- Yes! Let the discussion on medium rare pork begin. At the very least the dining populous may end up ordering fewer well done pork chops. Hopefully a conversation will follow in the near future about the acceptable light pink hue that properly cooked chicken and turkey breast can have. Get yourself a meat thermometer so you can nail the right temperatures.

- Gotta love a good “who was first” Ray’s pizza rehash. The Times kicks it off in Sunday’s F.Y.I., and then SliceNY picks it up with some further back story. Gothamist weaved our interest in the topic into a full blown street art show a few years back, displaying large photos of Ray's store fronts, each with their different name variation of the Ray's theme. Hell the middle, from Ft. Greene, is actually called Not Ray's - brilliant. To accompany the shots, free homemade pizza with HQ ingredients from DiPalo’s was cooked on a jerry rigged Weber kettle grill. Note the man in the light blue oxford and black pants in the photo below, it is Rosolino Mangano the man at the center of the litigation around the Ray's topic. He misunderstood the calender piece in the NY Times about the show and came out to see who he was going to have to sue now that a Ray's was opening in Long Island City. Once the confusion was cleared up he really seemed to enjoy what a proper slice should taste like, not the slop his stores serve.

- Some mid-summery insider/blind item rambling from Regina Schrambling

- A nice round-up, from guest reviewer Cristina Mueller over on the Megnut, on the 92nd Street Y roundtable event discussing Gourmet's August Summer Reading digest.

- Always some gems available from the world of Manhattan Waiter:

"Just the other day, the bartender told me one of our regular gives her a hundred dollar bill to pee in a glass and let him drink it at the bar. [Laughs] I know, it's sick. He doesn't do it all the time. I keep asking her, but she won't tell me who the guy is."
--Waitress at a restaurant by Tompkins Square