I'm Chia Wald and this is my blog. Here is where I share my thoughts and my art. Sometimes it is good, sometimes it isn't. That's life... and that's me. 
Welcome to my holiday nightmare.
When I was growing up Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day all had nearly identical menus. There were my favorites, mashed potatoes, gravy, fruit salad, warm rolls… and then there was the green Jello.
The green Jello was one of my mother’s favorite food items. She made it with lime Jello, green olives and diced American cheese. When she felt a little more freedom in her food budget she would add maraschino cherries. I never allowed the green Jello within a foot of my plate.
Over the years she developed other Jello recipes that I declined to taste. Usually they had so many other items mixed into them that you couldn’t actually find the Jello in the mix. Durring this time she also started to tinker with the green Jello adding, nuts, apples and who knows what else. The above photo is of this year’s green Jello. It has the olives, cheese, cherries, diced apples and a little bit of who knows what. Honestly, we can’t figure out what the mystery item is and no one was willing to taste it just so we could know.
This year my sister told me that there is actually a reason why our mother clings to this tradition. She found out that our great-grandmother use to make this salad at Christmastime and our mother makes it to honor her. Hmm… that may be part of it but I suspect she actually likes the stuff.
What food traditions are you passing on in your family? Just today I made a large batch of Prayer Bars for my husband. They were one of his childhood favorites and I have his mother’s recipe for them.
Stumble it!
6 responses so far ↓
1 Kira // Jan 7, 2008 at 9:20 am
This actually came from Clara’s Mom Flora, who couldn’t afford to serve everyone all the stuff in the Jello any other way, so she’d mix it in to make the ’special treats’ go farther. Or so Clara said.
But still. Olives? Food should not be color coordinated!
2 Trish D // Jan 7, 2008 at 10:01 am
Flashback time!! My Mom made quite a variety of jello salads, my least favorite of which is lime jello with grated carrots and cabbage. Served with mayo on top. VOMIT ALERT!! Seriously, jello salads oughta be outlawed. She also makes a fruitcake that she swears is delish (unlike all the other lousy ones) - the secret is tomato soup. Um, sorry to break it to you, Mom, but it’s still terrible!!
The one thing I do insist on making each year is a frozen cranberry thingee - grind up 1 bag of fresh cranberries, and mix together with a tub of cool whip, 1/2 c of sugar, chopped apples, mini marshmallows, and chopped walnuts. Good enough that I’ve gotten other families hooked on it, too
3 Wendy // Jan 7, 2008 at 7:59 pm
So, what’s the Prayer Bar recipe. They sound like they should have a story too.
4 Judy B. // Jan 7, 2008 at 8:00 pm
Oh! That is awful! I hate to put down the salad, but, come on — green olives??!! AND American cheese??!!!
I always made green jello with canned pear halves arranged carefully in it. Once it set, I applied another batch of cooled cherry jello on top. Pretty and tasty! My boys loved it! Never had left overs.
5 Kira // Jan 7, 2008 at 8:06 pm
It gets worse: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jello_salad
Pretzels, cottage cheese, mayo and nuts. While olives have to be the winner in the gross category, some other people aren’t far behind. Scary.
6 chia // Jan 7, 2008 at 8:20 pm
I’ll post the Prayer Bar Recipe tomorrow
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