So retro I may have to chant

With a blog like this, I don't really have to tell you that I love retro stuff. That's why it's no surprise that finding this recipe in Good Housekeeping's Show-You-How Cook Book (1971) made me clap my hands just a little. (Yes, I lead my private life as if I'm in a studio audience. Luckily, my loved ones find it adorable rather than creepy to occasionally hear unexpected and unexplained clapping and/or cheering.) I love this recipe because it's about as retro as a recipe can get without involving some type of Jell-O.

It starts with disembodied but well-manicured hands demonstrating how to make a rice ring!

I am not sure why cooks used to be obsessed with making carb-centric rings, but the noodle ring and the rice ring were HUGE for a while. I like the colorful addition of tomatoes to this one.

What did cooks then do with the lovely ring? Fill it with some sort of sauce or gravy, lovingly prepared on a brown stovetop in a Corning Ware blue cornflower dish (with removable handle)!

And not just any saucy filling-- vintage saucy filling:

Hamburger Stroganoff! With ground chuck, MSG, condensed cream-of-chicken soup, and sour cream! Serve with head-lettuce wedges in Russian dressing (as suggested) and canned fruit cocktail suspended in Jell-O (I know the suggested chocolate cake would be WAY better, but humor me!) in a room with rust-colored shag carpeting and I will applaud wildly.

If I get really excited, I might start chanting "Ste-phen! Ste-phen!" because many hours of watching The Colbert Report have taught me that this is the most exciting thing to chant. You can ignore me and enjoy your dinner, or perhaps "enjoy" it, as the case may be....