For those without French and/or Spanish, my coined, creatively spelled (and copywrited) name for last night’s test-run stuffing loosely translates into “corn mash with sausage” which, I think we can all agree, sounds a lot better in French-Spanish.

I was not instrumental in its creation, as I had some very important “Law and Order: Criminal Intent” to review. My hypothesis: Courtney B. Vance’s DA character never, ever wants to actually try cases. Every episode of the Vincent D’Onofrio hour (last night our man dipped into his pool of knowledge to hold forth on the 1930’s American Cup winners, Argentinian-Jewish dialects, 19th century poisoning methods, and Siddhartha, and that was just two episodes) comes to a momentum-killing standstill when Mr. DA man shows up to reject Vincent’s brilliance. This mid-hour buzz-kill is as reliable as the final, utterly satisfying 8 minutes of the show, when D’Onofrio gloriously chews all visible scenery while needling, stuttering, screaming, and spasming full confessions out of supposed criminal master-minds. Because he is THAT smart, and he is always right.

So why, given Vincent’s 98% success rate (lest we forget his near-misses with his nemesis and symbolic other half, the psychopathic and very charming “Nicole”), does the DA always refuse to lift even a finger to help Vincent attain a warrant/arrest/known criminal? I understand that his role within the drama is to be the naysayer/bureaucrat whose inability to grasp even the simplest theory of a murder case that OBVIOUSLY centers on a 17th century theological debate forces Vincent to plumb even greater depths of ephemera, but it gets very tired. Mr. DA doesn’t just refuse to help; he is openly hostile with our brillliant, if socially awkward, D’Onofrio, and seems to want him to stop investigating and simmer down. It’s almost like he hates our man Vincent, and I think it is clouding his DA perspective. Last night he wanted to CLOSE a case that was very clearly about a mind-controlling young Herman Hesse-acolyte using his asexual charms on the ghonnorrea-plagued teenaged girls of his island community in order to get them to kill people and, when necessary to cover his tracks, themselves. He didn’t even hide his derision for D’Onofrio’s completely lucid theory, which really gets my goat every time. Here is me halfway through each C.I.: “How many murderers have you found using your freakishly superior intellect, Mr. DA man? None! That’s right, so get that smug ‘I don’t want to hear about mini-Mansons on the Channel Islands’ look off your face! Why are you the DA? Are you really just a very patient defense attorney in DA costume? Why are they making you (I am now hopping the fourth wall and addressing the very talented actor Courtney B. Vance here) do this same scene again and again?! You are better than this! None of the other Law and Orders treat thier DAs with this kind of derision! Stand up for yourself, Courtney B. Vance, for you are married to Angela Basset, and she stood up to Ike Turner!’”

All of this, and so much more, has led me to my hypothesis: Mr. Courtney B. Vance DA hates trying cases, and is a depressed man desperately in need of a mid-life career change. Mr. DA man does not like his job, and he is very irritated with this twitching police detective who keeps wanting him to actually try people for murder. He complains about D’Onofrio to Mrs. DA every night. Can’t this jittery Rain Man po-po see that trying people for murder without an elaborate full confession is hard? Why should he, the DA for New York, have to, like, ask questions, or build a theory of the case, or present evidence? If he could, he would settle every single murder case, and then retire upstate to a nice farm, maybe raise a couple head of cattle, focus on those neat model trains he’s always admired.

So after I collected the necessary nightly CI report and yelled about Courtney B. Vance while swilling a very minerally white wine, I had some of the stuffing Dan had been making while I’d been “studying” the TV. Though the polenta was not firm enough to be cubed as the recipe requested (their mistake– THEIRS!– as the time they allotted for chilling in the recipe as written was insufficient), it was nonetheless delicious, as Dan’s polenta is the finest I have ever tasted. It is full-bodied and creamy, with a complex and rich flavor that I find unusual in the often one-note world of polenta. Since the polenta wasn’t firm, however, the stuffing was more of a mash, hence my (COPYWRITED) recipe name. The sausage gave it a great kick, and though the recipe called for sweet sausage as opposed to the spicy style we used, I liked the mild spice. In fact, my only note is that without the spicy sausage, the taste is a bit too mild. I would definitely recommend using this recipe, especially with some quality spicy italian sausage and firmer polenta. I would also recommend that the producers of Criminal Intent either a) let the DA excitedly issue a warrant and express his delight at the prospect of a big old-fashioned jury trial or b) throw him a festive retirement party, at which D’Onofrio grudgingly presents a specially iced cake (he probably studied the art of the medieval gateau in culinary school) to his old sparring partner before they share an awkward but heartfelt man-embrace.