To the Jello Molds of My Youth
For many years, anytime I threw a house party — for a birthday or a housewarming or just because — I'd make a jello mold and pull it out of the fridge later in the evening to surprised oohs and ahhhs. Nobody expects a jello mold. My mom, a true child of the 1950s and 60s when jello salad was all the rage, rarely cooked anything that didn't come from a box when I was a kid, but she'd gladly spend hours perfecting her extravagant jello molds with multiple flavors and layers of walnuts, mandarin oranges, and sometimes even sour cream. While I'm not quite as meticulous about my jello creations as my mom was about hers, I've tried to carry on this strange tradition in my own way. I never got around to buying a proper mold, so instead I've adapted a tin cake mold for the job. Rummaging around my cupboards in this time of social distancing, I spied a box of almond dofu (basically Chinese jello) and a can of fruit cocktail, which conjured up visions of the dessert...