Each week we round up some of the best that our friends over at YumSugar are writing. Here are some of the treats from the last week.

• How many classic candies can you name? Take a peek at this slide show and test your knowledge.
• Italy is currently in the throws of a major parmaggiano reggiano crisis.
• The weather is finally turning chilly on the east coast, making it the perfect time for soup!
• At the NYC Food and Wine Fest, Tyler Florence demonstrated the romantic dinner he made for his wife.
• For beginning cooks, an easy chili recipe and for more advanced folks, a recipe to stretch your abilities.
• As far as we know, pot is still not legal tender, even at McDonald's.
• Starbucks unveils their holiday marketing campaign.
• Competitive eater Joey Chestnut wins the World Pizza (eating) Championship.

These days, food is always in the news. From canned food recalls to the folks who only eat local foods to the stars of the Food Network, we are a country obsessed with what we eat. It should come as no surprise then that the folks over at Endless Simmer are trying to determine, out of all the food celebrities (both those who deserve their notoriety and those who are riding on an extended 15 minutes) who is the Eater of the Year.

The finalists include competitive eater Joey Chestnut, the Berkeley Four who invented the word Locavore, daring eater and chef Anthony Bourdain, the very alluring Padma Lakshmi, a chocolate Jesus and former VP Al Gore. The question now is, who do you think is the Eater of the Year? Follow that link to head over to Endless Simmer and cast your vote. However, if you think that an important eater is missing from the list, tell us about it in the comments!

American Joey Chestnut won the annual Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest today at Coney Island. He got down 66 hot dogs and rolls in 12 minutes. But defending champ Takeru Kobayashi, even though he was injured with a sore jaw and pain from an extracted wisdom tooth, still gave Chestnut some competition. He ate 63 hot dogs and buns in 12 minutes, his best showing ever but not enough to beat the new champ.

Hopefully you read this after you had your Fourth of July hot dogs. Congratulations Joey!

Who says there are no injuries in the world of competitive eating?

Sure, they might not have to deal with torn cartilege or a twisted ankle or a blown out knee, but what about jaw injuries? Takeru Kobayashi, the king of the annual Nathan's Famous July Fourth International Hot Dog Eating Contest, has arthritis of the jaw. He can't even open his mouth more than the size of a fingertip, but he's still going to enter the competition this year. Last year he ate a little over 53 hot dogs in 12 minutes.

Kobayashi isn't limited to hot dogs either. He once ate 97 hamburgers in eight minutes. The hell?

In the Krystal Square Off III World Hamburger Eating Contest in Chattanooga, Tennessee this past weekend, Takeru Kobayashi brought home another championship title by eating 97 hamburgers in 8 minutes. Joey Chestnut came in second, finishing with 91 hamburgers, followed by Patrick Bertoletti in third with 76. All the numbers are up hugely from last year's contest, in which Kobayashi narrowly beat Chestnut with a final total of 67-62 burgers. One other big change from previous years was that the contest was televised on ESPN2, which gives the sport a much wider audience and much more publicity than it enjoyed before.

The contest is known as the "square off" because the burgers that the competitors wolf down are square, but Krystal's burgers hosts the contest because they have been holding eating contests at their stores since the first one opened in 1932. According to company legend, the tradition was set when the second customer challenged the first customer to a head-to-head hamburger showdown.

A new competitive eating world record was set over the weekend when eater Joey Chestnut out-ate the competition by eating 49 grilled cheese sandwiches in 10 minutes. Sonya Thomas and Pat Bertoletti tied for second place with 37 sandwiches each. All three passed the former record of 36.5 sandwiches.

There is a video available here of the event, which was held at the Arena Football Fan Fest in Las Vegas. It is a fascinating sight - if mildly disgusting - for anyone who has never witnessed a professional eating competition. The crown cheers on the eaters while they battle the sandwiches, which an announcer describes as being glue-like. Sonya, who weighs 105 pounds, really has her technique down to a science and Chestnut, in a post match interview, describes how much concentration is needed to compete, given that your body doesn't really want to eat all that grilled cheese.

Those of you with an interest in competitive eating (you know who you are) might already know of Joey Chestnut's recent record-setting win at this year's Wing Bowl in Philadelphia. I think I might be getting a bit desensitized to the figures that accompany these sorts of competitions, however. Chestnut took down 173 wings in 30 minutes and I'm not trying to downplay that. What truly amazes me, though, is the footage of Chestnut taking down a gallon of milk (looks to be whole milk) in 41 seconds. I'd long thought that to be a physical impossibility. I believe this was some sort of qualifying measure for the Wing Bowl, but I'm not positive on that detail. The Philadelphia Inquirer has more on the entire gristly event.