On a misunderstood mousse and the girl who loved it anyway

For a good number of her formative years, my friend Jennifer was constitutionally incapable of following a recipe. It wasn’t an issue of willful aversion, nor or of culinary rebellion, but every time she tried to follow directions, something went horribly wrong. As a pre-teen, for example, Jen whipped up a batch of her mother’s famous banana nut bread as a gift for her teachers, but sadly, her