5@5 is a daily, food-related list from chefs, writers, political pundits, musicians, actors, and all manner of opinionated people from around the globe.

Need to snap out of the end-of-summer blues? Joshua Morgan suggests the Marylander way, with a blue crab feast.

Morgan, a Maryland native, is the founder of Hammer & Claws, a three-day, all-you-can-eat crab festival that involves approximately 40,000 Maryland blue crabs and 1,750 pounds of Old Bay seasoning.

Blue Crab 101: Joshua Morgan
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Editor's note: All summer long, the Southern Foodways Alliance will be delving deep in the history, tradition, heroes and plain old deliciousness of barbecue across the United States. Dig in.

Several years ago, a graduate-school classmate and I intersected in Birmingham. We'd become friends over the poetry of Keats and Yeats in upstate New York. Once a semester, we would trek to Syracuse's Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, where I'd load a rack of ribs into my toothpick-thin body, to the amazement of the Harley-riding regulars. So on his first trip to Birmingham, I decided to take Paul to Dreamland.

I mean the one near UAB. Paul wasn't ready for the Tuscaloosa cathedral. I had to ease him into it. And the Birmingham Dreamland was also part of my grad school experience: I went there with my parents just after it opened, when I made my first trip home from New York for Thanksgiving. Birmingham's Dreamland was one of the few places I could exceed my Dinosaur draw, polishing off a rack before moving on to the second. This was the obvious venue for an Alabama reunion with Paul.
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The U.S. Department of Agriculture is investigating "disturbing evidence of inhumane treatment of cattle" at a California meat supplier, the agency said.

After receiving video from an animal welfare group, the USDA sent investigators to the Central Valley Meat Co. and found violations of humane handling, the agency said in a statement.

"We have reviewed the video and determined that while some of the footage provided shows unacceptable treatment of cattle, it does not show anything that would compromise food safety," said Al Almanza, administrator of the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service.

The USDA suspended inspections at the Hanford-based company, effectively halting slaughter operations there.

Read the full story: USDA suspends slaughterhouse after video appears to show animal cruelty

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

Tomorrow, August 23, is National Sponge Cake Day. To plan ahead accordingly, revelers should whip one up tonight!

Sponge cakes hold a special place in my heart, and my kitchen. A hot milk sponge was the first cake I learned to bake well, thanks to my mother’s supervision. The recipe was neatly written in blue ink on a tattered piece of lined paper, folded in half so many times it’s torn at the creases. We’d make it for any special occasion, even if said occasion was a random Tuesday. The recipe got passed to friends and neighbors and, eventually, learned by heart.

According to my mother, hot milk is used because it creates an airy, fluffy cake. In traditional British fashion (we’re South African), we use jam between our layers of cake and then dust the whole thing in powdered sugar.
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