How it’s Monday again, I am not sure. We weathered the storms, which is kind of an odd turn-of-phrase, when you think about it, and today is brightly sunny, if on the chillier side.
I suspect there are more storms on the way, though. Hmm, allegedly not until Friday.
We’ll see.
I had one of those folding griddle things that has interchangeable plates, this one was from Cuisinart. For me, Cuisinart is one of those brands that beckons, that has products that look amazing, but over time, the shine rubs off and and you’re left with a puddle on the counter where your coffeemaker used to be.
Maybe I’m just unlucky, but after all the painting, I was putting stuff back into the kitchen and found streaks of grease on my hands and arms. Very, very stubborn black grease.
It took a while, but I realized the source: the folding griddle.
It wasn’t even that old. Old enough for the warranty to expire; new enough that shouldn’t have happened.
I’m not sure a warranty situation would have helped, anyway. As I learned with that Ninja combi, sometimes all it does is prolong your problems.
So I was back to finding something to use for pancakes. It had been merely OK at that too, with hot spots and cold spots, which seem to plague most griddles. I didn’t want something hard to store, I couldn’t find anything that was easier that got consistent reviews.
I even asked AI, and at the bottom of its list was a Dash Mini whatever it’s called. I dismissed that immediately, and waded through the reviews for the other suggestions, which were as mixed as any of them.
And then it occurred to me to look at the issue in a whole other way.
I can’t use commercial pancake mixes because of the additives, but what was stopping me from making my own?
So I searched, but most of them are scaled to cooking bigger batches, so I asked the AI for a recipe easily scaled to 1-2 mini ones, and also adaptable for waffles.
This is where I think AI is useful. I’ve said this before, but when it’s a turbo-charged search engine, essentially, that does the math for you, that’s pretty nice.
And now if I want pancakes, I can make them fresh. My dad and I generally have separate eating schedules until dinner, so it’s easy enough my dad can do the same. No more standing over batches that may or may not cook evenly, no more ruined first pancake.
The answer I found wasn’t an answer I even thought to find because I was focusing on the wrong parts.
Now, we’re just talking about a kitchen gadget here, a pretty inexpensive one at that, but we’re not only talking about a kitchen gadget.
Or the way that AI is shaping our lives, quietly, inevitably.
But.
Sometimes we get caged into the facts as we see them, the parameters as we see them, and we consider possibilities only within those walls. And if you shift your attention in a direction you never considered, suddenly you realize the fourth wall is open.
I hope you walk through that fourth wall today.
Have a great Monday.
A Bit to Read 
Leave a comment