I like Nutella as much as the next person. In fact, I probably like Nutella more than the the next person. Maybe more than the next two people combined. There is nothing in life more perfect than a Nutella and banana crepe, in my mind. But still, I find the fact that thieves in Germany made off with five metric tons of Nutella a bit hard to fathom. That’s 176,370 ounces; more than 13,500 standard size jars, or 6,500 of the larger containers.

In reading about this particular heist, I ran across The Atlantic’s speculations on the possible uses for 11,000 pounds of Nutella, of which I found this the most amusing:

...if there’s a major heist of 10,000 pounds of toast/waffles/bananas in the coming days, then that probably points to someone—or a group of people—with serious Nutella addictions. 

And then there are speculations about hoarding and black markets. I would just love to see a crime story written about Nutella smuggling. Mmmmm... think it’s time for breakfast.

Turn about's fair game when it comes to zombies. Recently we found this gem for the zombie-lovers in your life (or for yourself!) and it seems it's only fair that if the zombies will try to eat your brains that you should crack open this guy's head and grab a cookie. Personally, we think we wouldn't be quite as intimidated by zombies if we knew that inside a zombies head was not brains but cookies!

And if you're missing Merle, you can just print out a picture of his face and paste it on this bad boy!

Okay, so remember the accident that set fire to 27 tons of goat cheese in Norway? Well, you know what they say—chevre happens. But this case is a true crime. Last week Veniamin Balika allegedly stole 42,000 pounds of Muenster cheese from a Wisconsin cheese company.

What do you do with 21 tons of cheese, you ask? Well, if you’re Balika, you attempt to sell the 1,135 cases of cheese at a New Jersey rest stop.

You just gotta wonder whether when they were taking his mug shot, they asked him to say “cheese.”

“I'm going to die if I don't have some coffee soon.” It's a refrain heard in offices across America every morning. Well, insufficiently-caffeinated drones, you may yet get your way: Death Wish Coffee is here. According to their website,

Death Wish Coffee is a breakthrough in the coffee world. Typically dark roast coffee has less caffeine in comparison to lighter roast coffees due to the caffeine being stricken from the bean during the roasting process. Here at Death Wish Coffee we have found a coffee bean with close to 200% more caffeine than your typical coffee shop coffee...

So get out of the daily grind and drink up. If you dare.

Don’t know what ophidiophobia is? Well that’s a shame, because a lot of people around the world have it. It’s the fear of snakes, and much like Indiana Jones, you might want to stay away from Sweetwater, Texas, indefinitely.

Last week, this Texas town gathered up 5,000 pounds of rattlesnakes—yeah, that sounds like a lot (and it is) with anywhere from 300 to 1,250 snakes gathered together. Don’t worry, they weren’t gathered for long as they were soon killed and used as meat for Sweetwater’s Annual Rattlesnake Roundup.

From the GrindTV article interviewing spokesman Riley Sawyers:

Some might frown on this practice, but Sawyers views the roundup as a management tool to help farmers keep rattlesnakes in check.

“It’s like any hunting,” he said. “It’s needed to control the population. It’s more about conservation than it is extermination.”

In case you’re planning to attend, you might be interested to know the Sweetwater event also features a parade, a Miss Snake Charmer pageant, carnival, flea market, and, if you have the stomach for it, a snake meat-eating contest.

The Sweetwater Rattlesnake Roundup took place last weekend, but it’s been held annually since 1958, so you can make plans to attend next year. Or not.

Do you have that friend or family member in your life that you feel should really have a royal taster like they had back in the day? You know, testing all their food and drink to make sure it wasn’t poisoned? This glass might be a good gift for the person in your life who is a little paranoid about their food being tampered with. And when we say good, it will be good for a laugh for you and not so good for the mental health of the person you give this cheeky mug.

[Extra points the the first person who...er...spies what TV show this mug is from!]

Perhaps you’ve read about the rain of spiders in Brazil and you’d like to celebrate. Or perhaps you just have picky eater kids you’re trying to please. Either way, these tentacle pot pies from Not Martha are sure to be a big hit! Read her “what not to do” post first, though, unless you want albino tentacles, spongy tentacles, or the like.

It seems like the great office tradition to take a few supplies here and there—a package of Post-Its, a stapler—changes when that “office” happens to be a Wal-Mart and the “supplies” are Oreo cookies. An employee was caught stealing cookies and other junk food from the store where she was a full-time maintenance worker. The employee who was stealing the cookies told police she couldn’t afford the food but police were hesitant to believe this story as she was only found eating junk food, instead of the healthy food they consider a “necessity.”

The employee said she wouldn’t steal again, and unfortunately for her, Wal-Mart agreed and fired her.

UPDATE: Felony charges are being filed. Really. More at The Smoking Gun.

Lesson: the coldest equation is Cake or Death, and simple math may not be enough if the cake’s chocolate.

Hat tip School of Fail, and mmmm cake image worth killing for (with RECIPE for “Hello, Lover” chocolate cakes) via Just An Eater blog.

It may not be everyone’s choice of decor, but New York’s Goldbar definitely qualifies as unique! Yes, those are golden skulls lining the wall.

If you’re on FB, Goldbar has a gallery of images. If not, check out the Morbid Anatomy site, which is where we heard about it.

Would you like to drink with all those sockets staring at you?

Sure, we’ve featured cookies made to look like carnage, but the holiday cookie is especially insidious, because it seems so innocent. While you’re baking your hearts out, cutely smudged with powdered sugar and candy sprinkles, do you pause to consider the fact that you are actually birthing diet detroyers? Willpower egg-secutioners? Even . . . cereal killers?

You know we love cake. And you know we love twisted. So when we spied Twisted Cakes, the new book by Oakland, California, cake designer Debbie Goard we knew we’d encountered a woman after our own hearts.

Since 2005, her company Debbie Does Cakes has been providing folks in the Bay Area with gorgeous—and sometimes gory—custom-decorated art cakes, like the Anatomical Heart cake she made for a bride and groom (red velvet cake with red cream cheese frosting, natch) and the Chicken Leg with Maggots inspired by Poltergeist.

Her new book contains recipes and instructions for a whole slew of bizarre baked goods including a Voodoo Doll, a Two-headed Piglet, and of course a Creepy Clown. Deeelish!

Images used with permission from Debbie Does Cake's Flickr stream

Hot Stuff by Don Bruns is the sixth book in the Stuff series featuring private investigators James Lessor and Skip Moore (available November 16, 2012).

An attractive sous chef at the famous restaurant L’Elfe is murdered and half the employees are suspect. The lack of police progress toward solving the murder leads Chef Jean Bouvier to seek a quicker solution. He hires private eyes James Lessor and Skip Moore to go undercover and discreetly investigate his restaurant staff. But their investigation turns up far more than they bargained for.

Amanda, the victim, was a friend of Skip’s girlfriend, Emily. So Emily can tell them some things about Amanda’s background, but she hides a lot. Because Amanda once helped her out in a difficult situation, Emily now feels that she owes her something, so not only does she want Amanda’s murder solved, but also she wants to protect Amanda’s memory from rumors.

[That sounds noble, but will it be in the end?]

If the, um, Big Day is past, why does this squash still look so hungry for treats? Perhaps he isn’t really evil. Maybe he was just carved that way.

Still, if deep down, he’s okay, why don’t other pumpkins from artist Ray Villafane’s incredible gallery look more thankful for his company?

Once you reach November, the only way to subdue murderous squash, we’ve heard, is with high temperatures and lots of butter. Good luck, cranky pumpkin!

Halloween is almost here. Some friends and I decided we needed to create, borrow, and adapt beverages for our favorite Halloween crime classics—both books and TV shows. We got together to mix and test the drinks below. So grab a cocktail shaker and your favorite Halloween crime fiction novel or DVD and let’s get started. 

HALLOWEEN TV EPISODES

• Castle: “Vampire Weekend”

The Episode: Beckett and Castle find themselves trying to solve the murder of a man killed with a wooden stake who hung out in the “vampire underworld” while trying to decide what to wear to a Halloween party.

The Drink: “The Castletini” – Three parts champagne, one part cranberry juice, and a splashof blood orange liqueur. This drink is really well suited for any episode of Castle. You can also have a glass of Vampire merlot (available from World Market).

[Grab a glass and leave the candy for the kids]

These Bloody Ear Cookies are from Nevie Pie Cakes. We’re not at all sure we could...er...stomach them, but can’t you just imagine meeting the trick-or-treaters at the door with a canister full? Trick AND treat!

via Eat Your Heart Out 2012

Through the end of today, the Showtime Experience is taking over part of Grand Central Terminal and dedicating it to the sweet science behind Dexter and Homeland. Yesterday, some of us from CrimeHQ went to poke around. Cool stuff to do, great fan art, and plenty of baked carnage courtesy of Magnolia Bakery. Here's a “slide show”—you got that right, Dex fans:

About the collage: Using the first season scene in which Saul helps put together Carrie’s wall of evidence against Brody as inspiration, artist Ian Wright created this collage designed to take us inside Carrie’s mind and to present her MO.

Close-up really shows the construction:

[The Kill Table’s after the jump . . .]

What is a gathering of Scottish crime writers known as “Bloody Scotland?” Well, you were in Stirling, an hour’s drive from Scotland’s capital city Edinburgh, home of the larger-than-life William Wallace and gateway to the Highlands. No Australian accents, a la Mel Gibson, were in attendance, but there were American, Icelandic, Scottish (not surprisingly), and quite a few others in between, geographically speaking.

The Icelandic contingent left a huge impression me, for reasons I will expand on later.

[Take a tease and add a rumor about . . . tennis?]

Because It Is My Blood by Gabrielle Zevin is the second young adult futuristic thriller in the Birthright series (available September 18, 2012).

Since her release from Liberty Children’s Facility, Anya Balanchine is determined to follow the straight and narrow. Unfortunately, her criminal record and mafiya family are making it hard for her to do that. And when old friends return demanding that certain debts be paid, Anya is forced right back into the world that she had been seeking to escape. It’s a journey that will take her across the ocean to the birthplace of chocolate, where her resolve—and her heart—will be tested as never before.

Anya Balanchine is next in line to take control of Balanchine Chocolate. She has a few problems, though. Chocolate and coffee are illegal in 2083, so the family business isn’t exactly legit. She’s already spent time in prison, and she’s only seventeen years old.

[Wait. Chocolate is illegal?! I don't want any part of that future . . .]