• Following yesterday’s news that state senators were spending your tax money on their meals, members of the upper house have each agreed to pay $2,000 to keep their coffee room stocked and for meal expenses. [LAT]
• Big seafood-restaurant chain Landry’s has swallowed up slightly less big seafood chain McCormick & Schmick’s. [NRN]
• The cantaloupe scare that so far has killed 29 people has one affected person suing Wal-Mart for selling the tainted fruit. [Bloomberg]
• A vending machine at an Alabama convenience store dispenses meat. Now old-school butchers are really endangered. [Zagat Buzz]
• L.A. Loves Alex’s Lemonade raised $400,000 to fight childhood cancer this past Sunday. [GS]
• “Aggressive agricultural pest” the Khapra beetle has been discovered in food shipments at the Long Beach port. [LAT]
• Restaurateurs are increasingly using Kickstarter and other crowd-funding methods to finance their ventures. [NYT]
• Trade publication Drinks International presents its list of the world’s 50 best bars. New York’s PDT leads the pack. [HuffPo]
• “Boar meat tastes like a cross between pork and lamb,” and you’ll probably be eating some soon. [NPR]