5 February 2010 - J-E-L-L-O

[Surely you must remember the J-E-L-L-O jingle and can fill in the tune that accompanies it]

For whatever reason yesterday, I had a "hankerin'" for some flavored gelatin (let's call it what it is - jello). So I thought I could just pick up a package of it at the grocery store. Now, I think most of us would agree that a typical grocery store in the U.S. would have a floor-to-top-of-shelf display on jello and pudding products that would be at least 2-3 feet wide. So it should be pretty easy to stumble on the jello aisle here in Germany, right? Not so much.

I finally found flavored gelatin products near the baking supplies area. And not, as you can see from the picture, because the packaging screamed "gelatin" or "jello" or anything like that. Fortunately, I am relatively fluent in reading pictures. ;-) There were only three colors/flavors - red, yellow and green. No fancy kiwi strawberry flavors, nothing with fizz, no sugar-free options, no fat-free options, none of that kind of consumer choice. And no sign of pudding mixes. I took the red (raspberry) package.

Now, I will confess that it has been probably a decade since I have made jello, but I don't recall ever having had to heat water and then dissolve the sugar and jello mix into that water. In fact, I think most of the time the package already included the sugar. But it seemed to work. And then I read the final step on the package that invited me to wait 5 HOURS until the jello would be set and ready to eat. Um, okay, I have clearly been spoiled by the "instant" culture of the U.S.

I woke up in the middle of the night, as I often do. One of my first thoughts (perhaps due to noticing the red light of my BlackBerry that bore a striking resemblance to the jello color) was, "I wonder whether the jello is ready?!" It was. Perhaps the only thing better than cold pizza at 2 AM is fresh, wobbly red jello. Well worth the wait.