Hope your Easter was fab. Let's talk Jell-O.

I have always loved Jell-O. 

Always. 

Can't help it. 

Is 7 generations of Mormon Pioneer heritage reaching out from my tightly wound double helixes (helices?) to claim me as their own. 

I love it all, really, but I do not like it with any sort of vegetables (except celery. Finely chopped celery can be quite tasty.) 

I also avoid nuts, because it ruins the smooth and silky texture that to me is the simple beauty of Jell-O. (Except in that cran-raspberry jello filled with fresh cranberry relish. I can eat a whole pan of that over a long Thanksgiving weekend. Kari came to Thanksgiving and she was sold. Right, Kari?) 

But the best Jell-O I ever ate came to my door from an unknown source about a week after Sam was born (6 years ago). It was delicious. It came as manna from heaven. It was the food of the gods. (No, that wasn't foreshadowing. It isn't that Ambrosia Jell-O salad). Never has the idiom "hit the spot" been such a terrible understatement. I ate it all by myself. No sharing. Then I stuck my head deep into the Jell-O container and licked it clean.

I had Jell-O in my eyebrows. 

I was without pride, without shame. 

The Jell-O came from some nameless nice lady in my ward who brought us an after-baby dinner (I was going to say 'after-birth dinner', but that sounds super gross). Unfortunately, Jake answered the door. Even worse, since it came in the giant-sized Cool Whip container, and not in somebody's tupperware, 'Sister So-and-So's' name was not in masking tape on the bottom. The Cool Whip container was mine to keep. I could never send Sister Doe a thank you note. 

In some ways, though, the anonymity was good. For years afterward, I would sit in Relief Society, thinking, "was it she? Or, "maybe her?" and I would have warm and tender feelings for every woman in the room. (But then I went to work in Primary, where I had precious little time to ponder the Jell-O-creator.)

It wasn't until about 6 months later that I decided to make some of the Jell-O for myself. By then, the trail was cold. All I knew was this:

1. The Jell-O was green

2. It came in a Cool Whip container

3. It was very de-lish

I really couldn't remember anything else. Just the feeling (warm and happy) I had when I ate the Jell-O. Was not much to go on.

So I started googling green Jell-O recipes. My first attempts were tasty but way off base. I made that pistachio pudding one with the fruit and marshmallows. No, No, No. Was all wrong. I made that molded salad with the cottage cheese and the chunks of pineapple, even though in my heart I knew there were no pineapple chunks involved. It was okay, but clearly not THE JELL-O.

So yesterday I made a lime Jell-O fluff, with cream cheese, crushed pineapple, and marshmallows and lots of Cool Whip. No nuts. Duh.

I do believe I have made a breakthrough! I am now 75% sure that the elusive pot-of-gold-at-the-end-of-the-rainbow-Holy-Grail-type-Jell-O was a lime fluff. 

If it wasn't, it will be okay, because lime fluff is really super good. 

So now, I am going to strike out on my own, like a Jell-O pioneer, and make a fluff that is extra lime-y, and leave out the pineapple. Just Jell-O and Cool Whip and cream cheese, in a golden ratio, in perfect harmony. Maybe I'll add some limeade, to lime it up a bit? We'll see.

Could the answer be so simple? Who knows? I might fail, but even if I do, people will say of me: AT LEAST SHE HAD THE COURAGE TO TRY. SHE IS A HERO.

What? 

No?

In other news, Small Child has not had one potty accident! Nary a one! As long as the diaper is off, he pees in the pot! (He's saving his solid deposits for nap time, when he gets his diaper. Is the next hurdle, of course.) Could it possibly be this easy?

(Family: photos of daughter's baptism coming soon. I think Jake has my camera in his truck.)

What's your favorite Jell-O? Please describe.