Jello, and its jiggly cousin Royal, have long been derided by people who consider themselves epicures. Perhaps their bad rep is due to the association with school cafeterias and hospital stays. Or colonoscopy prep. So, I feel it’s time to come out and admit that I like the stuff, particularly when it’s combined with other ingredients, and even more when it is fashioned into a beautiful shape by virtue of a mold.
After all, let’s be honest. If we called it aspic, we’d get oohs and aahs. In another time, aspic represented the height of a gourmet dining experience. But aspic is simply gelatin in which meat and/or vegetables are suspended.
A couple of weeks ago, I was on the phone with a friend, venting my frustration in trying to find canned cherries. My usual grocery had discontinued stocking them. My friend suggested I try frozen cherries, and then asked why I needed them. When I told her that they were an essential ingredient in my late mother-in-law’s cranberry-cherry gelatin mold, her immediate reaction was, “Ugh.” I responded that the ruby red side dish is actually delicious. And, besides, it’s a tradition on our Thanksgiving table. Everybody in my family not only expects it; they demand it.
Fast forward to the actual Thanksgiving dinner: In recounting the conversation, my daughter-in-law’s mother said that she, too, prepares a beloved recipe that was her mother’s. Then my other daughter-in-law reminisced about her grandmother’s gelatin mold. In fact, although she herself doesn’t cook or bake, she announced that she would, indeed, make gelatin molds for her family. (I hope I will be invited to partake.)
I loved E’s excitement, so immediately began scouring my bookshelves for my copy of The New Joys of Jello, a book I had received as a gift decades ago. And the memories came charging back. I must have tried a dozen different recipes from that book and from the various magazines that came through our mail slot, and almost all were successful. “Under-the-Sea Pear Salad,” made with cream cheese, pear halves, and ginger? Excellent. “Glazed Peach Cream,” prepared with vanilla ice cream and sliced peaches? Delicious. “Carrot , Celery and Olive Salad?” Loved it.
But it was the Crown Jewel Cake that captured my heart, and then broke it. The photograph of that magnificent construction motivated me to try my hand at making it. Consisting of cubes of stained-glass-colored gelatin cubes suspended in creamy white whipped topping fortified by lemon gelatin, it was gorgeous. Unfortunately, my attempt sagged, the topping not sturdy enough to hold it all together.
Then there was the magazine ad featuring a fishbowl in which fish-shaped fruit pieces swam in a sea of blueberry gelatin. In the ad, it looked fabulous and I thought my kids would love it. Unfortunately, when I tried it, the fishes all went belly-up just like real goldfish. And then, somebody (name withheld to protect the guilty) said upon setting her sights on it, “Blue food? How disgusting.” But it did taste okay.
Despite my failures,
the gelatin mold holds a dear place in my heart.
It’s time to reclaim the gelatin mold. Call it retro. Call it hip. Just call it.
In an effort to become healthier, I, like so many other consumers, have been reading labels. Hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup, and saturated fats are all ingredients that I try to avoid. One of the biggest challenges as been with one of my favorite foods: peanut butter. I have it on toast every morning, so I want it to be the best it can be, and we have gone through many brands and styles, from creamy to chunky. My mother always bought Skippy, but when I grew up and became a mom myself, I experimented with Jif (because I’m a choosy mother), then Peter Pan (because I’m one of the picky people). But soon, I realized that added sugars, hydrogenated oils, and salt, although tasty, were not landmarks on the road to healthy.
So, it’s time to pull on the elastic waistband slacks again because I’m reviewing another cookbook. This one is called Fress, a collection of Middle Eastern and Eastern European recipes gathered from author Emily Spitzer’s extended family members.
The cookies are delicious. It’s only too bad that the confectioner’s sugar used to dust their tops completely covers the beautiful designs.
Last year, I made the mistake of not reading the small print. The small print in this case wasn’t on a contract; it was on a website. As anyone who reads my stuff knows, I love wild food foraging, and one of the things I have on my to-do list is sumac, its tangy flavor crucial to so many dishes, especially to Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cuisine. Since learning that sumac grows wild all over the Berkshires, I was psyched, and immediately went online to learn how to harvest it in New England. To make a long story short, my enthusiasm overwhelmed my common sense. The website’s author instructed readers to harvest in August, so I enlisted husband, daughter, and son-in-law to join me in the hunt. After all, the latter two are wonderful, adventurous cooks. Armed with plastic bags, we plucked dozens of the ruby red blossoms and brought them home to process on the dining room table. But, UGH. The blossoms were infested with lots and lots of tiny, wriggly worms. I had to throw out the whole lot — as fast as I could hustle myself out the door.
Proust had his madeleines. For me, opening a container of za’atar releases an aroma that sparks memories of strolling through the shuk, the golden light caresssing ancient stone walls. The scent also stimulates my appetite for fresh-from-the-oven pita, warm, soft and chewy, with a salty and piquant tang.
Rhubarb season is here, and with it comes all sorts of childhood memories. A big patch in back of our next-door neighbors’ garage was a treasure we looked forward to every year. We kids would snap off stalks to chomp on, the intense sour seemingly not a problem for us as we sat in a circle telling ghost stories into the dark on balmy summer evenings. It may even have enhanced the spooky atmosphere.