This is the debut of Spouse vs Spouse, a series in which a couple of married food freaks, CNN’s Brandon and Kristy Griggs, square off in their Atlanta kitchen for culinary bragging rights - and invite you to weigh in too. Spouse vs Spouse is a combination of three things: cooking, competitiveness and long-term cohabitation (we’d say life-term, but that sounds more like a prison sentence, discuss).

Here’s how it works: In each installment, Kristy and Brandon will each cook a creative variation on the same ingredient or dish – everything from pasta to seafood to cocktails to desserts. We’ll serve both versions anonymously to our friends, who will then judge which one they like better and why. We’ll walk you through our kitchen process, bring the husband-and-wife smack talk and, of course, keep score. We’ll also share our recipes here so that you can try them for yourself.

Most of all, we hope to have fun improving our culinary skills, serving fine meals to (or at least not poisoning) our rotating panel of Padmas, Gails and Toms, and bringing the results to you.

OK, enough polite chit-chat. Let’s do this.
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Ding dong! The King is dead.

Burger King plans to roll out a new “food-centric” marketing campaign this weekend with one less royal pain.

The latest spots, created by Burger King's new advertising agency mcgarrybowen, will not include the iconic (and debatably creepy) monarchal mascot waking up unsuspecting dreamers in the middle of the night with air horns and cymbals, or casually working out in the local mall.

Instead, the fast food giant is taking its bizarre quotient down a few notches, sticking to the plebeian stuff like close-ups of lettuce, Swiss cheese and burger patties, in order to beef up its "appeal to a broader audience."

Food?! In commercials for a place that sells food?! By Jove, they're onto something!
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Sink your teeth into today's top stories from around the globe.

• Reconsidering saturated fat. - The Atlantic

• The unexpected harmony of veal and tuna sauce. - New York Times

• Yes, in case you were wondering, there is a diet book for six-year-old girls. - Guardian

• Burger King dethrones its creepy king mascot. - Forbes

• We all scream for ice cream, but Europeans scream even louder for gelato. - Wall Street Journal

While you're frying up some eggs and bacon, we're cooking up something else: a way to celebrate today's food holiday.

Do the mashed potato - August 19 is National Potato Day!

Show your spud love with pride today and embrace this king of delicious side dishes. As "Lord of the Rings" taught us, hobbits are particularly protective of their taters, and so are we.

No matter how you slice it, you really can't go wrong with this versatile root vegetable. Boil, mash, fry, sauté, bake, stew and broil to your heart's content. There's also scattered, smothered, covered, chunked, peppered, diced, capped and topped, but that's another story.
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Pssst! Got a sec to chat?

We are utterly thrilled when readers want to hang out and talk – whether it's amongst themselves or in response to pieces we've posted. We want Eatocracy to be a cozy, spirited online home for those who find their way here.

Consider the daily Coffee Klatsch post as your VIP lounge – the primary comments thread for readers who'd like to chat about topics not related to the articles we're running. That way, everyone knows where to find each other, and each post's comments section remains on topic.
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