Strawberry Jello Salad

The corporate picnic. September 20th. Seventy-five people. $2,500. The first time Sarah's Table left the building. The first time the food that was born in a cast iron skillet traveled beyond Gallatin Pike and arrived at a park pavilion in Centennial Park where tech workers in branded t-shirts waited for lunch and had no idea that the woman setting up the buffet table was having a quiet, internal crisis about whether she'd made enough cornbread.

I made enough cornbread. I made too much cornbread. I made cornbread for 75 and portioned for 90 because Mama taught me that you always cook for more than you need — "better to have leftovers than to have someone leave hungry, and someone ALWAYS leaves hungry if you didn't cook enough." So I cooked enough. Pulled pork: 25 pounds, smoked by James since 3 AM. Coleslaw: two hotel pans. Baked beans: Earline's recipe, the one with molasses and mustard and a secret ingredient that I will take to my grave (it's coffee; the secret ingredient is coffee; I'm taking it to my grave starting now). Banana pudding: three trays, Nilla wafers, homemade custard, the banana pudding that makes people close their eyes.

Setup: 10 AM. Me, James, and DeShawn. The boy is learning — not just cooking but the logistics of feeding people outside a kitchen, the portable reality of catering, the way you have to think about temperature and timing and presentation in a place where you don't control the environment. DeShawn carried the cornbread like it was a newborn. Careful. Reverent. The boy understands the cornbread. The boy might be one of us.

The event: perfect. Not "perfect" like nothing went wrong — the baked beans were slightly over-seasoned (I added cayenne twice because I forgot I'd already added it, the crisis-brain of a first catering event manifesting as double-cayenne beans) — but perfect like: people ate. People came back for seconds. People closed their eyes on the banana pudding. A woman told me the pulled pork was the best she'd ever had. A man asked for the cornbread recipe and I said: "It's my grandmother's and it's not for sale." He laughed. I wasn't joking. Earline's cornbread recipe goes to Chloe and Chloe only, and the man in the tech company t-shirt can find his own grandmother.

Revenue from the event: $2,500, minus approximately $800 in food costs and $300 in labor (James and DeShawn). Net: $1,400. In one afternoon. One thousand four hundred dollars for one meal served in one park on one Saturday. The dental practice paid me $1,400 every two weeks. The restaurant pays me more than that, but the restaurant takes sixty hours a week. This catering gig took: twelve hours of prep and three hours of service. Fifteen hours. $1,400. The math is: different. The math suggests: catering might be a thing. Catering might be the next thing. The table doesn't just grow in one direction. The table goes where the people are.

Chloe came to help serve. She wore her Sarah's Table t-shirt (the one she designed, green text on cream, the logo that is Earline's skillet in silhouette) and she served banana pudding with the focus of a surgeon. She also photographed the event. Twenty-three photos. The best one: a wide shot of the buffet line, seventy-five people in a Nashville park eating food from my grandmother's recipes, the skyline in the background, the sun making everything gold. The photo is: everything. The photo is the business plan for the next chapter. The chapter where the table leaves the building. The chapter where the food finds people wherever they are. Onward.

After that first catering event—after the cornbread and the pulled pork and the banana pudding that made people close their eyes—I started thinking hard about what travels well, what holds at temperature in a park pavilion, and what earns a second trip through the buffet line without any help from me. This Strawberry Jello Salad is exactly that dish: make it ahead, keep it cold, set it on the table, and let it do its own work. It’s the kind of thing Mama would have brought to a church potluck and Earline would have called “easy enough to be suspicious.” When the table leaves the building, you need recipes that know how to behave. This one does.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 0 minutes | Total Time: 4 hours 15 minutes (includes chilling) | Servings: 12

Ingredients

2 (3 oz) packages strawberry gelatin (such as Jell-O)
2 cups boiling water
1 (16 oz) package frozen strawberries, thawed and juice reserved
1 (20 oz) can crushed pineapple, drained, juice reserved
3 medium bananas, mashed
1 cup chopped pecans (optional)
1 (16 oz) container sour cream

Instructions

Dissolve the gelatin. In a large mixing bowl, pour the boiling water over both packages of strawberry gelatin. Stir for at least 2 minutes until the gelatin is completely dissolved with no granules remaining.
Add the fruit. Stir in the thawed strawberries with their juice, the drained crushed pineapple, and the mashed bananas. Fold in the pecans if using. Mix until everything is evenly distributed.
First layer. Pour half of the gelatin mixture into a 9x13 inch baking dish. Refrigerate uncovered until firm, about 2 hours.
Add the sour cream layer. Once the first layer is fully set, carefully spread the sour cream in an even layer over the top using an offset spatula or the back of a spoon.
Add the second layer. Gently pour the remaining gelatin mixture over the sour cream layer. Cover the dish with plastic wrap and refrigerate until the top layer is completely set, at least 2 more hours or overnight.
Serve. Cut into squares and serve cold directly from the dish. For catering and transport, keep covered and chilled until service. It holds beautifully for 2—3 days in the refrigerator.

Nutrition (per serving)

Strawberry Jello Salad — The One That Travels Well