Food blogger Victoria Belanger shares the secrets to creating inspired, modern gelatin desserts—with fresh fruits and flavors, new twists on trendy treats, and easy but artistic presentations. A classic, nostalgic treat is getting a makeover, thanks to innovative culinary bloggers like Victoria Belanger—aka the Jello Mold Mistress of Brooklyn—whose jiggly creations have caught the eye of food journalists, trendspotters, and a new generation of food crafters. In Hello, Jell-O!, Belanger shares her secrets for turning humble gelatin into impressive yet economical desserts that will steal the show at your next party or potluck. Featuring holiday crowd-pleasers such as Pumpkin Pie and Eggnog Rum, kid-friendly favorites like Root Beer Float Squares, grownup boozy bites like Sparkling Champagne and Strawberries, and vegan delights like Watermelon Basil Agar, the Jello Mold Mistress serves up recipes for every occasion. The deliciously wiggly versions of Key Lime Pie, Chai Tea Panna Cotta, and Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups will charm the inner child in every sophisticated home cook. Readers can create these whimsical recipes using their favorite gelatin products, from unflavored gelatin powders to preflavored gelatins from popular brands like Knox and Jell-O (both brands are registered trademarks, and their owners are not sponsors of Hello, Jell-O! or otherwise affiliated with the book).

A collection of dessert recipes using Jell-o products.

A "gorgeous" (New York Times) memoir that braids the evolution of one of America's most iconic branding campaigns with the stirring tales of the women who lived behind its facade - told by the inheritor of their stories. In 1899, Allie Rowbottom's great-great-great-uncle bought the patent to Jell-O from its inventor for $450. The sale would turn out to be one of the most profitable business deals in American history, and the generations that followed enjoyed immense privilege - but they were also haunted by suicides, cancer, alcoholism, and mysterious ailments. More than 100 years after that deal was struck, Allie's mother Mary was diagnosed with the same incurable cancer, a disease that had also claimed her own mother's life. Determined to combat what she had come to consider the "Jell-O curse" and her looming mortality, Mary began obsessively researching her family's past, determined to understand the origins of her illness and the impact on her life of Jell-O and the traditional American values the company championed. Before she died in 2015, Mary began to send Allie boxes of her research and notes, in the hope that her daughter might write what she could not. Jell-O Girls is the liberation of that story. A gripping examination of the dark side of an iconic American product and a moving portrait of the women who lived in the shadow of its fractured fortune, Jell-O Girls is a family history, a feminist history, and a story of motherhood, love and loss. In crystalline prose Rowbottom considers the roots of trauma not only in her own family, but in the American psyche as well, ultimately weaving a story that is deeply personal, as well as deeply connected to the collective female experience.

Author of the forthcoming What She Ate: Six Remarkable Women and the Food That Tells Their Stories (Summer 2017) In this captivating blend of culinary history and popular culture, the award-winning author of Perfection Salad shows us what happened when the food industry elbowed its way into the kitchen after World War II, brandishing canned hamburgers, frozen baked beans, and instant piecrusts. Big Business waged an all-out campaign to win the allegiance of American housewives, but most women were suspicious of the new foods—and the make-believe cooking they entailed. With sharp insight and good humor, Laura Shapiro shows how the ensuing battle helped shape the way we eat today, and how the clash in the kitchen reverberated elsewhere in the house as women struggled with marriage, work, and domesticity. This unconventional history overturns our notions about the ’50s and offers new thinking on some of its fascinating figures, including Poppy Cannon, Shirley Jackson, Julia Child, and Betty Friedan.