Circus Peanut Gelatin

The Cascade Heights community center director called: would I be interested in teaching a Saturday morning cooking class? Not Set the Table — that's for teenage girls. This would be for the community. Adults. Older women, mostly. The women who cook every day but never get to cook WITH someone. The women who stand at stoves alone and would like, just once, to stand at a stove with other women who understand that the standing is the praying.

I said yes. Because I always say yes. Because the yes is the disease and the purpose simultaneously. The class will start in the spring. Twelve students. Mama's recipes. Stories alongside the cooking. The cookbook, incarnate. The book off the page and into a kitchen with living, breathing people who stir and taste and cry and laugh. The book was the record. The class will be the experience. Both matter. The record and the experience are both the line.

At school, Amira brought me injera. Her grandmother sent it from Eritrea — the real thing, fermented, spongy, the bread that is also a plate. We ate it together in my office with some stew Amira's mother made and the eating was communion. Two women (one forty-four, one twelve) sharing bread from Eritrea in a school office in East Point, Georgia, and the sharing was the oldest human act: sit down, eat, you belong here. Amira belongs here. Every child who walks through my door belongs here. The door is open. The food is shared. The belonging is the point.

Made a West African peanut stew — inspired by Amira's injera, inspired by the diaspora, inspired by the lines that connect every kitchen to every other kitchen. Tomatoes, peanut butter, sweet potatoes, chickpeas, spinach. Curtis said, "What is this?" I said, "Everything." He said, "Hm." The "hm" was 7.8. Not his best work. But the stew was mine. The everything was mine. And the mine is the line, extended, stretched, reaching toward every kitchen I've never visited but feel connected to through the universal language of: sit down, eat, you belong.

The stew was mine — the everything, the diaspora, the stretched and reaching line — but dessert belongs to the table, and this one has been on community-center tables, church-hall tables, and folding-table potlucks longer than I’ve been alive. Circus Peanut Gelatin is the kind of recipe that gets passed on a handwritten index card, the kind that shows up in a dish already made because someone knew you needed it. After a week of thinking about belonging and bread and communion in my office, I wanted something that needed no explanation and asked nothing of you except: sit down, it’s sweet, you’re here.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 0 minutes | Total Time: 4 hours 15 minutes (includes chilling) | Servings: 10

Ingredients

40 circus peanut candies (one standard 6 oz bag)
1 package (3 oz) orange-flavored gelatin
1 cup boiling water
1 can (20 oz) crushed pineapple, drained, juice reserved
8 oz cream cheese, softened
8 oz frozen whipped topping, thawed
1/4 cup reserved pineapple juice

Instructions

Melt the candies. In a large heatproof bowl, combine the circus peanut candies with 1 cup of boiling water. Stir slowly and steadily until the candies are fully dissolved, about 5 minutes. The mixture will turn a pale orange.
Bloom the gelatin. Sprinkle the orange gelatin powder over the warm candy mixture and stir until completely dissolved. Stir in the 1/4 cup of reserved pineapple juice. Set aside and allow to cool to room temperature, about 20 minutes. Do not let it set fully.
Beat the cream cheese. In a separate large bowl, beat the softened cream cheese with a hand mixer until completely smooth and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Slowly pour the cooled gelatin mixture into the cream cheese, beating on low until fully incorporated and no lumps remain.
Fold in the fruit and topping. Gently fold the drained crushed pineapple into the cream cheese mixture until evenly distributed. Then fold in the whipped topping in two additions, keeping the mixture as light as possible.
Chill until set. Pour the mixture into a 9x13-inch dish or a lightly greased gelatin mold. Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours, or overnight, until fully firm.
Serve. Cut into squares if using a dish, or unmold onto a platter if using a mold. Serve cold. It keeps, covered, in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

Nutrition (per serving)

Circus Peanut Gelatin — Sit Down, Sweet, You Belong Here