One of my favorite cookbooks-to-read is Jane and Michael Stern's "Square Meals." It's a book of past recipes - some of them still good, some of them just stuff people don't make any more. (There's a whole chapter on Jell-O).

I remember in the "Ladies' Lunch" section, they talked about the "Pink Parties" Lily Pons used to have....all the food would be pink, down to chicken salad dyed using pomegranate juice.

And to this, allegedly, Ms. Pons invited recruits from the nearby Army base. And fed them her pink lunches, apparently in her mind this would raise morale.

And the Sterns report that she would flit among the soldiers waiting in line for their food, and squeal to them, "Eet ees FUN to eat PEEEENK food, no?"

I have only heard one recording of Lily Pons that I can remember ("The Bell Song," from Lakme), but I can imagine her squealing over the FUN of the PEEEEENK here:

Hello Kitty PC.

Oh, that is SO VERY PINK. I know, some people will be utterly horrified by it but I have to admit, the part of me that appreciates good tackiness (the same part of me that loves when people go all Griswold House with their Christmas decorations) really loves this. (Pity it's a fairly low-power machine; I could see replacing the Dell genere-box in my office with this and blowing my colleague's minds. Though I can hear one of them, upon seeing it, shaking his head slowly and saying, "Only you, Erica. Only you.")