Oh, my heart breaks for you concerning the polenta. My MIL doesn't like it either, so Dad Q tends to make it for special occasions. He tends to forget to salt it, though. Our spezzatino was beef with red wine and tomatoes with peas. It's very tasty.

I thought Serenity was a good scifi flick, entertaining and fun. I've only seen two eps of Firefly, and one of the things I liked best was that the characters are wearing interesting clothes, not the flat, uninteresting, kindergarten-colored stuff that seems to be the hallmark of Star Trek. We might pick up the series once we're done watching House and Arrested Development.