1. Today is the last day that Laura Beck serves as interim SFoodie editor before flying to Europe. A huge thanks to Laura, not just for keeping the blog alive, but for writing posts like a guide to the best chain restaurants in the Bay Area. Yeah, she name-checks Olive Garden. Tell your grandparents they've been right all along.
2. Lou Bustamante reports on the opening of Olivier's Butchery in Dogpatch. Butchers who work with sustainable meat we have. Butchers from France who will carve that grass-fed beef into bavettes and entrecôtes? Very handy.
3. Luis Chong, tirelessly working the ramen beat, has been tracking Hapa Ramen since its early, complaint-filled days, when people didn't get that Richie Nakano wasn't trying to reproduce "authentic" anything. Chong reports that Nakano's constant experimenting has paid off: His ramen seems to get better every month.
4. I got a chance to talk with a group of local organizations who are trying to advertise how easy it is to use food stamps and/or CalFresh cards at the Alemany Farmers Market by offering a buy $10, get $5 free promotion. And this deal doesn't require you to sign up for daily e-mails.
5. Jesse Hirsch is wrapping up his series of profiles of SFoodie contributors. In fact, the tables are turned, and the profiler gets profiled.
