• A&E has agreed to acquire Lifetime, which means it's not entirely out of the realm of synergistic possibility that Duane Chapman of Dog the Bounty Hunter will make a cameo on Project Runway sometime next season. Yay. [THR, NYT]
• The Daily News has dropped its restaurant critic, Danyelle Freeman, and doesn't appear to be making any plans to replace her. [P6, NYT]
• Another luxury magazine is coming! The Financial Times plans to bring its quarterly glossy, FT Wealth, to American shores this October. [Crain's]
• It's been nearly two years since Oprah announced plans to launch a cable channel, and the venture's been riddled with problems ever since. [LAT]
• Italian officials are now investigating Google for its "lack of transparency." Yes, the same Italy that's governed by a man named Silvio Berlusconi. [NYT]
• Larry David will be bringing the cast of Seinfeld together for a multi-episode appearance on the new season of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Which makes sense considering it's not like Jerry Seinfeld, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jason Alexander, or Michael Richards have anything better to do, now do they? [EW, LAT]

In your recovering Thursday media column: layoffs at the AP, a truly awesome correction, another restaurant critic gets canned, the SPJ conference is good for alkies, and Incisive Media has contest that is fun and tasty!

• Today was Frank Bruni's last day as New York Times dining critic. In honor of the momentous occasion, Bruni shares some thoughts on, well, just about everything you've ever wondered during his five-year tenure. [NYT, NYT]
• Bruni-blitz, con't: Two more interviews with Bruni are online today, including the longest one you'll probably ever see, courtesy of Team Eater. [Eater, TFB]
• The "disastrous, wipeout summer" that many chefs and restaurant owners were fearfully predicting just a couple of months ago never really came to pass, Steve Cuozzo happily reports today in the New York Post. [NYP]
• Today in food reviews: The Daily News' Danyelle Freeman gives The Mott three stars out of five; Pete Wells of the Times pays a visit to SHO Shaun Hergatt; Time Out's Jay Cheshes hits the Standard Grill and has very good things to say; and Bloomberg's Ryan Sutton surveys the city's sandwich scene.
• Corton's Paul Liebrandt may be widely respected chef. But to describe him as an unpleasant interview subject would be a huge understatement. [BlackBook]

• Danny Meyer will open a new restaurant in the Gramercy Park Hotel this November. Now it has a name. It will be called Maialino, or "little pig" in Italian, which was Meyer's nickname when he lived in Rome. [GS]
• Today in restaurant reviews: Frank Bruni issues his final review for the Times this week, giving the decidedly DIY eatery The Redhead a star; Time Out's Jay Cheshes hands out four out of five stars to Daniel Boulud's DBGB; the Daily News' Danyelle Freeman is pretty disappointed with Civetta; Bloomberg's Ryan Sutton samples the $100 platter of fried chicken at David Chang's Momofuku; and Alan Richman of GQ files a report on Sorella on the Lower East Side.
• Will Goldfarb and Kevin Pomplun's barbecue food truck, Picnick Smoked, has only been open a few days, but it's already totally overwhelmed. [GS]

• Sam Sifton, the Times' new restaurant critic, answers a couple of questions about his new gig over on Diner's Journal. Meanwhile, Grub Street and The Feedbag sound off on how food criticism has changed over the past few years.
• The 24 stars that Frank Bruni reclaimed during his five-year tenure. [Eater]
• Douglas Rodriguez has parted ways with Nuela, which opens this fall. [NYT]
• Gabriel Stulman's new spot, Joseph Leonard, opens this eve. [Eater]
• The critics: In his third-to-last review, Frank Bruni downgrades Danny Meyer's Union Square Cafe from three stars to two; the Daily News' Danyelle Freeman is more impressed with the drinks at Hotel Griffou than she is with the food; TONY's Jay Cheshes gives SHO Shaun Hergatt three out of five stars; the Post's Steve Cuozzo tears Harbour apart; and Bloomberg's Ryan Sutton heads out to Nick & Toni's and decides the best thing about it "is the parking lot."

• Today in restaurant reviews: Frank Bruni of the Times isn't the least bit impressed with Goving Armstrong's Table 8; Danyelle Freeman is pretty happy with Brooklyn's Prime Meats; Adam Platt thinks Locanda Verde is way better than Ago; and Time Out's Jay Cheshes pays a visit to Locanda Verde, too.
• Ron Perelman is no fan of Bloomberg's Ryan Sutton today: Sutton says dinner at the Perelman-owned Blue Parrot in East Hampton "evokes the universally miserable experience of eating crummy food in an economy class seat." [BN]
• Related: The Post's Steve Cuozzo heads out to the East End and concludes that "the best place to eat in the Hamptons is in a garden or on a porch—at your house or a friend's." But you probably knew that already. [NYP]
• Tragic news for douchey fans of West 27th Street: DBTH reports—and Zagat confirms—that both Home and Guesthouse are now finished. [DBTH]
• Rocco DiSpirito's career isn't totally dead. A new cookbook is coming! [GS]

• Rumor has it Thomas Keller is planning to open another restaurant to NYC in "one of the new high-rise buildings in Chelsea." Keller's denying it. [TFB, GS]
• The day in reviews: Frank Bruni is a little disappointed with Locanda Verde; the Post's Steve Cuozzo totally digs SHO Shaun Hergatt; Danyelle Freeman of the Daily News thinks Marea rivals Le Bernardin but is way too expensive; and GQ's Alan Richman and Bloomberg's Ryan Sutton both tackle DBGB.
• Andrew Silverman's City Lobster & Steak is now bankrupt. [Crain's]
• The NYPD is cracking down on narcotics sales involving club promoters. [BB]
• A man was indicted today for allegedly raping a woman at Marquee. [NYP]
• Momofuku may jump into the food cart fray. We'll second TFB's sentiments: "This gourmet cart/truck business is getting out of control." [Eater, TFB]

• The Spotted Pig sells an estimated $1.2 million worth of cheeseburgers a year, making it NYC's top-grossing dish. Balthazar's steak frites is No. 2. [GS]
• Frank Bruni doesn't have too many good things to say about the food at Monkey Bar in his one-star review today, not surprisingly. Graydon Carter's "social pulpit," Monkey Bar merely "affirm[s] his ordination as the high priest of a certain fame-focused, power-obsessed sect of Manhattan society." [NYT]
• Related: Illustrator Edward Sorel talks about his Monkey Bar murals. [Zagat]
• Other reviews today: Danyelle Freeman gives three out of five stars to DBGB; Time Out's Jay Cheshes hands over four out of six to Marea; and Alan Richman makes the case that Bruni should make Marea the Times' first four-star Italian restaurant before he steps down next month. [NYDN, TONY, GQ]
• Chodorow is denying that he ever considered reuniting with DiSpirito. [TFB]
• 7-Eleven says it plans to open 44 new stores in NYC this year. Ugh. [NYT]

• Giorgio Armani is opening a restaurant inside his new Fifth Avenue flagship later this week. Guess it's time for a little payback, Scott Conant. [Eater]
• The Cedar Tavern on University Place is gone for good. [GS]
• A peak at the new speakeasy-themed bar Raines Law Room. [Eater]
• Anita Lo is closing Bar Q in the West Village. [Eater]
• Dinner at L'Artusi "grinds slowly off a cliff," says Adam Platt, who gives the bar-centric spot on Bleecker a single star in this week's New York. [NYM]
• Inexplicably, the cupcake craze endures. [TFB]
• Daily News food critic Danyelle Freeman has landed a book deal. [GS]
• A hot dog vendor in Times Square is retiring after 41 years. [NYP]
• Starbucks is introducing instant coffee because Americans are "focusing more on seeking satisfying experiences that enhance their lives." Uh, okay. [HP]

• Frank Bruni visits Perbacco in the East Village and gives it two stars, describing it as "worthy of its name, which means 'wow.'" [NYT]

• Frank Bruni of the Times gives three stars today to Matsugen (left) for its "obsessive attention to detail." He especially likes the noodles ("never too floppy or too firm") and the "startling" desserts. [NYT]

• Frank Bruni of the Times hands out one star to Persimmon, where he says dining is an "adventure" filled with uneven dishes and "spasmodic" service. [NYT]

• Frank Bruni of the Times hands out three stars today to Scarpetta, Scott Conant's new meatpacking eatery: "Conant has been reunited with his best instincts." [NYT]

• Frank Bruni finds Midtown seafood stalwart Oceana "still very much worth boarding," handing it three stars and deeming its fish "superbly cooked." [NYT]

• New York's Adam Platt spanks Alain Ducasse's new brasserie Benoit with a zero-star review. Some of his least favorite dishes? The lobster ravioli (a "viscous mess"), cassoulet (tastes like it was "preheated in a microwave"), and the steak tartare ("dressed with enough horseradish to choke a cow.") [NYM]

Daily News gossip/lovers Rush and Molloy tell the entertaining story of a careless food critic who left her notebook at newly-refurbished Brasserie 44.

Publishers Marketplace is reporting that Nosheteria.com blogger Adrienne Kane has sold her first book, to be titled 'Cooking and Screaming,' to Simon & Schuster imprint Simon Spotlight Entertainment. We'd never heard of this blog, but we like eating food, so we decided to check it out. Of a recently purchased handful of satsumas and persimmons, Adrienne writes, "Soon the fruit beckoned to me, and it told me it wanted to play with that lonely endive in the fridge. And play they did, quite beautifully, together on the chartreuse salad plate. I love a salad with fruit, not a fruit salad mind you (though they are stupendous as well), but a salad that has the mystical interplay between sweet and savory, and that is what this salad had." She's a regular Danyelle Freeman! As Josh and I ate lunch at our desks, we wondered: how hard could it be to write about food in the style of these ladies?

Crumplefaced spry the Daily News' restaurant writer Danyelle Freeman stops by Lower East Side's Allen and Delancey in today's review, quotes from Walden, misinterprets Thoreau and in general cuts a broad swath of self-indulgent nonsense across the meanness of life.

The very unanonymous Restaurant Girl-cum-Daily News restaurant critic Danyelle Freeman (plastering her mug around town isn't a problem because "restaurants aren't running out to grab different ingredients or a new chef simply because you're recognizable") visits Crave this week: "Scribbled on a blackboard are not daily specials, but the names of hopeful diners anxious for one of 21 seats." So does she write "Danyelle Freeman" or just "Very Important Restaurant Critic" on the board? And this is choice: "There are those few precious restaurants you contemplate keeping to yourself. It is a selfish act, though not an unreasonable one, as a way to safeguard tiny haunts harboring gutsy chefs and even gutsier flavors."

Though Centro, that newish Italian place in the West Village, is already filled with desperate girls in their thirties, you can bet that when Daily News restaurant critic Danyelle Freeman walked in, she was immediately ID'd. As we've noted, she's been quite athletic in getting her face "out there." Guess what? Her review today says she thought the service was great and the food delicious. Now it bears mention that key to her argument as to why it's okay to plaster her mug around town like some sort of Neck Face tag is that "restaurants don't bring in a new chef or run out to get new ingredients just because they spot a critic." True enough, but mightn't they make sure she gets the best deviled eggs (a dish over which Freeman, on her blog, already mooned) or that the piccolini plate does in fact "move swiftly from the kitchen to the table," as she notes?