"Jell-O" news and stories

Remember those old Bill Cosby commercials for JELL-O? Cosby and Kraft Foods had a long-running relationship, with Cosby doing spots for JELL-O pudding, gelatin, pops, and jigglers for nearly thirty years. The last Cosby commercial for a JELL-O product aired in 1999, but the company has announced that the comedian will be pairing up with them again.

"Reunited with strawberry, raspberry and blueberry, I am berry, berry, happy to be back working with JELL-O," Cosby was quoted in the company press release. "Still today, people come up to me and ask me about JELL-O pudding and gelatin, and as the great comedian Jack Benny said, 'JELL-O Again!'"

The new media campaign, Hello JELL-O, puts Cosby behind the camera, however, not in front of it. According to the AP, Cosby will participate in a 22-city search tour for "the country's best giggle," which will be the subject of the new TV ads. JELL-O will also be the presenting sponsor for a new weekly Web series called "OBKB," which will consists of ten-minute episodes aired on Cosby's own Ustream channel. The new series -- featuring Cosby interviewing small children for laughs, a schtick he has pulled off with great success in the past -- will premier this summer.

This is Liz. She's an artist who works in a very delicious medium; Jell-O.

In this particular clip, she shows how she fashions San Francisco's entire Mission District out of the gelatin dessert.

The process is simple, but tedious: Liz takes pictures of the District, and then uses the photos to build molds out of balsa wood and foam core. Then, she builds silicone rubber molds around the sculptures, and when they dry, she makes the Jell-O and lets it set in the molds.

(Oh, and Liz makes Jell-O the way us normal people do, but sometimes she adds additional coloring to make the sculpture more vibrant). She also sprinkles dry Jell-O around the model to represent streets and parks).

One caveat about working with Jell-O (besides the overwhelming urge to consume your sculptures, of course) has to be the fact that eventually, it gets moldy.

But instead of letting that ruin her work, Liz uses the moldiness as a metaphor for change and adaptation within urban areas.

Isn't it funny how you eat something a lot as a kid but you drift away from it as an adult? I'm not talking about something sugary and child-like, like certain cereals or candy bars or Yoo-Hoo. I'm talking about staples such as fruit or milk.

Case in point: blueberries! I used to eat these a lot as a kid, not just in cereals but as a snack, finishing off an entire pint while watching The Courtship of Eddie's Father. This is a recipe for Blueberry Salad, from Pixie Collins (via the KVBC site). It's more of a fruit salad than one based in lettuce and tomatoes, and includes cream cheese and walnuts.

I've been intrigued by the concept of the Poke Cake ever since I first came across it a couple of months ago. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, the way you make it is that you bake a white cake according to your favorite recipe or the instructions on the box. Then you poke it full of holes with a fork and drizzle freshly mixed Jell-O over the top. You then chill it for several hours (or overnight) and then frost and serve. You get those really cool color striations. If you bake multiple, thin layers, you can get as many as four colors in a single cake.

This particular Poke Cake was baked by Flickr user Thin Guy and looks quite yummy. Don't forget to head over to the Slashfood Flickr group and your fun food pics.

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Some people eat while they're traveling. Others, including myself, travel to eat. Either way, the two activities -- travel and food -- are connected, so we're giving a little weekend linklove to our favorite travel site, Gadling:

• If you happen to be traveling through LeRoy, New York, you most definitely want to make a stop at the Jell-O Museum, erected in the city of the jiggly stuff's origin.
• We mentioned some off-the-wall summer food festivals earlier this month, but no one can dispute Gilroy's Garlic Festival.
• Wine from a granola bar? Not exactly. The company that makes Clif Bars is branching out with a line of wines.
• Speaking of wine, what is the best place to enjoy a glass of wine, and which wine?