The beauty of having time off is I can spend it lying on the couch thinking about the origins of congealed salad.
But, as a practitioner of word use, I was immediately drawn to my reference to "time off." Do I really think my life revolves around work so that when I don't work, that time is somehow unique? To be sure, work is necessary and important, but if I won the lottery today the first thing I'd do is craft my resignation.
And what would I do with all that free time? Write. I'd write poems, sonnets, short stories, and prose.
I'd ponder the origins of gelatin and discover that it, like most everything else, was something initially only rich people had because they were the only ones who could afford to pay someone for the time it took to boil the animal bones to extract gelatin. Mainstream consumption came along once a way was found to mass-produce the stuff. Jello shots were the thing in parties and bars prior to COVID, but a recipe from the mid-1800s is the earliest known reference to them. Marketing gelatin as a wholesome and light treat made it a family staple but as more women entered the workforce the use of gelatin declined. Now it's mostly thought of as a hospital food.
In other words, the rich giveth us gelatin and the rich taketh it away.
Hello salad is my new name for congealed salad. I texted a friend that I'd made a Jello salad for my Thanksgiving dinner but autocorrect changed it to hello salad. I sent a correction but he said he liked the name hello salad so from here on out, hello salad it will be.
My particular brand of hello salad was made with orange gelatin and nondairy whipped topping, mandarin oranges, pineapple and chopped pecans. It tasted like a fruity, nutty creamsicle. The pot roast was good, but the hello salad stole the show and I finished off the last of it this morning.
It was so good I'm going to make it again. Take that, rich people!
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