA was actually addressing the charge of elitism rather than superciliously telling their detractors they're wrong.

For most of its history, the organization, like Alice Waters' "delicious revolution," has pushed two tenets as inseparable truths:

A) Local, organic, heirloom, humanely raised, etc., food is far more delicious -- aesthetically superior -- than the products of industrial agriculture.
B) Anyone who wants food that is better for the environment, farmers, and our bodies must pay more.

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The things Kreayshawn hates could fill a Zagat guide.

​You might know Kreayshawn from the thousands of articles about her on every music blog and reasonably hip magazine (including this one!) Or you might know her from that one song she did -- and when we say "one song," we mean that literally.

But you certainly don't know her as this: one of the many people in front of you in line at Zachary's Pizza in Oakland, a pizza joint so superb that just last night a friend announced, over her first-ever Zachary's slice, "Oh! This is why people like pizza in the first place!"

Kreayshawn, though, doesn't go there. As our All Shook Down blog reports, in a new interview with Vancouver's legendary DJ/interviewer Narduwar, Kreayshawn got quizzed about Oakland pizza. She spat, "Fuck Zachary's" and added:

"Fuck that fancy-ass pizza, man. We don't eat that shit in Oakland. That's fancy Oakland. We eat out the taco truck in Oakland."

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​Today Gov. Jerry Brown at last made it official: Starting Jan, 1, 2012, the importation of shark fins into California is banned.

Shark fins already here can be sold until July 1, 2013, but after that anyone hoping to enjoy a piping bowl of endangered-animal soup will have to go elsewhere.

Over on our Snitch blog, Erin Sherbert has the details:

Brown signed the controversial ban today, saying it will help curb the dwindling shark population. "The practice of cutting the fins off of living sharks and dumping them back in the ocean is not only cruel, but it harms the health of our oceans," Brown said.

Also, SFoodie's resident critic Jonathan Kauffman has written wisely on the shark-fin ban controversy. Here's something to chew on that won't get the feds after you:

Is Banning Shark Fins Racist?

Considering Shark's Fin as a Dish, Not Just a Cause

Shark Fin FAQ: So What's This Ban All About?

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