While everyone's still making grocery lists and arguing over casserole, the Health Department has been making its rounds early in preparation for Thanksgiving, hitting up grocery stores and bakeries across the city.

Kroger at 10306 Post Oak had violations in almost every department - meat, produce, bakery and deli. Violations were minor and ranged from unclean floors to employees consuming food in non-designated areas, but mentions of insects/rodents, even when corrected on site, are never something to be thankful for.

The first Health Inspector shots have been fired against the 99 Market on I-10 - an employee was noted as not maintaining a high degree of personal cleanliness/ not conforming to good hygiene practices at the market's first post-opening inspection.

For dessert, we have King Bakery (9889 Bellaire), where employees were found to have missing hairnets, floors were unclean, and there were no paper towels or other hand-drying devices in the restrooms. There was also a mention of effective measures not being used to minimize insects and rodents. Cakewalk Bakery (4003 G Rustic Woods Dr) survived inspection without adding irony to its name, skating by with a mark for insufficient ventilation, while Parisian Bakery II & Café (8200 Wilcrest) was not so lucky. Inspectors noted lack of hair restraints, food unprotected from contamination, and foods not in sound condition/safe for human consumption.

Finally, although it pains us to mention it, House of Pies (3112 Kirby) was found to have potentially hazardous food not kept at appropriate temperatures, food not labeled properly as to indicate time of preparation or expiration, and unclean surfaces of non-food equipment.