I posted a request on the “LeRoy Then and Now” page last week and asked folks to share their Thanksgiving family Jell-O recipes.  Quite a few people posted recipes.  And then I thought, wouldn’t it be great to share those recipes with visitors who come through the museum. I bet folks would like a “taste of LeRoy’s favorite Jell-O recipes.”  So if all of you will share your favorite family Jell-O recipes, I’m going to put them together in a little book and next year the Jell-O Gallery will have a great souvenir.

 I posted my family’s traditional Thanksgiving Jell-O salad that my mother always served.  It was Waldorf salad of apples, walnuts and celery in lime Jell-O served on a leaf of lettuce.  She usually put mayonnaise on it, which I hated. My grandson asked why I served it on lettuce and of course the answer - - “That’s what makes it a salad and not a dessert.”  My daughter chimed in that she leaves out the celery because her kids don’t like it and she never serves it with mayonnaise.  And it’s served in an octagonal Tiffany bowl that was a wedding gift from her friend, Kebby Boylan Mayer.

 It was interesting to read that several people have a special bowl for Jell-O.

Joan Falcone:  “My mother always made cherry Jell-O with bananas and only on the holidays.  It was always served in the same bowl, which was the only thing she had that had been her mothers.  I now have that bowl!” And Nancy Kirchner uses her grandmother’s bowl: “My grandmother who was a resident of LeRoy from 1915 til her death in 1971 always made her Jell-O salad for the holidays from lemon Jell-O with cream cheese, shredded carrots, pineapple and maraschino cherries. She had a beautiful bowl that she served it in.  I still carry on her tradition and use her beautiful bowl.”

 Russ Grasso shared his family special treat:  We didn’t have a Jell-o tradition for Thanksgiving but we had a special wintertime treat called Jell-O in the snow!  My mom (a native LeRoyan) pretty much grew up without a refrigerator in the early years (they had an ice box) in the wintertime my grandmother would prepare Jell-O and once she added the cold water to “shock” the mixture, would cover the kettle and place it outside on the snow-covered back step to set.  It would form an icy ring around the kettle. . .