Blog Posts by Sarah Fuss, Shine Staff

Kentucky Fried Chicken, the company that brought us the Double-Down, a sandwich that favors battered chicken to bread, recently celebrated the 70th anniversary of its "Original Recipe" in Louisville, Kentucky by challenging the world record for the largest serving of fried chicken.

Who owns the current title? Er, um, KFC. But it's Middle Eastern KFC, which is owned by a different company, so it's different. In Kuwait in 2008, the company took the title with about 1,278 pounds of crispy bird.

An effort at the Indiana Canoefest in Brookville last month to break that fried-chicken record came in at 1,645, which is still 355 pounds short of KFC's most recent stunt. The world-record authentication process can take months to complete, but it looks like 2,000+ pounds of chicken should earn American KFC the title.

To offset the wasteful nature of this event, KFC donated thousands of pieces of chicken to the Dare to Care Food Bank. We're hoping that they will give the Colonel's hot tub-sized

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Just like prom, the Emmy Awards Governor's Ball has a theme. This year's is "Starry, Starry Night." To event producer Cheryl Cecchetto that translates to Jetson's-style floral arrangements, sun and moon references aplenty, and food that doesn't have a whole lot to do with the theme, thank goodness.

Patina Catering is to the Emmys what Wolfgang Puck is to the Oscars, which is to say they're almost inextricable. Executive Chef, Alec Lestr said that on the day of the Emmys they would be building a kitchen for 180 cooks in the parking lot of the Los Angeles Convention Center, where the party will be held.

Since Lestr oversees this massive Emmy meal along with founding chef Joachim Splichal, we asked him what his cooking tips for a home-scale dinner party would be. He says...

-Keep it simple

-But don't finish cooking any food in advance

-Taste and season everything at the last minute

-Taste is more important than temperature

Click on, to see the pictures we caught from the

Photo: Phu Son Nguyen, Shine engineerWhat is one of David Beckham's favorite Spice Girls' songs? "Mama" -- a thank you song to mothers. Who told us? He did. Where? In the Yahoo! Santa Monica office kitchen. No, this wasn't your usual afternoon snack-time.

Strange but true, the handsome athlete took a seat among the ping pong tables in our eating headquarters to meet our team and answer a few questions. Why? Because Becks (as the British often say) recently signed on as Yahoo's Global Football Ambassador.

He has a boyish demeanor and entered the kitchen wearing a casual, hip outfit -- not-too-slim black jeans with a worn black button-down and white sneakers. The darkness of his outfit seemed to make his wedding band gleam all the more. Beckham is a household name associated with championship soccer, style, and the Spice Girls. He and his wife Victoria are the parents of three boys, so Shine wanted to know what advice he had for other parents whose work frequently took them away from their households.

"Our boys are our

Valrhona Chocolate Doughnut, Doughnut Plant, New YorkOne comment on the story I recently did about Food Trends That Have Lost Their Cool was by a woman saying she had never heard of any of the foods I listed (except for cupcakes) but she swore she didn't live under a rock. Sometimes our country shares a culture; sometimes not so much.

I'm in the midst of a five-wedding summer. At a reception in Lyons, Colorado last weekend a food editor from Denver informed me that artisan doughnuts made with fine ingredients were gaining popularity. On a menu in the nearby mountain town of Nederland, I noticed a sweet listed as The Smallest Dessert in the World, a one-bite brownie with a fleck of vanilla ice cream. In Boulder, I witnessed a friend eat a Banh Mi Burger. There are galaxies of micro food climates contained in our country.

I'm taking this opportunity to find out what new foods are cropping up in your town. Is it shake shacks? Panzanella? Cake balls? Watermelon salads? An edible we've never heard of or one making a comeback? Please share!

Guests can say what they may. Aside from saving roughly $5-$10 per person, a beer and wine bar can also decrease your odds of fueling a dangerously drunk guest. Here are some ideas to optimize a limited bar...

1. Make a big ol' batch of a special party punch using wine or sparkling wine. Wedding planners have been calling this the "signature drink," which is so popular partly because it even saves you money on wine, since it will only account for a third or quarter of the drink. Try out one of these recipes:

Summer Fruit Punch
White Wine Sangria
Sparkling Fruit Punch

2. Substitute a portion of your beer and wine with inexpensive sparkling wine or Prosecco, which just feels more special even if it costs the same as the other bottles.

3. If your wedding is informal or if it has a sense of humor, send friends an email letting them know flasks are welcome.

Caterer Jessi Baldwin at A Spice of Life Catering in Boulder, Colorado adds these ideas:

4. Have wine service during dinner for a

Could the end of the cupcake trend be around the corner? Jacob Goldstein at NPR posed that question in response to a Wall Street Journal story that linked the popularity of cupcakes to growth in the New York City job market. Goldstein asserted that we are in a cupcake bubble: "'Did they really think cupcakes were different than cake?' the world will ask after the cupcake market implodes. 'Why did they wait in those ridiculous lines just to buy cake?'"

I was all smiles to find cupcakes at my own birthday this year, but the pretty treats did seem more functional--no cutting, less mess--than cool. How much more mileage do you think bakeries will get from these individually-sized treats?

Think it over while you flip through these recent food fads that are either gone or on their way out. If your favorite dish made the list, be strong. It doesn't mean you can't eat it anymore. It just means you might have to make it yourself.

If you've been concerned that Lindsay might be stuck in jail eating "throw-up food" turkey tetrazzinis for 90 days, fear not. TMZ has discovered there's a loophole in the food plan at Lynwood Correctional Facility. Inmates can use money deposited into their commissary accounts to buy junk-food gift packs for $22.73. Of its sordid cornucopia, which do you think Lindsay will eat first?:

-- Spicy Velveeta Refried Beans
-- Spam
-- Kit Kat Bar
-- Vanilla Creme Cookies (14 oz)
-- Cheese Curls (11 oz)
-- Country Time Rasp./Lemon. (6 oz)
-- Lime Chili Ramen
-- Flour Tortillas
-- Cupcake SS

Because I have a hard time imagining Lindsay eating, and I kind of think that she must lick sashimi to survive, I have a hard time choosing. If I had to pick one, I'd go with the Kit Kat. Low density, ya know?

But here's a real question (if I may inch aside Lindsay in her orange suit for a moment): How in the H can a correctional facility correct a lifestyle using foods like that? To me, Spicy

Road SMS is not the first smart phone application to enable text addicts to walk while they use but it's the coolest looking, and it's the first one to come to our attention. This particular program, which we discovered at Time.com, is available exclusively on Samsung's Galaxy S phone but there are similar programs for the iPhone, Anroid, and others.

It's the unexpected use of the integrated cameras that makes these apps so cool. Here's what's not cool:TXT'N'WALK, a program for Blackberry, iPhone, and Android that came out last year although statistics about texting and walking haven't been sufficiently documented yet, doctors are saying that they are seeing related injuries with increasing regularity, and there are some very sad stories of associated fatalities. Will this application help? Probably not much. The makers themselves admit that the app is gimmicky. But will the application hurt more people? I doubt that, too.

What do you think?