"jello" news and stories

The London Festival of Architecture will be starting this week, and the culmination of the festival will be tasty, indeed. As part of the festival, there's a competition to re-create famous architecture out of Jello (referred to as jelly across the pond).

According to the Guardian Online, the contest to re-create famous architecture is a charitable event and the proceeds go to Article 25, a disaster relief and development fund. Apparently the contest was inspired by the Millennium Bridge, which opened as a pedestrian bridge in 2000 in London but developed a dangerous wobble after only a week. It was nick named the "Wobbly Bridge," and had to be shut down to be fixed.

The architect who originally designed the "Wobbly Bridge" is actually making a Jello replication of it for this contest. He says that even though he was, of course, embarrassed about the flaws in the bridge, he is amused that his mistake can be used as the basis for a charitable event.

So this has peanut butter, eclairs, and cake in the title. Must be a diet food.

Actually, it's the Peanut Butter Eclair Cake, from Shirley McNevich over at Mom's Best Recipes. Besides peanut butter, it's made with Jello Instant Pudding, Cool Whip, and Honey-Maid Graham Crackers. I can picture my mom making this in the 60s or 70s, getting the recipe from a magazine.

Last year I picked the 8 best school lunch items I remember from my school days (admittedly, a long time ago). But what about the lunches that a lot of kids hate? Here are my choices:

1. Mystery meat: What exactly was this? I'm trying to go through my mental Rolodex and I can't remember. Was it meatloaf? Salisbury steak? I'm not sure, but it just seemed to be this mass-produced glob of grayness topped with lame gravy. The days I saw that this was the lunch were the days I just had something to drink and maybe a bag of chips.

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?

One of the side effects of blogging about food is that you start to want to play around with platings and presentation a lot more than you would if you were not photographing your meals. Joe, from Culinary in the Country, for example, augmented his already attractive Chocolate Crème Caramel with some extra caramel rounds along the outside of the plate and a little freeform sugar sculpture on top. The overall effect is great and really brings the look of the dessert up to restaurant-quality - and probably an expensive restaurant, at that.

The crème caramel itself is actually quite easy to make. The most difficult part for someone attempting their first one is to not burn the caramel before you pour it into the empty ramekins, as it can be sensitive. The "crème" part of this dessert is made with soy milk and bittersweet chocolate, held together with eggs, just like the traditional versions are. The chocolate will cover the soy taste, for anyone sensitive to it, but using soy milk will make the dessert a lot lighter than if it were made with cream.

And if you have somehow managed to overdose on chocolate from Valentine's Day, you might want to check out Elise's recipe for Rose Petal Flan instead!

Source