The Jell-O Recipe That Mamie Eisenhower Used To Win The Cold War

Here is your bit of "DC gossip" for the day: a Jell-o dessert recipe, for the holiday of Thanksgiving! It is Mamie Eisenhower's famed Red Scare Thanksgiving Jell-o Dessert and it is best served chilled, to family members you hate. (There is Mamie right there with "friend" Lenora Hickock, feeding each other Jell-O and giggling knowingly.) This vile thing is exactly what the Eisenhowers used to force-feed the Soviets, and it is delicious .

 Ingredients:  

• One (1) packet of sugar-free raspberry Jello

• One (1) small-ish amount of water

• One (1) handful of ice cubes

• One (1) cup of Sprite Zero

• One (1) packet of Cherry-Pomegranate Crystal Light

1. Fill a small-ish sauce pan thing with water. Ideally it should amount to around a cup or so, but sometimes even the best chefs have a difficult time finding where overreaching family members moved the measuring cups, so just whatever feels like a cup, that’s probably a cup.

2. Pour out the sugar-free raspberry Jello into a bowl. Make sure the bowl is big enough to hold at least two or so cups of liquid. This last point is crucial.

3. Stare at the water until it boils. Do not worry: it will boil, despite the epigram suggesting otherwise.

4. Pour the boiling water on top of the Jello in the bowl and stir it a few times so all the Jello particles whiz around in an even fashion and none are stuck to the bottom.

5. Pour like a half-cup of cold Sprite Zero into the mixture too.

6. So now grab a handful of ice cubes and place them in here too, as this will hasten the Jello along on its journey from liquid Jello to Jello Jello.

7. Add a dash, or more than a dash—no judgment!—of Cherry-Pomegranate Crystal Light. There are now several different flavors floating about, which is several minus one more than you would have in cases of unmodified sugar-free raspberry Jello.

8. Place in freezer. You heard me.

9. Check on the Jello by sticking your finger in it every 10 to 15 minutes.

10. When it resembles an ice-skating rink covered in blood (a hockey rink?), it is Time.

This is all it took, plus Ronald Reagan.