Ludovic Lefebvre is the man of the hour as his latest pop-up restaurant debuts tonight in Culver City, plus other non-Ludo food news.

-- Kevin Eats previews LudoBites 3.0, which debuts tonight at Royal/T with a wine list curated by Domaine LA.
-- Teenage Gluster and his mom teach chef Ludo to make a mole.
-- A Cadbury descendant crusades against Kraft's potential takeover. Wall Street Journal
-- Street Gourmet LA tastes Samuel Adams' Utopias, the strongest beer in the world.
-- Thieves steal $100,000 of donated food, toys in Orange County. NBC Los Angeles
-- Louisiana restaurants sue vendors after point-of-sale hack. PC World
-- Pregnant "Top Chef" host Padma Lakshmi poses nude for magazine. Hindustan Times
-- Potatomato pops into Mercantile.
-- China welcomes back Canadian bacon. AFP
-- J&D's, the folks who make bacon salt, bring you these new bacon products: BaconPOP popcorn, bacon ranch dressing and bacon-flavored envelopes.
-- Tacos El Fenix: The real Baja fish taco. Gourmet Pigs
-- Some Premium Edge cat foods recalled due to thiamine deficiency. L.A. Unleashed

-- Elina Shatkin

Photo: Chef Kris Morningstar, middle, chats with a customer at Mercantile in Hollywood. Credit: Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times.

It might well be enough work dealing with the relatives on Thanksgiving, never mind food poisoning. So here are some tips from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on food safety.

-- Mary MacVean

Photo credit:  Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times

Would you order three Quarter Pounders just for yourself -- or for your kid -- and then slather the buns with 12 pats of butter and wash 'em down with some sugary pop?

Well, that's what you are doing when you settle in with a popcorn and a soda at one movie theater chain. A study by the Center for Science in the Public Interest found that a medium popcorn at this chain contained a whopping 1,200 calories, 60 grams of saturated fat and 980 milligrams of sodium.

1,200 calories? That's an entire day's caloric allotment for some.  

Even worse: That's the calorie count without the "buttery" topping. Find out which chain, and see if your local movie theater was included in the study:

Does this make you mad?

-- Rene Lynch

Photo: Matthew Staver / Bloomberg

The most insane cookbook you will ever read, news about Doughboys and cow brains top today's food news roundup.

-- L.A.-based vegan chef Tal Ronnen, author of "The Conscious Cook," makes an appearance on "Oprah" today -- and The O calls him the best vegan chef in America.
-- Welcome to the Futurist Cookbook, featuring battered and deep-fried roses, a chicken stuffed with ball bearings, salami cooked in espresso and then flavored with eau de Cologne. And then it gets weird. “I’m dazzled! Your genius frightens me!” The Smart Set
-- Recipe: butterscotch cashew bars. Why? Because they sound amazing. James Beard Foundation
-- Cow brain curry at Raso Minang in West Covina. Why? Because it sounds amazing. Gourmet Pigs
-- The 99-Cent Chef visits the cornucopia of carts in MacArthur Park.
-- Is your seafood hurting the planet? Greenspace
-- Want to keep up with the latest food recalls? Sign up for Safe Tables' e-alerts.
-- Irvine local Hai Vo wins Brower Youth Award for his efforts to get the UC system to commit to 20% real food procurement by 2020.
-- Per property owner Charlie Jacob, Doughboys is shooting for a Dec. 1 opening. Blackburn + Sweetzer
-- New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg wades into the bagel wars. New York Daily News
-- Just in time for Halloween: Witches' Fingers -- sugar cookies with raspberry jam for cuticles and sliced almonds for fingernails -- from the recently opened Village Bakery and Cafe in Atwater Village.

-- Elina Shatkin

Photo credit: Sue Sawyer

A cupcake so cute it's scary, a Roman milk bar and a new sushi restaurant on La Cienega lead our food news roundup.

-- Teetotalers may be more depressed than drinkers. Time
-- Absinthe in a chocolate shake? Welcome to Latte Piu, a milk bar in Rome that’s patterned after "Clockwork Orange's" Korova. Los Angeles Times
-- Agura sushi on La Cienega soft-opens. Blackburn + Sweetzer
-- Figs, cupcakes, Guy Fieri and seven more things David Chang and Anthony Bourdain hate. Grub Street LA
-- San Diego Meat Co. recalls 925 pounds of beef products due to E. coli threat. Los Angeles Times
-- Red Mango has a new seasonal flavor: pumpkin spice.
-- Most adorable Halloween cupcake ever? We Love You So

-- Elina Shatkin

Photo: It looks innocuous, but the Diavaolo, a chocolate milkshake with 80-proof absinthe, packs a big punch. It's served at Latte Piu, a milk bar in Rome. Credit: Baxter Holmes / For The Times

Fast food comes to France's fanciest museum; news on Doughboys and the Gold Room; and all sorts of food-crime news in today's food news roundup.

-- The Bazaar by José Andrés is named Restaurant of the Year by Esquire. Rivera makes the magazine's Best New Restaurants of 2009 list. And RH and West Side Tavern are included on Esquire's list of Another 15 Places Not to Miss. Eating Las Vegas
--McDonald's to open at the Louvre. Los Angeles Times
-- An E. Coli-laced hamburger patty that paralyzed a woman exposes flaws in the food safety system, especially ground beef production. New York Times
-- Doughboys reveals its new exterior. Blackburn + Sweetzer
-- Echo Park's Gold Room gets polished up. The Eastsider LA
-- More on the Capitol City sports bar, which we peeked into a few weeks ago. Los Angeles Times
-- New York City public schools limit bake sales. Gothamist
-- Insanity hot sauce fells British columnist. Times Online
-- Pasadena, Texas, woman eats ex-hubby's goldfish after a fight over jewelry. Houston Chronicle
-- Man gets 18 months in prison for hot dog theft. Telegram
-- Fourty-four tons of rotting kosher bison meat stink up South Dakota town. Yahoo! News
-- Curry festival spices up London. CNN

-- Elina Shatkin

Photo: Tobias Hatfield poses by his bison herd on his ranch outside Williams, Ore. Credit: Bob Pennell / Mail Tribune / Associated Press

From roasted goats to red velvet cookies to recalled waffles to trayless cafeterias:

--Bangladeshi goat on the cusp of Koreatown at Taurat Tandoori. Mattatouille
--The 99 Cent Chef answers five questions for Time's Cheapskate Blog.
--Car smashes through front of Wokcano in downtown L.A.; two injured. Los Angeles Times
--Red velvet cookies at the Studio City Farmers Market. Sku's Recent Eats
--The ultimate mobile candy shop -- in Afghanistan. New York Times
--Chocolate and avocado cake with avocado buttercream. Not Quite Nigella
--Doing pullups at a Waffle House will get you arrested. NWF Daily News
--The cafeteria of the future is trayless. Los Angeles Times
--Are your friends making you fat? The power of social contagion. New York Times
--Kellogg recalls Eggo waffles over Listeria fears. Oregon Live
--Fannie May recalls 43,000 candy bars. Forbes
--Ice cream and burgers can control your brain. Reuters

--Elina Shatkin

Photo: A street vendor sells a roasted goat on the first day of Ramadan at the traditional Iftar market at Chalkbazaar, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Credit: Abir Abdullah / EPA.

Chicken, fake and real, looks to be a target of several consumer and nutrition groups.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest is acting as co-counsel on a lawsuit filed today by an Arizona woman accusing Quorn Foods Inc. of not disclosing on labels the fact that some people have serious allergic reactions to the main ingredient in its Quorn line of meat substitutes.

The lawsuit seeks to have Quorn disclose that information on its package labels.

Quorn is derived from a protein-rich fungus, which the company grows in large vats. The fungus, Fusarium venenatum, was discovered growing in a field in Buckinghamshire, England, in the late 1960s and developed as a food product.

Meanwhile, the vegan-oriented Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine says it is readying a lawsuit against the giant KFC fast-food chain under California law for failing to warn consumers that the chain’s new grilled chicken product contains a dangerous carcinogen.

Click here to read more.

-- Jerry Hirsch

Some people get poisoned by shellfish, some people get poisoned by brownies in today's roundup of food news.

--Tavern on the Green files for bankruptcy. Bloomberg
--Why we're storing billions of seeds. TED
--The hoki, an unlikely star among seafood, causes a row. New York Times
--Smart Choices, a food industry-backed labeling campaign, deems Froot Loops, Fudgsicles and mayonnaise "smart choices." FOX
--Food poisoning at Heston Blumenthal's Fat Duck restaurant probably caused by norovirus from shellfish. Guardian
--Rogue sidewalk vendor sells pot brownies to unsuspecting L.A. teachers.
--Joan's on Third expands outdoor seating; D’Amore’s reopens. Blackburn + Sweetzer

-- Elina Shatkin

Photo: Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times

Sprinkles is involved in another trade infringement conflict; San Francisco's got its own boom in fancy new food trucks; a celebration of cabbage; and fun food safety alerts in today's food news roundup.

-- Sprinkles, which plans to enter the retail ice cream market, is sued by a Philly fro-yo chain in yet  another trademark conflict. Philadelphia Inquirer
-- Surfas, one of L.A.'s premier culinary supply stores, is shutting its website. After Sept. 11, Surfasonline.com will be Culinarydistrict.com.
-- A police dog lost the trail of an armed robbery suspect because it smelled stolen meat hidden in another man's pants. MyFox Boston
-- Delicious Coma visits Kraut Fest 2009 at Machine Project.
-- A list of nouveau food trucks in San Francisco. Zagat
-- The more you drink, the more you exercise? Reuters
-- Who needs gasoline if you have old beer? MicroFueler makes ethanol out of organic waste. Los Angeles Times
-- Cadbury rejects Kraft Foods' surprise $16.7-billion takeover offer. Chicago Tribune
-- Gourmet Pigs visits Lousin's Arakadz Cuisine, a mom-and-pop Armenian restaurant in Pasadena.
-- FDA requires faster food-safety alerts. Wall Street Journal
-- Mario Batali owes nearly $75,000 in rent on his recently shuttered Chelsea seafood restaurant, the John Dory. New York Daily News

UPDATE: An earlier version of this story said Sprinkles cupcakes had sued Sprinkles Yogurt. It is the other way around.

-- Elina Shatkin

Photo: Dave Inglis, right, a buyer and trainer of dogs used in police K9 units, stands next to a handler and his dog at a training facility in Santa Paula. Credit: Carlos Chavez / Los Angeles Times.