So Pablo the Chihuahua isn’t really evil, he just really likes to tease his bigger Doberman brother Ramsey with a dog toy! This cute video, taken by Pablo and Ramsey’s owner Chad, shows “playtime” between the two dogs. I find it especially funny because I’ve seen my own two Chihuahuas acting like this, and what makes it cuter to us is that they both know the other is messing around.
In the video, Pablo baits the very patient Ramsey with the toy, all the while doing what we call The Very Vicious Growl. Ramsey very carefully inches closer and closer to …read more

94 year old great-grandmother Clara has been videotaped by her grandson as she prepares meals that she and her family ate during the Great Depression. In an attempt to capture not only the recipes and the methods of preparation but Clara’s stories and memories of the time, she and her grandson have created quite an archive of precious videos!
I’ve previously written about several, including Sicilian Fig Cookies parts one and two, Depression breakfast, dandelion salad, pasta with peas, and poorman’s meal.
In the video above, Clara prepares Eggplant Parmesan, though she says right off the bat that she actually makes it …read more

Simon Tofield, creator of the online animation shorts titled “Simon’s Cat,” has created a brand new one for his fans! The short, hand-drawn animations have quite the following, and several of the videos have already won awards.
“Hot Spot” was created to celebrate the release of Simon’s book, titled, of course, “Simon’s Cat.” The 40-second video shows the lengths that his feline friend will go to to get the warm spot under the desk lamp. I wonder who rang the doorbell?
Check out the other “Simon’s Cat” shorts, including Fly Guy, TV Dinner, Let Me In!, Wake Up!, and even one about …read more

My recent giveaway for an awesome prize pack featuring the Next Iron Chef goodies and Alton Brown’s newest cookbook, “Good Eats: The Early Years,” was a great success! I had a lot of fun seeing who everyone’s favorite Food Network personalities were as well!

It seems a lot of entrants share favorites as far as the celebrity chefs and cooks go, with Alton Brown, Paula Deen, Guy Fieri and Bobby Flay leading the pack! There was no right or wrong answer, of course, and the winner has been chosen from random draw.
The winner of the Next Iron Chef prize pack and …read more

September 24th is Cherries Jubilee Day! This fun-to-say dessert is a combination of cherries and liqueur which is flambéed and usually served over vanilla ice cream.
The dessert is said to have been created by Auguste Escoffier who made it for Queen Victoria of England during one of her jubilee celebrations. Whatever the origin, setting fruits and liqueur on fire has been extended to bananas (for Bananas Foster), mangos (Mangos Diablo, which is mango and tequila), and even peaches (Pêches Louis — peaches and whiskey).
In the video above, Chef Robert Dedrick shows how he prepares Cherries Jubilee at Maison Carlos in …read more

I was recently sent the below video of the upcoming season of The Next Iron Chef, which premieres on the Food Network on Sunday, October 4th at 9:00 PM EDT.
This second season features ten new chefs competing for the top spot as the new Iron Chef on the series. The line-up includes:
1. Amanda Freitag from The Harrison in New York City
2. Brad Farmerie from Double Crown, Madam Geneva, Public, and The Monday Room in New York City
3. Dominique Crenn from Luce @ InterContinental in San Francisco
4. Eric Greenspan from The Foundry on Melrose in Los Angeles
5. Holly Smith from Café …read more

The below video from Funny or Die (one of my favorite sites online) features four pugs who get a little… curious? about what their human is asking them. I hope it’s not just me, but I find doggy head tilts to be one of the cutest things ever:
div style=”text-align:left;font-size:x-small;margin-top:0;width:480px”>Pug Head Tilt – watch more funny videos
Our chihuahuas do something similar, though Honey will do it out of the blue for no discernible reason. Chip usually does it only if he hears something strange, which now that I think about it can be everything from a cat scratching in the litter …read more

On last week’s Great Depression Cooking with Clara video, 94-year-old Clara showed us the beginning of her Sicilian Fig Cookies, a treat she and her family enjoyed just after the Great Depression ended.
She and her granddaughters, for whom this is a yearly tradition, prepared all of the fruits and nuts before letting them sit overnight in the fridge.
Part two, above, picks up with Clara making the dough for the cookies. She measures out ten cups of flour and mixes it with a pound of lard before adding a cup and a half of sugar. She then adds one cup of …read more

Great Depression Cooking with Clara on Youtube is one of my favorite channels to watch. Clara, now 94 years old, and her siblings grew up during the Great Depression in the late 1920’s and 1930’s, and like many families they made do with what they had, which included some creative family meals. You can see some of her previous videos here, here, and here.
In this video, Clara shows how to prepare Sicilian Fig Cookies, a treat that her family only made once a year around the holidays. She mentions that it was pretty much something they only did after the …read more

I found this video online last night and have watched it about half a dozen times since (though a couple of those viewings were so I could show it to my husband and kids, too!).
The video stars Woody, a tabby cat in Japan who really, really likes his water! Throughout the three minute video, Woody repeatedly ducks his head under a running kitchen faucet and then licks up the resulting droplets that fall from his head.
It’s very cute and such a “cat thing” that it makes me smile just thinking about it. Our own tabby, Sage, also her …read more