Happy almost Jello birthday

This is awesome. My neighbor made me a jello birthday cake and her husband just delivered it to my front door!

Why jello? Because we were all having dinner with some friends. Somehow, the conversation turned to jello, and because we all have some sort of wierd cookbook (no value judgement here about Jello) on our shelves that we inherited or bought or recived as a shower gift in the dim, dark past, my friend actually had a jello cookbook.

We were comparing jello histories. They like the skin on the top. I hate the skin. (No Jello value judgement here either). They eat jello as regular food. I eat it only when sick. A meal consisting of the following courses heals most illnesses: chicken noodle soup (the kind that comes in the packet and you have to add water and then simmer), a toasted bagel, and some flavor of red jello, barely set.

I was flipping through the cookbook, while we downed Chinese dumplings and bruschetta, and had the best laugh I've had in months. The reason: a photograph of toasted white bread with a slab of green jello and some mayonnaise between the toast. Even someone who loves jello wouldn't want to eat that. Only in the 60s would someone even dream of printing a recipe of a jello sandwich.

I held the picture up for the rest of the table to admire, tears almost streaming down my cheeks.

"Who would ever want to eat this? Green jello on toast?" I asked. No, Janet, they explained. It's not toast, it's pound cake. And that's not mayonnaise, it's whipped cream.

Oh. Then everyone else started laughing, too.

Thanks, Shelly, for the cake and another reason to laugh at, I mean with, Jello