This Week's Best Food News

We get it, you're busy. We're swamped, too—busy combing the Internet to keep you in the loop amid this fast-moving world, that is. Head into the weekend with these articles, food-related deep dives and Tasting Table reads stored away as dinner party conversation fodder.

• Why Chicago's other three-Michelin-star restaurant unexpectedly closed its doors.

• The country's most famous food critic asks the question, "How many chefs does it take to lead a reckoning?"

• The James Beard Foundation is telling voters to take a chef's behavior into consideration in light of sexual harassment scandals.

• Anthony Bourdain is pulling the plug on his long-awaited (and highly anticipated) giant NYC food hall.

• Scientists expect your favorite food group to go extinct by 2050.

• Grab the vanilla: Barefoot Contessa episodes are headed to Hulu.

• A "bomb cyclone" is bringing East Coast temperatures colder than Mars.

• On the plus side, Niagara Falls is now a scene straight out of Game of Thrones.

• J. K. Rowling is getting her own Scottish pub.

• In-N-Out added its first new menu item in 15 years.

• Sorry, Guy Fieri fans: The last train to Flavortown has officially departed. 

• Your (other) favorite fast-food chain is winning the dollar menu war.