Sometimes I get the thought in my head that I want to change up the graphics on my recipe page and that sends me on a wild hunt delving through old sites, the Wayback Machine and GifCities looking for old school recipe graphics. I don't know why I keep doing this because, while I'm not adverse to using different looks on some of my site pages, I kind of want the core pages to have the same look. But every now and then the brain will nudge me and say, "Hey, you know what would be a good idea?"

On one of my last forays into looking for recipe-related graphics, I stumbled upon Lori Steele's Family Recipes, a delightful Geocities site that is full of recipes from Lori and her family. She even has pictures of some of the family members who contributed recipes. One of the recipes caught my eye and I really wanted to try it. Now, unless I crack how to become immortal, I will never make all the recipes I have saved to try "some day." I certainly didn't need another one. But I actually tried this one! This was a recipe contributed by one of Lori's sisters, Carolyn, and there's a note saying she said it came from Southern Living Magazine. It definitely looks like it could be one of their recipes!

Recipe for Unforgettable Chicken Casserole written in black Comic Sans on a light teal background

The only thing that really gave me a pause about the recipe was the amount of celery. 2 cups seems a prodigious amount! I ended up using 4 stalks of celery which didn't give me quite 2 cups but I thought that much celery was quite enough. Verdict: it wasn't bad! It needed more seasoning and, between the sour cream, mayo and cream of chicken soup, it was very creamy. Also, it was fine as leftovers (and because I live alone I had so much left over) but the French-fried onions were not crispy when the casserole was reheated which was a little bit sad. Will I make this again? Probably not! But it was something I had a hankering to try and I'm happy I tried it out.

I made a boatload of updates to the website this week. I keep a Web_to_do.txt file and I had all sorts of website "chores" that had been piling up. Part of the reason they hadn't been getting done is that lately I've been getting lost in hunting down tiaras. Man, it is so easy to get lost in sparklies! Anyway, this is what I accomplished:

In my travels around the web, I've been coming across post card clubs! Not like Postcrossing. These are more like subscription clubs. For a fee, the person who runs it will send you postcards and usually some other goodies. I love getting stuff in the mail and I think this is such a lovely analog idea! I haven't tried any of these myself but thought I'd share them with you all.

I found the first one by perusing other Neocities sites - Silver Swan Post Club. You sign up for the month by a certain date and she'll send you: an art print/postcard, a recipe card (with a recipe on it, of course!), big and little stickers, a personal note and a surprise papercraft.

Then I found Frugit, an animated black cat who has some snazzy music videos (one which I'll link in the listening section). There is also a website where you can sign up for Frugit's Dispatch. Every month you will get a sticker sheet, two exclusive die cut stickers, an official note from management (I think that's Frugit) and a second document that changes monthly - treat schedules, incident reports, performance reviews. You can even opt for the Full Dispatch or a Lite version where you only get the stickers and note. It looks like this is just starting so I haven't seen any reviews or comments but it sounds fun.

And, as long as I'm talking about postcard clubs, I want to shout out one that I've actually known about for a bit. It's run by one of the YouTubers I watch, Chani Japan. She's an Australian who has been living in Japan, where she teaches English. She lives with her gorgeous kitty, Millie, and her channel is just all about life. She goes places (Millie likes to travel and camp), she does interesting things, she talks about daily life in Japan. She's in her 50s so she sometimes talks about things she's been doing to stay healthy as she ages. It's just a very relaxed, low key lovely channel to watch. She has a postcard club you can sign up for on her Ko-fi.

Postcard clubs led to me wondering about postcard swaps other than Postcrossing and I did find one that seems to be fairly active - Swap-Bot.com. There are all kinds of themed swaps you can join - Tarot cards, tea swaps, authentic vintage post cards, Artist Trading Card (ATC) challenges. It looks really fun and reminds me of the days when I was big into rubber stamping and joined all kinds of swaps.

And penpals are still a thing! I had penpals when I was a teen. When I was 16 I went on a class trip to Germany and left my name and address on the bulletin board in one of the youth hostels and someone actually wrote back to me! We exchanged letters for several years. I had another penpal from Romania that I got through an organization and we exchanged letters for a couple of years. Global Pen Friends looks to be a legit organization for people of all ages. Kinda tempted to get back into the penpal game but the last few times I tried I got no responses so I think I might be cursed.

Listening

Some podcasts I listened to this past week:

So earlier this week Rusty Bytes posted a new music mix on the homepage, Happy Eurodance & Trance Mix in Brooklyn (Tinzo) from the Book Club Radio YouTube channel and, oh my gosh, this mix is SO GOOD! I have already listened to it 3 times.

I came across I Knead Dem Biscuits and just loved the funk and the animation. I shared it with Best Son and he thinks there's some AI involved. Gah! People in the comments think so too but YouTube comments are as bad as Reddit ones, so I don't know. I don't think this is AI slop but it seems like there may have been some AI assistance with the song creation. I liked this so much! And now I like it a little less. Am I being too harsh? I guess I'm still trying to figure out my stance on how much AI and what kind is too much and when my line has ben crossed.

Reading

I was so looking forward to Fox and I: An Uncommon Friendship by Catherine Raven. I love animal stories and this seemed like it would be so sweet - the story of a biologist who lives in the wilderness and befriends a wild fox, meeting with him on his terms and reading to him from The Litte Prince. But the story is just dragging and I found myself reading it like it was an assignment, not like I was enjoying it, so this is going to be the first DNF (did not finish) of the year.

I picked another book that had been on my Libby wishlist for a while, The Lies of the Ajungo by Moses Ose Utomi. Oh wow, what a wonderful story! Very short, only about 90 pages, but a wonderful fantasy all about a young boy who lives in a city that has a severe shortage of water. He goes on a quest to find water for his mother and his city and has adventures and finds out some truths. There are 2 more books in the series but the library didn't have them available as e-books or actual books so I requested an interlibrary loan and hopefully those will be here soon.

In the meantime, Best Son passed on the first 3 books of The Black Company series by Glen Cook and I'm currently reading the first one and quite enjoying it. The mercenary life described in these books and the way everyone gets along is giving me very much the same feeling as Barbara Hambly's Sun Wolf and Starhawk books.

And! There is a new Penric and Desdemona novella out from Lois McMaster Bujold, Darksight Dare! She had just released a novella in the series in October. I didn't know we were getting another one so soon! That's waiting for me on my Kobo and I think I'll read it once I'm finished with this first Black Company book.

Watching

I finished this season of Matlock and it was really good! I was not even interested in this series but once I started watching it I was hooked! Good news is that it's been renewed for a third season. Bad news is that it won't be released until mid-season so probably sometime next year.

Snaketown: Secrets of the Hohokam – Arizona’s Forgotten Desert Empire was an excellent watch. I think a lot of people don't know there were large cities and thriving cultures here in the desert Southwest in the pre-Columbian times.

Link Lagniappe

OK, that's it for this week!

When I first started using Zonelets I had Disqus set up as a commenting system but it looked obnoxiously ugly and I ditched it. Some people are happy to not have blog interaction but I'd love to hear from you if you have any thoughts you want to share! You can respond through my guestbook or email. If you found this link on Discord or the 32-Bit Cafe Discourse, you can message me there or leave a message on my Neocities profile page.