Happy birthday to Youtube!

So, today's Youtube's fifth birthday! Who'da thought a program started by someone who just wanted to share videos with friends and family would have blown up like this, morphed into millions of people viewing and sending videos, serious and silly.

Speaking of silly, here's an endearing happy birthday video, originally created for the UK's Queen Mum, that would put a smile on anyone's face.

Keep it simple in the summer...(plus dogblogging Friday follies)

This time of year, I cannot be bothered with any recipe that calls for use of the oven (such as any type of casserole, even if it involves peppers and other summer standbys); if it can't be divided so that it can fit in a toaster oven, it doesn't get baked.

Thus, summer squash (which are not my favorite vegetables anyway, although I will slip finely chopped squash into a gumbo) such as zucchini do not get made into zucchini bread or muffins. Too hot for that mess, tasty as they can be.

However, one great summer recipe for zucchini is for mock crab cakes (Kim O'Donnell's version), which are easy to make and turn out well, especially if you don't make the cakes too big. The result is an easy, scrumptious meal (video via the saminal's flickr stream).

You must, however, use the original Old Bay Seasoning for any mock crab cake recipe; the other brands contain even more salt, and are thus dilute and bland. (I've checked the labels of the pretenders, and they don't even come close.)

Your great reward at the table:

(Photo by Kim O'Donnel of the Washington Post.)

So, don't be too surprised if your cakes are lapped up in double quick time because everyone can't get enough of them (I know I can't)...

Pre-election jitters got you down? (Friday Follies dogblogging)

Like many people, you may be suffering from pre-election anxiety, which is, surprise, affecting African-American women particularly hard, according to Diane Tucker in Huffington Post's Off the Bus, a background nervousness to which I can testify. My current coping mechanism is to turn off the tv, so that I can avoid the ubiquitous political ads.

Because the election is almost here, so close you can almost smell it, I'm almost as frustrated as the cute critters in the video below--

(I think the dog's saying, "Is it over now?")

Friday Follies (aka dogblogging)

How sweet, to be this blissed out...