Gelology in the news!

Hello Fellow Gelophiles,

The past five days have been an experience. To quote one of my favorite TV show, My So-Called Life, "We had a time."

Gelology was a big hit at the JELL-O Mold competition in Brooklyn this past weekend. Here's a link to one of the articles that mentions Gelology and the JELL-Obama creation.

May I have the envelope please.....

Hello Gelophiles,

Yesterday was a whirlwind of activity. The events leading up to the JELL-O Mold Competition will be chronicled, but I am still exhausted and not quite able to articulate the experience.

I will say that I met the most creative, friendly, and fun group of people all gathered around Jello. The contenders were brilliant. The spectators, enthusiastic. I learned a lot about molding techniques, flavor combinations, and the hot to turn a hot dog into Jello.

More will come in due time this week. Just need to pack up the materials and head out of town. I will tell all soon...

The Final Countdown

Hello Fellow Gelologists,

We are in the final hours until the Gowanus Jello Mold Competition. Michelle and I've been working furiously for the past sixteen hours. Five Barack Obamas, seven White House, and twenty stars, we are approaching......completion. Now we need to get cleaned and prepped for the event.

Up at 8, we've been melting, whisking, oiling, debating, beating, sooo many "ing" verbs!

On the Road to Find Out

Hello Gelophiles,

A lot has happened with gelatin over the past four years; previously no one was really doing anything with it. Very rarely in life have I been ahead of a trend, but I think with Jello I was-all thanks to my friend Michelle. But I do believe that ideas are like children, precious... precious children. They need love to grow.

Ok, not really. I think ideas are more like the satan spawn from "Rosemary's Baby". A lot of people are conspiring to get them born and if you're aren't the birthing vehicle someone else will be. So if you're picked, best to lay everything else aside and go full esteem ahead. I mean at least Mai Farrow lived. That poor other girl.... not so much.

So I'm on the road to New York City for the Jell-O Mold competition hosted by Gowanus Studios. A whole competition. And the 3r d annual at that. I set the goal for myself to make a mold out of a bust I had of Barack Obama. And ladies and gentelmen... it worked!

On Friday I spent a few hours at Stony Brook Arts Center and learned heaps from Ben and Kevin about mold making. My expertise has significantly increased and I now something about vaccuum forming plastics. But more on that at another time. For now I am sticking with food safe platinum cured silicone rubber. (Wow that's a fingerfull to type). It's expensive stuff but it works really well if you are only making one ore two molds of something.

At Stony Brook, I made a box out of foam core and hot glue. Everything that I could do wrong I did. But learning should be just that. Make mistake...learn from it. We mixed up the material and degassed. The amount of air bubbles that came out of the liquid silicone was amazing.


My first mold (shown below) did not get degassed and it's riddles with tiny bubbles. However these tiny bubbled neither made me feel happy nor fine.


With Obama mold 2.0 there were absosmurfly no bubbles in it! I may have weird hobbies, or low expectations in life. but upon seeing this machine in operation, I was excstatic! Vacuum degassing chamber...where have you been all my life?!

Now I have the perfect bubble free mold, check it out below. So now I have wo molds to take to New York. One good but the new one even gooder. I'll post more about the process but right now I'm feeling a little carsick on the bus and need to not be staring at a computer screen.


More later.

Obama 1.0....

Hello Gelophiles,

This morning I unleashed the first Obama gelatin bust and......it was a disaster. The poor President came out in four separate pieces.

One week and one day

Hello Gelophiles,

One week and one day from today is the Jell-o Mold Competition in Brooklyn. I've been thinking and thinking and thinking about the jello, the aesthetics, the logistics. So many choices.

Today I am going to the Stony Brook Fine Arts center in Jamaica Plain. I've been looking for a vacuum degasser to eliminate nasty bubbles in my silicone medium. (Don't you just hate that?!). After a long search seriously about three months and many bizarre cold calls, I've finally found a place that has one. And merely blocks from my house. Isn't that ca-razee!?

Thanks to the helpful hands of Ben at the Stony Brook Fine Arts, I will be making my mold box and pouring my mold. It'll take about 24 hours to solidify and post-cure. Just in time to test out the jello recipe Michelle and I will be making on Saturday afternoon.

Here is a hosted by Thu Tran of IFC's Food Party as she narrates the Jello Competitors from 2009.

from The Feedbag on Vimeo.

Keep posted for more information on the road to Jell-o.

A call to arms.... Jello arms!

Hello Fellow Gelologists!

It's been a while since my last posting. Worry not, jello was made, but I wasn't doing much documenting. More will come.

But I have some really exciting news! Gelology has entered the World Famous, International, Stanley Cup Finals of Jello Mold Competitions! I've entered the ...er.... Jello Mold Competition! Well, I think it's subtitled Jello's Big Adventure. I can't wait.

I've had a mold in mind for a while. All the components are sitting in my apartment and tonight the unveiling, the wheedling, the spackling, the gelmorgifying will begin. Mwah ha ha ha! (Insert flash of lightning and crack of thunder!).

I had this website bookmarked since last summer when I found out about the competition posthumously. Well, it wasn't dead, just over. There was an array of varying Jello molds, from edible agar cups, gelatinous Mother Mary's, and more. But I forgot all about it until something fired in my brain this afternoon and lo and behold the final day to register was today! Phew. Made it,

Now, if only there is still space available I'm in. But until I receive a sad and dastardly email proclaiming that there isn't space, then I am going to hope for the best.

So the preparation begins. Just like a mixed martial arts fighter, I shall begin my training. Tonight, let the games begin.