Three Beautiful Things 01/26/17: Pest Control, "The Satire Paradox", Chicken Soup and Polenta Pancakes

1. Once a year, our apartment's management posts a letter on our day telling us that soon a pest control guy will be treating our kitchen and bathroom. It means clearing everything out of the cupboards and off the shelves in both rooms. So I did and I also wiped out all the cupboards and wiped down the shelves and cleaned all the surfaces and so now our bathroom and kitchen are sparkling and protected from bugs.

2. This afternoon, I returned to Malcolm Gladwell's podcast, Revisionist History, and listened to "The Satire Paradox", here. In it, Gladwell examines, among others, Stephen Colbert, Tina Fey, Archie Bunker, and an Israeli satirical show, Wonderful Country.  He concludes that while satire effectively, often brilliantly speaks truth to power, paradoxically, it doesn't really make much of a difference.

3.  So, the Deke drove the Sube to work and went over to the Diazes when she finished her day and I was on my own for dinner. I had thought I'd make cornbread and eat it with the chicken soup -- now more like a stew -- I'd doctored yesterday. But, I've been hungry for pancakes and I thought -- hmmm, wouldn't a polenta pancake be just as good as cornbread? And couldn't I top the pancake with my soup/stew? I found a recipe for Cinnamon Polenta Pancakes, here, and imagined that the underlying layer of cinnamon might taste good with the sweet and spicey soup/stew. So I make a pancake, put it in a bowl, and topped it with soup/stew. Then I made a mistake. I topped all of it with Frank's Hot Sauce. The hot sauce was great, but it was too dominating, so I made another pancake, cut it in half, and, again, put some soup/stew on it and this was really good. I especially enjoyed how, with each bite, I thought I had tasted all the flavors my preparation would afford me, when suddenly, like Seabiscuit making a late charge, hurtling around the bend taking the lead in the final yards of the homestretch,  the cinnamon came out of nowhere and turned out to be this dish's last and most satisfying flavor.  For dessert, I put some butter and some real maple syrup on the other half of the polenta pancake.  Loved it.