Amid all the eulogies and fist-shaking accompanying the end of the P-I’s print run today, I wanted to add my own thanks to the paper’s food writers. I moved here a little less than three years ago, so I don’t have much knowledge of the food section that was. But in the past year or two, I’ve seen restaurant critic Rebekah Denn win a Beard Award for her astute, well-written reviews, and watched Leslie Kelly fearlessly take on the biggest names in the industry. Just as importantly, I’ve been impressed with the paper’s reporting on local food issues: The nation’s best food sections recognize that readers are just as interested in reading about food — where it comes from, what goes into it, the legislative framework surrounding it — as they are in clipping recipes or huffing smoke blown up chefs’ asses. And the P-I has assigned some crack journalists to that task. In her farewell blog post, Denn announces that she’s launching a blog, Eat All About It. Meanwhile, on her blog, Kelly reveals that she’s going to cook for Tom Douglas, clearly with a book deal in mind. Investigative reporter Andrew Schneider, who’s been covering food safety issues for the past while, is continuing on as schneiderinvestigates.com, though I really think Gourmet.com should snap him up, because Schneider’s broken more news than their current food-politics reporter, Barry Eastabrook. As for you, new P-I, I wish you the best of luck figuring out what you’re going to become. And I hope, as your ad reps scour the city for clients, that you’ll soon realize that Seatle’s restaurants have dollars, and will spend those dollars on advertising in publications that write seriously about food and dining in this city. But until you hire Denn, Kelly, and/or Schneider back, I guess I’ll have to revel (a little) in having one less competitor to monitor.