The Guardian: Dry British reportage on the Fourth of July hot-dog eating contest at Nathan's Famous in Coney Island. ... - Julia Moskin Smithsonian: ... And speaking of Coney Island hot-dog-eating stunts, here's the lowdown on one of the first: in 1916, Nathan Handwerker, the founder of Nathan's, dressed his countermen in white doctors" coats and instructed them to stand outside the restaurant while publicly munching hot dogs. The "doctoring" stunt worked, helping to debunk scurrilous rumors that the new Nathan's five-cent frankfurters were made with substandard meat. - Glenn Collins Time: Some chefs (such as Jeremy Bearman at Rouge Tomate, in Manhattan) are cutting back on using butter and cream as part of a voluntary new movement that puts the focus on maximizing the nutritional value of a restaurant meal. (Subscription required.) - Jeff Gordinier Serious Eats: The writer Lolis Eric Elie offers a stinging rebuttal to Eddie Huang's recent takedown of Marcus Samuelsson's restaurant Red Rooster Harlem and his memoir, "Yes, Chef." - Eric Asimov The Washington Post: Fed up with the prevalence of foreign crabmeat in local dishes, Maryland has started True Blue, an effort to reward restaurants that serve 100 percent Maryland blue crab. But can consumers tell the difference? Time for a taste test. - Patrick Farrell LA Weekly: Are these the best tamales in Los Angeles? - Jeff Gordinier Bloomberg Businessweek: And now, from the Walt Disney Company, the Chile Cone Queso, a cone-shaped bread bowl filled with chili, cheese and tortilla chips that has been introduced at California Adventure Park in Anaheim, Calif. This, after Disney won headlines in early June for banning junk food ads on its children's television programming. - Glenn Collins The New York Times: A scary close-up of the Midwestern drought and its ravaging of the corn crop. Some farmers are comparing it to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. - Patrick Farrell Chow: Great thread by a pack of serious Chinese-food home cooks, all atwitter about the new cookbook Every Grain of Rice by Fuchsia Dunlop. - Julia Moskin Slate: Wayne Thiebaud built a career painting slices of pie, but Andy Warhol may be the ultimate artist of the New York lunch counter. He adored Schrafft's, Chock Full o" Nuts, the Automat and even fantasized about starting "a chain of restaurants for other people like me called ANDY-MATS - "The Restaurant for the Lonely Person." You get your food and then you take your tray into a booth and watch television. (Article adapted from Lucky Peach.) - Patrick Farrell