The food world mourned the loss of one of its most talented writers this week, writer Joshua Ozersky, who was found dead in his Chicago hotel room Monday, where he was attending the James Beard Awards. As one of the food world's early rampant bloggers, founder of the annual food festival Meatopia and author of the restaurant guide Meat Me in Manhattan, Ozersky was a prolific and deeply intelligent writer on everything from the downsides of M.F.K. Fisher's influence on food writing to grilled cheese and bacon to Philip K. Dick and Adderall. He was deeply divisive, and the internet this week is busting with remembrances detailing all the trouble he caused and all the stunningly good writing he left behind. 

Whole Foods is launching a new chain of stores with lower prices. Apparently it's because…millennials? Here's the full press release

And in a related “catering to millennials” move, McDonalds gave the chubby mascot Hamburgular an Urban Outfitters-worthy update. Check out his popped collar and his pretentious new Pharrell fedora. He's already been dubbed “the hipster Hamburgular,” but it probably won't do much to help the slow, inevitable slide into irrelevance that's already begin for the international fast food chain.

First We Feast has a hilarious illustrated field guide to modern foodies. Which one are you?

James Franco wrote a love letter to McDonald's in the Washington Post this week. Some folks were not impressed

They couldn't #saveourballs, but Starry Kitchen lives on months after a failed $500,000 Kickstarter forced the pop-up restaurant to cease operations in the form of a book deal. Nguyen Tran and his chef wife Thi Tran will be writing about the history of their once-illegal apartment restaurant and include 75 original recipes (fingers crossed for that Singaporean chili crab). Nguyen announced along with another company motto/hashtag, #weaintdeadyet.

In L.A. openings and closings, Tiki-Ti on Sunset Boulevard closed abruptly and indefinitely Wednesday, but promises to come back (or will it??); Eric Greenspan opened his new coastal European restaurant Maré on Melrose; and Madcapra, which we covered a few months ago right after their veggie-centric pop-up dinner at Animal, is now open at Grand Central Market. 

And in case you didn't hear, L.A. totally got shafted at this year's James Beard Awards. We're still not bitter about it or anything. 

Here are your tweets-o-the week: 


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