FOR THE LOVE, of Frosting

Frosting was my gateway drug into cooking. When I was young, I was a bit round in the middle. Now I’m still a bit round in the middle, but with significantly better hair. So I’ve got that going for me. I loved frosting. A lot. My mom used to make a blueberry pineapple jello cake or maybe with so many fruits suspended in purple-tinted jello it fell more into the casserole category. Don’t judge her too harshly. It was the 80’s. None of us kids liked the purple casserole (sorry mom!) but we all took a piece after dinner. I’d like to tell you that we were kind children who cared for our mother’s feelings who spent all that time ensuring that the fruit didn’t sink to the bottom in an unsightly manner that we all fell on the Jello sword as to not hurt her feelings, but sadly we aren’t that nice. It was the cream cheese frosting that was about as thick as the Jello that we all loved. The real trick, in the end, was to smoosh and schmear out the blueberries (blue of course) and the purple-tinted pineapple enough around your plant to A- not her mom’s feelings and B – make sure you secured your frosting portion in the future.

Bottomline. I don’t think it matters how anyone fell in love with the creation of, the testing of, or just the plan saddling up and eating of food. All that matters is that you enjoy being here.

Luckily the Jello casserole stayed in the ’80s, but the frosting still lives on in the form of a strawberry cake that everyone loves and eats the whole thing. Come June, watch for that recipe!