But before I head out, I just want to say this. Philadelphia, stop being so self-pitying and self-hating when it comes to your dining scene.

There's plenty in Philadelphia to be upset about. A horrific crime rate. Ineffectual, incompetent city government. A stagnating economy with a massive lack of job opportunities. The Sisyphean inability of the Iggles to make the Super Bowl. Phoenix kicking Philly's butt.

However, the dining scene isn't one of them. Philly is a great, unique restaurant city. Here are some of the things I'll miss:

• Philadelphia boasts the East Coast's best Oaxacan and Veracruzanan food. Tacquerias like Plaza Garibaldi, Acapulco and Taqueria La Raza beat Sunset Park, Brooklyn's Mexicans hands down and easily surpass anything available in Boston or Washington.

• A dedication to creative food that's unpretentious. Restaurants like the Standard Tap, Royal Tavern and Good Dog marry culinary school artistry to the classic American canon. Just don't call them gastropubs.

• Talula's Table, even if we never got to eat there.

• Watching Stephen Starr's rise to industry superstardom firsthand. We won't get into a comparison chart between the hospitality industry in Philadelphia and New York City, but suffice to say it's an entirely different ballgame. Watching Starr have two of New York's most successful restaurant openings with the NYC incarnations of Buddakan and Morimoto was a joy. His competition now includes national figures such as Danny Meyer and Jeffery Chodorow... and let's face it, that's awesome.

• Lo-fi ordinary food like cheesesteaks, roast pork sandwiches and pizza. Although most Philly pizzas are sad affairs, pizzerias like Tacconelli's Pizza and Marra's are regional treasures. Ditto for South Philly's red sauce Italians and sandwich shrines like John's Roast Pork and Shank and Evelyn's.

• Chickie's Italian Deli. Their veggie hoagie is one of the best meals in the world — tastewise, the equal of anything Thomas Keller or Marco Pierre White could ever churn out. We're not kidding you.

• The bars. Yuengling Lager. The whole thing. Non-pretentious joints where you can walk in by yourself, have a $3 citywide special, put Motorhead on the jukebox and have the time of your life in a neighborhood where you don't know a soul.

• Sarcone's Bakery. Dear God you guys rock.

With that said, we'll be having some special guest editors over the next few weeks overseeing the blog. Then... a brand new editor. It'll be awesome, we promise.

As for me, I'll still be reachable via e-mail and will be blogging at Lowlife. Thanks for reading the MenuPages blog, everyone.

— Neal Ungerleider

Today was supposed to be for questioning the ethics of an administration that approves labeling something as grotesquely engineered as high fructose corn syrup "Natural." We were going to insinuate that high-level FDA officials were in the pocket of the corn lobby, even as they also approved a combined $1 million in bonuses for themselves, "pushing their pay above that of members of Congress, federal judges - and even some cabinet secretaries."

But you don't want to hear about that, right? You want Fun Friday. You know what you want? You want to see a pickle get electrocuted as a metaphor for converting to Christianity. Look, it lights up and smoke comes out! Can the FDA do that? Only listen to Grandpa John and don't try this at home.

Thanks FDA....for nothing. [Accidental Hedonist]
FDA Lifts Warning About Eating Certain Types of Tomatoes [FDA Press Release]
As FDA says tomatoes are safe, growers criticize agency [Sacramento Bee]
FDA Execs Reap Lavish Bonuses [CBS]
Holk V. Snapple civil verdict [Corn.org]
Man electrocutes pickle to demonstrate power of Christianity [Boing Boing]

Coriander Scented Red Lentil Soup, Grilled Pandan Leaf Shrimp w/Argan Oil.

Rabbit Confit and Maui Onion Ravioli, Fennel Caramel, Almond Praline

Oil Poached Halibut with Sweet Pea and Clam Stew, Horseradish Emulsion

Slow Roasted Pork Shoulder, Parsnip Foam & Grain Mustard Jus

Pineapple Ginger Ravioli, Almond Black pepper Croustillant, Lemon Brie Ice Cream, Basil Oil.

BRIE CHEESE ICE CREAM, PEOPLE. In any case, we just ran across this interview with Olunloya. Among many other things, the man understands that molecular gastronomy is a joke:

"Molecular gastronomy is neither legit nor fad. It’s just plain silly. ALL cooking is considered “molecular gastronomy”. If you blindfolded your 10 year old sister and told her to drop an egg in boiling water, everything that happens after that egg hits the water is “molecular gastronomy”. My point is that the term itself is meaningless.

Attaching it to hypermodern cuisine with challenging or jarring combinations does not legitimize the definition. 85% of the time, most things that have had that term actively attached to it just don’t taste that good. Interesting yes, creative definitely, but delicious mostly not. In many ways, it ends up being like not seeing the forest for the trees. Liquid nitrogen does not make you a better cook, its just pandering for attention."

The good news? He's opening a restaurant. Stay tuned for more info.

Studiokitchen Redux [Phoodie.info]

[Image via Studiokitchen]

• In case you were wondering, it costs a lot to fill a Jacuzzi with Chicken McNuggets. [MP: Chicago]

• Mexican wrestling masks on restaurant walls? Yes, please! [MP: Philadelphia]

• Happy birthday, umami! [MP: San Francisco]

• Miami lives la bonne vie. [MP: South Florida]

• Jalapeño and serrano peppers, however, are still dangerous. [Chicago Tribune]

• All these food poisoning outbreaks are driving people right to their local farmers' markets. [Washington Post]

• The Pope thinks you're greedy. [Guardian]

• Well, maybe not those of you in the EU who want to start a 1.6 billion fund to combat the global food crisis. [LA Times]

The normally staid British newsmagazine The Economist has some real cheeky monkeys on staff. Let us explain.

Stephen Dubner is the co-author of the bestselling book Freakonomics and writes a blog of the same name for the New York Times. In a July 8 blog post, he called out a perceived spelling error in a recent Economist story:

"Consider this lead from a recent article about a huge Mexican mining company called Fresnillo, which was recently listed on the London Stock Exchange:

In the hills north east of Mexico City it is not uncommon to find Cornish pasties for sale.

They meant to write “pastries” but, considering that miners work really hard, they might also be hoping to encounter the kind of people who go shopping for pasties."

You see, Stephen Dubner thought the Economist was talking about, we don't know... shortbread cookies. Not cornish pastys — meat-filled British turnovers that are also the ancestors of Jamaican beef patties.

That's when The Economist decided to send Dubner a cornish pastie in the mail. As shown in the picture above, Dubner received a cornish pasty in the mail courtesy of the magazine.

More commentary is available over at Serious Eats and Net Writing.

Pasties, pasties everywhere [Freakonomics/NYT]

[Photos via Stephen Dubner/NYT]

A recent commentary on Marketplace really struck a chord, especially after a dinner some months ago that ended with married best friends bickering over the price of a drink, about eight eyeballs straining to reach the ceiling first, and the embarrassing situation of taking so long that the staff milled about the table, hinting with no subtlety at all that it was time to go.

While this is an extreme version of check-splitting, and was probably called for as it was not a regular dining group, Dan Ariely's assertion that splitting a check causes more mental distress, in total, than does one person treating, never seemed truer.

But there are a couple problems with his point that may not be surmountable, especially to younger diners. First, you need a regular group in which everybody is willing to join in this method. If one person wants the check to be traded from meal to meal, and one wants it to be split every time, it will never work.

Also, picking up the check for a table of four at a moderately priced restaurant can be cost-prohibitive, even for comfortably middle-income people. A meal for $60 might be a ding to the pocketbook, but a $240 check just blew your whole weekend's entertainment budget.

Still, Ariely's got a good point about the "pain of paying," and if you can get to where you only have to experience that pain every fourth dinner, you're doing pretty well. It's all about figuring out who'll pick up the first check...

Splitting the check increases the pain [Marketplace]

[Photo: revjim5000/flickr]

• Though a bread habit can be dangerous when Subway employees apparently bake a knife into your loaf. [Reuters]

• Not just a producer: The government of India announced it's looking to make food processing its next big economic growth engine. [Press Information Bureau of India]

• And speaking of economic "engines," right here in our own bread basket Iowa corn producers are pretty proud of the massive popularity of E85 ethanol. [Wallaces Farmer]

We've recently become a little obsessed with the idea of "hacking" non-electronic, everyday things. For example there are these guys who hacked the McDonald's Menu, the well-known Starbucks iced latte hack (the ghetto latte), and now, with blazing turnaround time, the chocolate chip cookie hack.

You probably read the New York Times article last week that included advice to let chocolate chip cookie dough sit for 36 hours to fully absorb the liquid from the eggs. But who has 36 hours? Ridiculous. We want cookies now!

Well, Ideas In Food came to the rescue quickly with this handy hack of writer David Leite's painstaking findings: If you vacuum seal the cookie dough, it only takes about three hours for the liquid to absorb thoroughly enough to make those same perfect chocolate chip cookies.

What I can tell you is that the dough darkened and VacuumSealedDough became fully saturated, similar to the way that the dough usually looks after a couple of days in the refrigerator. It also changed the texture of the dough, making it a bit more elastic to the touch. The just made dough was too soft to shape and needed to chill, so I left in the fridge for about three hours before baking.

The resulting cookies were pretty damn good. They had a slightly cakey texture in the center with chewy yet crisp edges and rich buttery, caramel flavors. It was impossible to eat just one and I was thankful that I had not baked off the entire batch. Were they better than David Leite's? I really couldn't say. On the other hand I think it was clear that vacuum sealing did have a positive effect on the process, and from now on plastic wrap is out and vacuum bags are definitely in.

Vacuum Sealed Cookie Dough [Ideas In Food]
Perfection? Hint: It’s Warm and Has a Secret
HOWTO trick McDonald's into serving you "breakfast" at lunchtime and vice-versa [Boing Boing]
How to hack Starbucks [Slate]

[Photo: Chocolate chip cookie pie via Bakerella/flickr]

Here in the Delaware Valley, the Cherry Hill Mall Starbucks kiosk is getting the axe. However, most of the locations Starbucks shut down this month are in the Los Angeles, Minneapolis and Birmingham metro areas.

We're spared the axe for one more month... except for, y'know, Cherry Hill. Sorry about that.

July 2008 US Store Closure List [Starbucks]