When Food Freaks Out (And No, This is not a new show on TLC)

I came home from work and there it was on the front cover of our town's weekly paper. It's front page news and sure to alarm home owners all over town. Is it a tornado? Is there a tsunami danger? Are there fires raging in the nearby hills? No, it's worse than that.

WILD TURKEY SMASHES NOVATO HOME'S WINDOW

That's the real live headline on the front page of our town paper this week. According to the Novato Advance, a 15-pound wild turkey crashed through a second-story window and damaged a Novato home. I can just picture the family, who has asked that their name not be released to the press, sitting in the family room watching television when the music from "Jaws" starts with the barely audible "gobble gobble" of a turkey call heard in the background. Then, suddenly, a Ballistic Butterball comes flying through the window.

Now, the fact that this is front page news says a lot about the town I live in, but not quite as much as the second part of the headline. You see, in Marin, we aren't all in agreement in terms of the difference between food and pets. Here's the second part of the headline:

Bird Remains in Critical Condition at Wildcare, a San Rafael Animal Shelter and Hospital

"He was incredibly stressed and scared," said the director for animal care at WildCare. "Right now, he's having a hard time breathing but we're trying to keep his wounds sterile. Right now, he's on supportive care until we can get him stable enough to do some X-rays."

She's not talking about the person who suffered the Turkey Home Invasion as being "stressed and scared." She's talking about the turkey. The turkey is being treated for physical and mental wounds. It's all hands on deck, STAT, so we can save this out of control Butterball so it can live another day. They are going to X-ray the turkey? The article even goes on to say that the owners of the house are visiting the turkey in the animal hospital to make sure it's okay.

I grew up in farm country and I can tell you in farm country when a wild turkey crashes into your home or gets caught in the overly elaborate chrome guard on the front of the ranch truck, it does not get rushed into therapy. It's wounds are not cleaned. It's dinner. Wild turkey is served with Wild Turkey and it's dinner.You don't visit the turkey to check on its mental health. You visit it every hour or so to baste it! Thank goodness a Turducken didn't come through the window or they'd be trying to save three birds.

So, to the volunteers at WildCare and the homeowners caring for this turkey, I give you credit for being better people than me. Because in my world, sometimes food is just food. 

Of Flash Mob Men and Goldfish

Was it Novato's version of a flash mob? It might have been.

Last night me and five other guys from the neighborhood decided to go get pizza at our local "fusion fern pizzaria," Boca Pizza. I call it "fusion fern," because normal pizzarias don't have octopus salads on the menu nor cook eggs on top of pizza, which is actually quite tasty. Still, for Marin County, this is our version of the manly pizza joint hangout.

We were outside at a patio table with a stunning view of the parking lot as chardonnay was being poured. (As I said, this is a Marin County pizzaria. There isn't a lot of Pabst Blue Ribbon being served with the pies.) I was sipping on my Anchor Steam when a man emerged from the bar at about 9:30 p.m. and decided to stop on the sidewalk and belt out Journey's "Don't Stop Believing!" Now, I don't know if it was the wine we drank before going to get pizza or the beer I drank there, but I thought he did a pretty good job. When a server came from the restaurant to guide our singer back into the restaurant for another stop at the bar, we asked our server if he wasn't available to do another set as we had some other Journey songs in mind that we'd like to hear. This was met with skepticism from our waiter, who was clearly less enthusiastic about having "Dads Gone Wild" at his egg-on-top-pizzaria than we were.

Anyhow, to Mr. Journey of Novato, nicely done. You can have your own little flash mob at our humble shopping center anytime you want to. Just remember that "When the Lights Go Out in the City" is also big with us North Bay Dads.

Dead Fish Walking

I received a text from my daughter yesterday and it read, "I won a fish!" Now, I know this sounds like good news, but this house has a track record with fish. Despite our nicest intentions, we have continually reaffirmed the Darwin Theory when it comes to fish. I'm sure when the fish understood who had won him at my daughter's school's fun day that the other fish were like, "Wow, bummer, dude. That's a rough house for fish."

Perhaps the incident that best describes our fish-tending skills is the time I took our kids to Petco to get some more fish several years ago. I asked the young guy working in the fish section if the different fish we were looking at actually get along in the same tank. He assured me they did so we took the fish home and placed them in the same tank together on our kitchen counter. Well, as a day or two went buy, we started noticing that there were fewer fish in the tank and that the remaining fish looked pretty darn beat up. It turns out we had actually brought home fish that feed on each other and put them in the same tank to see who survived. It was our accidental version of Fish Thunderdome.

So, out in our kitchen right now, little "Turtle" the goldfish swims around in circles in his vase of a home hoping we have gotten better at tending to fish than we have been in the past. Turtle, bro, I do too.

Apocalypse How?

Poor Francis Ford Coppola.

Sure, he directed The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, movies that received a small audience in limited release, and, sure, he also has that winery to relax and sip his way through life. But now, he's got a real crisis...at least according to his attorney.

A small Italian restaurant right here in Novato has dared to name itself "Tavola," which is Italian for "table." You'd think it would be a harmless play on words. It would be like if I opened up a soup restaurant in Italy and decided to name it "Bowl." Well, it turns out that Mr. "Loves the Smell of Napalm in the Morning" believes he owns the Italian word for table, Tavola, according to a recent article in our local paper you can find by clicking here.

Coppola is suing the family-owned restaurant for trademark infringement claiming he owns "A Tavola" due to his restaurants' style of serving in which "servers come to each table offering an assortment of family-style dishes," according to the complaint filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. Um, do you think we should tell him that there are other restaurants out there in which servers "come to each table offering an assortment of family style dishes"...? He might be crushed to hear how the Grand Slam works at Denny's. ("You mean they come to your table and offer you breakfast and then they come back and bring it to you?!?!? Sue them!!! Sue them, too!!!")

So what is Mr. "Take the Gun and Leave the Cannoli" so worried about? "Customers and prospective customers of your restaurant are likely to be misled into believing that your goods and services originate from, are sponsored by, or are associated with Francis Ford Coppola Winery or even Francis Ford Coppola himself, when, indeed, they are not," said Coppola attorney Giselle Galper in the article.

(A Stunning Image from a Coppola Movie would have gone right here to make this blog entry pop, but I didn't want to get sued too. So, instead, enjoy this picture of pasta. Disclaimer: This pasta is in no way connected to or cooked by Francis Ford Coppola and was definitely not served family style at a table A Tavola style.)

The Pirraglia family, which owns the Novato restaurent with the horse's head on its pillow (Seriously, have you not seen the Godfather? These are golden references here!), declined to comment for the article. I suppose that's wise when a mega movie mogul and restauranteur with unlimited resources decides to sue you. Had they been able to comment, I wonder if they wouldn't have said something along the lines of, "Dude, we serve Italian food on tables, so we used the Italian word for table." Maybe I'm oversimplifying. But, I really find it hard to believe that this is all about the Pirraglia family's master plan to leverage the Coppola style of serving food (servers bring it to your table) to dominate the Italian scene in Novato.

I hadn't planned to eat at this restaurant as I usually cook my own Italian, but now I surely will. If my $6.95 for pasta will help them fight off a lawsuit from a big bully, I'll happily give it to them. I hope the Pirraglias are able to weather their way through this. They just better make sure they check behind the toilet in their restaurant before agreeing to meet with Coppola's attorneys. (Seriously, you haven't seen the movie?! That was a huge scene!)