Not long ago, we brought you James Lileks’ Gallery of Regrettable Food. And now, for nostalgia buffs who are watching their waistlines, we bring you this site dedicated to Weight Watcher recipe cards from the ’70s.

It’s not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach, but it did make me laugh myself sick. Click on the above pic to view the bean and mushroom salad in its full, quivering glory, then ponder the site author’s musing: “See how the Ceramic Mushroom Family has gathered to show their children what happens to bad little mushrooms.” The props are almost as scary as the food!

Warning: The language does get a bit salty at times, but oh my, that Roast Chicken, Italian Style is, well, indescribably, delectably disgusting. And the Fluffy Mackerel Pudding? Nuff said. Whatever you do, I hope you do not get inspired by this site for the F&B at your next retro-event!

(Thanks to a cyber friend who shall remain anonymous for bringing this one to my attention. I think.)

From the first paragraph of a recent front-page article in a magazine that thankfully is not one of ours:

“National and regional organizations in the association industry have varying practices and opinions regarding whether or not to charge attendees a fee to access their annual trade shoes.”

Makes me think of a bowling alley-type situation, where people have to pay to get special shoes they can only wear on the tradeshow floor! Actually, that’s not a bad idea–entrepreneurs, start your engines. (What can I say? It’s been a long week.)

In a move that may interest no one but us magazine folks, the American Society of Association Executives’ choice of a name for its new magazine, Association Leadership, is already taken by the Texas SAE’s magazine, according to Association Trends (subscription req’d).

Seems that the TSAE’s magazine has been publishing under that name for 11 years, but they never registered the title. ASAE says no conflict turned up during their title search. However this gets resolved, it seems like a bit of an “oops” to me that ASAE didn’t even know about TSAE’s magazine after 11 years, which obviously they didn’t or this would have been resolved before ASAE’s announcement went out.

Congratulations to Orlando Hotelier Harris Rosen (of Rosen Hotels & Resorts fame), who was honored byThe U.S. Dream Academy at the 3Power of a Dream Gala2 in Washington, D.C., recently. He must have been thrilled to get the President’s Award for his work with an educational pilot program for Tangelo Park, a predominantly African American community in Orlando, that would allow tots to attend preschool at no cost to their parents, and that pays the college costs for those who go to a Florida public college. From a press release:

Since its inception in 1993, the Tangelo Park program has provided more than 250 college scholarships, and high school dropout rates have gone from 25% in 1993 to just 6% last year.

Definitely a worthy cause, and he deserves recognition for his work with the project. But what made me laugh was this: “Also in attendance was Oprah Winfrey who apparently made an impression on the usually unflappable Rosen. Upon accepting his award, Rosen quipped, ‘I just met Oprah, and I’m still kind of tingling.’” Not too surprising, seeing as she looks absolutely fabulous in that dress!

Being somewhat of an artistic soul (or wannabe, anyway–when I’m not writing articles and blogging, I’m painting pet portraits), a recent e-mail from Vivian Matz Levi caught my eye. She’s recently started teaching leadership skills through painting workshops to senior executives at Columbia University’s Business School’s Executive Education retreat.

I love what she said about one person’s feedback:

One Danish Oil executive said that he had always wanted to paint but never thought he could produce a reasonably good painting until taking our workshop. This experience has made him wonder about the other things he thought about doing but was afraid to try.

I remember being between jobs and thinking, what the heck, I’ll take my painting hobby and see if I can make a business out of it. Well, that didn’t happen–it’s way too labor-intensive to make a living at it–but I did teach myself html and learned how to build a Web site in the process, and met a lot of fellow pet-lovers along the way. I was afraid to put myself out there, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. And it gave me an excuse to do a lot more painting, which I had never thought of as contributing to leadership skills. But she’s right, it does teach you to look at everyday items, systems, and processes in a completely different way, and to look at complex things and break them down into their components. Then you can rebuild the items in new and interesting ways that you may not have thought of before.

Anyway, if you’re looking for something completely different than the usual ropes course, I can’t think of anything more interesting–and more boundary-testing–than getting a bunch of execs to sit down and paint together. Especially if they haven’t touched a brush to paper since grade school. Being willing to admit that you don’t know how to do something, but you’re willing to learn along with your peers? That’s leadership, IMHO.

I can’t vouch for her program, not having gone through it myself, but boy do I like the idea. If you’re interested, you can contact Vivian Matz Levi at (917) 821-6524 or via e-mail.