Three Beautiful Things 11-17-2025: Rice Pudding and Bach, I Was Somnolent, Swiss Steak Stew

 1. Rice pudding. 

It might have been the culprit. 

An 18th century Russian diplomat named Count Hermann Karl von Keyserlingk suffered from insomnia. 

Since Kris Kristofferson had not yet gotten around to writing "Help Me Make It Through the Night", 
J. S. Bach's first biographer wrote that Count von Keyserlingk commissioned Bach to compose pieces that would be soothing and lively enough to help the Count, well, make it through the night. 

And, so, Bach composed The Goldberg Variations. 

I wondered today if possibly rice pudding was what kept the Count awake. 

You see, when Copper and I hit the hay Sunday night after I'd enjoyed our family dinner, I couldn't sleep. 

I didn't toss and turn, in deference to Copper's insistence that I stay still through the night. 

I did read some. I did put the Classical for Sleep channel on Sirius/XM. 

Eventually, by about 2:30 or 3:00, I slept off and on until I arose. 

Looking back, I'm wondering if rice pudding kept me awake. 

Sunday night's rice pudding wasn't super sweet, but it did have sugar in it and I'm wondering if that sugar revved up my system and kept me awake. 

I'll never know, but I'm curious now if historians of Russian diplomacy dug into the culinary life of the good Count Hermann Karl von Keyserlingk, would they find that he had an insatiable desire for and could not resist eating bowls of 

RICE PUDDING?

2. Sleep deprivation shaped my day. Luckily, I wasn't crabby, so Copper and Gibbs didn't suffer any ill consequences of my lack of sleep, but for most of the day I was in a somnolent state. 

I completed Wordle, Quordle, Waffle, Connections, and Strands. 

I blogged. 

I slept. 

An afternoon nap helped lift me mostly out of my lethargy. 

I took a day off from exercising. 

3. Christy sent me home Sunday evening with some leftover Swiss steak (no rice pudding) and in my wide-eyed and bushy tailed state after my nap, I played with it. 

I sliced a half a white onion and peeled and chopped up a yam. 

I fired up some oil in the wok and cooked the onion and yam and then added in some frozen corn kernels.

I cubed the Swiss steak and added it, along with the Swiss steak sauce into the wok and thoroughly enjoyed the stew I had almost accidentally made. 

I had some leftover rice in the fridge but decided not to use it tonight in case I decide later on to make some rice pudding. 

And do an insomnia test.