In the Kitchen Today

 I know I need to write more...but it's not that easy thinking of new things to say, so I just repeat myself which isn't that fun either. But today, along with making some adjustments to what is now an actual script for the performance, and practicing some songs, I am planning to make Jell-O again! 

I had a little thing that restricted my ability to lift, but I'm figuring I can lift a half-full quart jar now, and the actual Jell-O I make is light and doesn't require a lot of hand and arm strength to manage. Also I have worked out some ways to do what I'm not quite recovered enough to do.

I'll just tell you that I'm going to work on what will be a campfire...with flames made of big pieces of Jell-O shaped like flames, that may or may not move around a bit or be illuminated from below to look like they're moving. I made a small fire in this piece a few years ago, so the plan is just make it bigger, but also transparent since it will be on the stage and can't block visibility. It is going to use up some gelatin.

I'll use my regular formula, 6 ounces of gelatin in  two cups of cold water in a quart mason jar. I mix it up thoroughly, and with cold water you don't get the lumps you would if you used hot water. It only took me about fifteen years to learn that bit, rediscovered from old Jell-O salad recipes. The gelatin has to "bloom," or absorb water, for about ten minutes and it gets solid though grainy. I melt it in the microwave for two minutes and then another minute or two, until it is liquid and clear, though it will be hot! Don't keep it in there if it starts to boil or rise up and threaten to spill out of the jar. Cleaning up molten gelatin is pretty tough. If you do spill it, let it harden a bit until you can peel it up cleanly so you don't have to scrape and throw it away. If there's a little dirt or crumbs in it, you may be able to peel that off, or just let it settle to the bottom of the jar when you remelt it.

I rarely have to throw the used stuff away...I remelt it, sometimes with a little water, sometimes just as is. If it gets moldy, you can possibly remove the mold, but generally I do throw that on the compost pile for the squirrels. It takes s few days or a week to get moldy, but rotting gelatin has a smell you don't want to become familiar with. So if you plan to keep some around a long-ish time and it isn't fully dried, keep it in the fridge and pay attention to it. When it starts to rot it gets liquid at the bottom. Fair warning.

Whatever you use to color it, put it in the molten gelatin. I usually divide the big jar into smaller pint jars, with one half-pint with a wide mouth kept partially full to use as glue, either spooned out with little spoons or poured out. I generally don't color that but if you use a lot of glue for your piece, you may want to color it to avoid it looking like glue.

So I pour my gelatin into pyrex dishes usually, for the glossy surface of glass, but for these bigger pieces I use lids of big plastic tubs, which will make it look dull on one side, but you could maybe use an old piece of window glass if you have one, or something you have around. Be careful. I have a whole set of pyrex I use only for Jell-O Art because it can dry so strong that it pulls chunks and shards right out of the pyrex, ruining it for food use and also getting a little bit dangerous for you, if you aren't careful. 

A few hours or a day after pouring these big, thin sheets, I peel them up, maybe tearing or cutting them, or twisting and shaping them according to my vision. I flip them over so they can dry on both sides, and I'll do that several times over a day or several, until they are throughly dry so I can keep making pieces until I have what I need. 

Then I will find a way to glue them together to shape my piece. Sometimes I need some kind of support for it, to drape it over a bowl turned upside down, or prop it somehow so it will dry the way I want it to. If it doesn't, I can brush it with a little water, soften it up a bit, and try to re-shape it. The "glue" can be removed or left there, melted again with hot gelatin, whatever works.

When glueing, you either have to hold the pieces together for a minimum of 90 seconds, of have them sitting in a way that will allow the glue to stay in place. You can get it kind of cool so it doesn't run all over the place, but you have a short window of time when it is the right consistency to work. If you wait too long, or move the pieces before they're stuck together, you get this chunky break-up of the gelatin which is useless for your purposes and you have to scrape that off before you try to re-glue, or you just get too much gelatin piled up and it won't dry properly.  Ideally you want everything to dry within a couple of days to avoid that mold. 

I put everything on top of furniture or on a clothes rack in my living room, which has electric heat, or if it is nice outside I sometimes put it in the sun, though you risk dust getting stuck to it, or squirrels getting interested. 

You can use a lot of different things for color. I use powdered dye, since I have a lot here that I use in my other crafts. I've used different kinds of paint, powdered metallics, and youcan sue food coloring or other things like milk, candy coloring, or whatever you have. If it's liquid, be careful not to dilute your gelatin too much with it.

It really is rather easy to do this type of gelatin, and you want some challenges to work on, so go ahead and be ambitious. I tried many things over the years with varied amounts of success, but all that is part of the fun. The best part of the dried gelatin is you can start now. No need to wait for spring break or get anxious about the deadline of the March 28th show, when you might want to go to No Kings and your Jell-O has to be finished first. Again, if you anticipate missing the drop-off time, let me know and I may be able to help. 

And feel free to make edible Jell-O if your family will eat it or you want to make Tacky Food for the Buffet.  That you will have to do carefully, in a very clean kitchen and not in advance, so no one gets sick. It doesn't really spoil unless you have some dairy product in it or something like that, but do everything you would do for a potluck with your inlaws. If you treasure your inlaws that is. 

And for those of you who celebrate tomorrow, I made this with beets, and it was delicious. Nobody would eat it though, and not because it was too pretty.