[2] not so fangirl ;; 1d

twenty

1D NEVER DIES ANYWAYS BITCHES (6)

Niall: yo yo yo

Niall: so how's life

Niall: this group is dead af

Me: hi niall

Niall: hi avril 😝

Me: u stole all of my pizzas yesterday

Niall: i didn't

Me: oh boi

Niall: you've told me to eat all the pizzas until the last slice , so ?

Me: lol

Niall: it's just my stomach couldn't control it anymore , i love pizzas more than anything else in my life

Niall: oh and harry used to be a good homemade pizza

Niall: and btw

Niall: i've got something

Niall:
Attempts to unearth the Colonel's Original Recipe, or replicate it, have been made too many times to count. For KFC Corp., keeping the elusive mix of 11 herbs and spices under wraps has been paramount — not to mention a great marketing tool. In 2008, the Louisville, Ky.-based company used a Brink's armored truck and briefcase marked "Top Secret" when it made a big show of beefing up security at the vault containing the Colonel's handwritten recipe. Other protective measures include using two different suppliers to prepare the 11 herbs and spices so that no single entity can crack the code.

Feeding into the mystique, the recently revamped KFC website, www.colonelsanders.com, features a Colonel Sanders character saying he's finally ready to tell the world what's in the recipe. Just as he's about to spill the beans, the sound malfunctions and an "out of order" sign pops up on the screen.

The recipe is, without question, a secret as juicy as well-fried fowl — and has been for the better part of a century.

So, imagine my surprise when a list of 11 herbs and spices was plucked from a Sanders family scrapbook and placed into my hands. Crazy, right?

Let me explain ...

Our story begins with my trip to the small town of Corbin, Ky., where the Colonel first served his chicken more than 75 years ago to hungry motorists at the service station he ran. I'm here to visit the Harland Sanders Cafe and Museum, a shrine of sorts to the fried chicken magnate. His namesake restaurant has been restored to its mid-20th-century appearance but with a modern-day KFC store as an appendage. My assignment: research the restaurant, museum and fried chicken in Corbin for a "Fork in the Road" feature in the Chicago Tribune's Travel section.

With the help of the local tourism office, I arrange to meet a man named Joe Ledington. The 67-year-old retired teacher has spent his entire life in Appalachia. He still lives in the house in which he grew up, just north of the city limits of Corbin, a town of about 7,300. He agrees to meet me to share a few yarns about the Colonel. You see, the guy he called "H.D." and "Old Man Sanders" was his uncle. Ledington says he used to do chores in the modest cafe as a young boy, making a quarter a day to sweep and clean up.

I enter the dark-paneled restaurant lit by naked fluorescent tubes and find Ledington leafing through a photo album. His wife, Jill, sits quietly at the next table, munching chicken from a familiar red-and-white box.

Ledington and I shake hands, and I tell him about the assignment that brought me to this part of southeast Kentucky. Before I can even open my notebook, he draws my attention to the photo album overstuffed with pictures, newspaper clippings and various family documents.