Speaker 1: Hello, friends, and welcome to Theme Party the podcast. I'm
your host, Maretta mos In case this is your first
time listening, here's what we're doing. Every season, I pick
a theme and our team comes up with their own
ideas for an audio drama that somehow fits the theme,
even if it only fits if you put it in
one of those vacuum seal bags that suck out all
the year to make it more compact. Once I have
made their episode, I invite them here to talk about it.
I am thrilled to be here today with my party guest,
Alisa Petrie. Hello. Alisa is a singer and voice actor
working in the Lexington Fayette metropolitan area in Kentucky. Originally
from the Tri Cities area of East Tennessee, she has
been involved in many theater productions and musicals in her
community over the years. In Colluding, The King and I,
Guys and Dolls, Much Ado About Nothing, The Music Man,
and My Fair Lady. Alisa is a podcast director, sound designer,
and voice actor. If you're a fan of Peculiar Radio,
you may recognize her as Mackenzie mac harrison, and she
has recently taken on the role of the executive producer
and the voice of Moira Graves in the collection of
Moira Graves.
Speaker 2: Alisa, please sell Hello, Hello, I love it. Welcome. I'm
so glad you're here.
Speaker 1: Congratulations on launching your show by the way.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, thank you.
Speaker 1: You've put so much work into it.
Speaker 3: Oh oh, it's been an absolute whirlwind. But I am
so so excited to finally like bring this project that
me and a whole bunch of other people have been
working on for six months. So oh, I'm so happy
that people are like here to enjoy it and can
like finally receive it.
Speaker 1: I mean the fact that you bring up that it's
been only six months, and considering when we first started
with Peculiar Radio that we did that in was it
three years or four years? I can't even remember how
long it took a ticket that first season out there,
But good job, what a fast turned around.
Speaker 3: I a thank you.
Speaker 1: I appreciate it, Yes, good job taking the compliment.
Speaker 3: But also like I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been
able to remotely do it without all y'all at lengthy tangents.
So it's also like a thank you to you guys too.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's what we're here for Welcome.
Speaker 3: It has been an absolute wild ride and I am very,
very proud and impressed of my team for us actually
doing this in such a short period of time. But
totally we are taking more time for season two.
Speaker 1: Yes, learn those lessons everybody, But I mean, if you
can do it, great, If you don't have to, why
do it exactly? Yeah, I like to start the show
out with a question for myself, asking myself, what kind
of party do I think you would be? Were you
Elisa to be a party? Okay, this might be a
little too all the nose and I might be influenced
by the collection of Moira Graves a little bit, but
I think that you would be a Halloween themed gaming
party would be my guest. I'm thinking friends gathered around
the table playing some ttorpgs, scary movies on the TV
in the background. Maybe some people aren't paying attention to
the game because they're watching the movies a little bit
too much. And snacks that are very game friendly, so
they're not getting your fingers too dirty. They're not too messy,
but they're still delicious. Do you agree or disagree with
this assessment?
Speaker 3: I feel that is pretty close. The only substitution I
would make is I would do board games instead of
TTRPGs because those take like a lot more work and
stuff like that as well as, uh like, especially if
you're doing like horror like themed TTRPGs. You know, everyone's
got to come with like the right mindset, you know,
to really like get the most out of those. That's
I think the biggest change that I would make.
Speaker 1: But the rest of it, Yes, do you have a
board game that you're particularly into right now?
Speaker 3: Honestly, like it's an old kind of a mainstay in
my board game collection, by I really enjoy Betrayal at
House on the Hill.
Speaker 1: Ah, so good.
Speaker 3: It's just so fun. It's so many different scenarios. And
then like the balders Gate version that came out like
four to five years later, Oh yes, highly recommend it
is also very very good, and I feel like they
actually did improvements unlike some of the systems from the
trailer at House of the Hills. So there you go.
Speaker 1: Interesting, Okay, I've played through it several times, I could
safely say several times with some friends, and we have
not dabbled in any of the expansion packs or updated
versions or anything like that. Because we still have a
lot more to play through of the original, but it's
so satisfying to play through and like try to decide
how much you're going to help your teammates or how
much you're going to collaborate before the haunt begins. There's
absolutely no way to know who's going to be the villain.
Spoilers for anybody who hasn't played the game, but you
should just play the game. It's really good. Yeah, Okay,
I like that. I'm definitely more into more games than TTRPGs,
So one hundred percent on board with all of that.
So the theme for this season of theme party of
the podcast is family Traditions. Did your story fit the theme? Yes, fantastic.
Do you want to expand more on that, Yeah, I
feel like it kind of.
Speaker 3: It happens both in like the framing device part of
the story as well as the horror story. It's alf
like Moira, she's from a family that has had special
gifts like going back generational generation and stuff like that,
so there's a little bit of that there. But then
also in the horror story itself, it's very much centered
around a older woman and her son and how they're
budding heads more and more and more, and like she's
done what she thought that she's needed to do for
herself for her family, and her son is like, I
don't know about that. So so it's an interesting I mean,
she's pretty terrible, yeah, no bones about it. She's pretty awful,
but also like she has justified it to herself. Let's
say that she needed to go to these lengths to
make things secure for herself, for her son, for her family,
and then her son was like, yeah, no, I disagree
a lot. So yeah, so there's very much Moira is
continuing this inheritance of her family, while the son Michael
is like, yeah, no, I'm not.
Speaker 1: About this true. All right. Your episode is called The
Collection of Moyra Graves. It is in fact the pilot
for your series, The Collection of Moira Graves. Could you
read us your tagline and your log line.
Speaker 4: Yes, she has a horde of stories waiting to be told, solitary, eccentric,
psychic shares spine tingling tales from her eerie collection, unintentionally
drawing together an eclectic and spirited community.
Speaker 1: I could cut you off and say I like the
wavy fingers just in like the corner of your screen.
Speaker 3: Listen. That's one of the things I love about voice
acting is I could do whatever with my face with
my hands and it doesn't matter because it's only my
voice that's getting recorder.
Speaker 1: Or it does matter because it can get your voice
to do things that maybe the little weavy fingers without it.
Speaker 3: Wouldn't do that so exactly, because you know, this is
the woo woo, this is like the bookie.
Speaker 1: It's all the handring or you're tickling somebody exactly. Alisa's
roles in making this episode of the Collection of Moira
Graves include executive producer, writer, director, casting, sound design, and
production coordination. Let's listen to a sample of your episode.
Speaker 4: Welcome to the Collection of Moira Graves.
Speaker 3: Please come in.
Speaker 4: Elizabeth vowed that when she grew up she would always
have more than enough for the rest of her life.
Speaker 2: You're not leaving?
Speaker 1: What the hell?
Speaker 3: I guess it's too late.
Speaker 1: Now, Alisa, is there another podcast that inspired you to
make your own podcast? And if so, what is the goodness?
Speaker 3: I really enjoyed the podcast Video Palace, which is a
horror podcast. It's very much old sort of in universe
with these people kind of going out and like interviewing
people with like a little like handheld recorder or video
camera or whatever like that, and there's something about it
that I found really like immersive and interesting and stuff
like that. And then wow, know this isn't this might
be like a little like brown nosy Answer, but also
like peculiar Radio. I mean it's you know, working with
you guys that I was like, Oh, I think I
might be able to do this. And then Lengthy Tangent
put out the call for podcast ideas and I was like,
you know what, put something together. Let me like give
this a go.
Speaker 2: I love that.
Speaker 1: Oh I love that for you. Okay, yes, absolutely, I
am personally a huge fan of brown nosing, So don't
ever apologize for personally who doesn't love being flattered.
Speaker 3: It's true.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's very true. Sure, what about things outside of podcasting?
Was there anything else that inspired you to make specifically
like a horror podcast?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean I love horror just period. Like I
growing up, despite being a like scaredy cat, somehow I
still found myself reading scary stories to tell them the dark.
Like I would rent it from like my school's library,
and it had like the original drawings that were like
the like really creepy, like sketchy, drippy drawings, and they.
Speaker 2: Were so good.
Speaker 1: They're so good but also so traumatic. Yes, among our
generation doesn't know those books and think back just like.
Speaker 2: But it was so good. Then.
Speaker 3: I also watched a whole lot of Are You Afraid
of the Dark? Submitted for the approval of the Midnight
Society and all that. I was on the swim team
when I was in elementary school and middle school a
little bit, and the episode of Are You Afraid of
the Dark that's about the swimming pool monster and like
the smell that's a lot like chlorine. Oh, there were
some swim practices where if I had just watched that
episode that I was like, I just going to go
very quickly from the pole to the locker room and out.
Uh oh bad. But yeah, for the longest time, I
enjoyed like reading it, but I didn't like watch horror movies.
I didn't want to go to like Haunted Attractions or
anything like that. But like after college something changed where
I was like, you know what, I'm gonna give horror
movies and stuff like that a whole nother try. So
I ended up actually working as a scare actor for
five years at a local haunted attraction, and then my
dream job being behind the scenes for that kind of
like made horror movies more approachable in like my brain
for some reason. So then I just dived full in
into watching all the horror movies. And yeah, I'm a
full on horror buff.
Speaker 1: Now are you yourself afraid of like haunted houses and
haunted hey ride kind of situations or not anymore?
Speaker 3: Like I still get like the thrill out of it,
but having worked at one kind of removed a little
bit of the mystique enough to where it doesn't like
super duper get to me. But like I can still
go and have fun, and I can appreciate what the
actors are bringing, like how the haunt itself is like
establishing like their atmosphere and stuff like that. So yeah,
so I now go to them as much as I
can every Halloween season, and I very much enjoy it.
Speaker 1: I am not that person. I'm the type of person
I have to go with someone who is going to
be more scared than I am, So I am not
so scared. I can appreciate how afraid they are and
kind of laugh at like, ha ha ha, you're so scared.
Of things. But if I don't have that person, I
am that person, gotcha. I don't know, maybe I'm bad.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's one of the reasons why I get
a kick out of going with my sister is because,
bless her heart, she has like mark written all over
her when it comes to like scary stuff. I've been
working with her a little bit, you know, to like
things that she can do, to not broadcast to all
the scare actors in the world that she's the one
you want to pick on. But but yeah, I enjoy
going with her and see here get upset delightful in
a fun way like she's there, but you know, because
she wants to have fun too, But she gets picked
on a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we don't want anybody to need therapy for our benefit,
exactly if they're having a good time, and our good
time can be parallel to theirs, but not necessarily for
the same reason. Everybody's fine, exactly, It's all good, exactly. Yeah,
all right, fantastic And scene for the collection of murder graves.
Since this is your first time making your own episode
and own series all by yourself, there must have been
some production roles that you've taken on for the first time.
I mean, we already went over which ones you did
for the show, but can you tell us which ones
it was your first time doing it and give us
a little taste of how it went.
Speaker 3: The two biggest ones was being producer and then being
part of the casting as well, like I fully did
the casting for this episode of Fiend Party, and then yeah,
being a producer just in general. Yeah, it's the first
time I've ever done that.
Speaker 1: Producer for me, when I first started doing it was like,
I've seen that word many times. I don't know what
it means. You know, like you produce a thing, but
everybody else is producing things. How is that different?
Speaker 3: You know? So right, Yeah, it's like in actually doing it,
you're like, oh, I'm facilitating the producing. Yeah, it's interesting,
Like it actually itches like a part of my brain
that likes to make schedules and like half things all
nice and lined up and being like, Okay, once that's done,
then we do want to do this, and then oh
I need to go back to this and blah blah blah.
It's also a part of my brain that's like there
are so many things, there's so many little small things.
I feel like I'm dying.
Speaker 1: Really is a lot, and also the fact that so
many of those things depend on the labor of other
people to move them along too. It's welcome. Welcome, Yes, yes,
it is hello. It is both maddening and so satisfying,
especially like I know I'm biased, but our team. I
love our team so much. Like I mean, so many
of us have met in person, not just through the internet,
but I don't know, We're great and I'm really excited
that we get to be all on the same team
or okay, god making fun stories and stuff together. So anyway, this.
Speaker 3: Has been Yeah, it's great.
Speaker 1: Yeah. What about sound designing a full episode from top
to bottom on your own? This is your first time
doing that, right, Yes.
Speaker 3: First time to that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I helped Lindsey Fawn, who's done a lot of sound
design for Peculiar Radio, so I was basically like her
assistant for quite a few of the episodes that she did.
But yeah, this was my very first time, you know,
from the ground up, completely building out multiple scenes an
entire episode and having to think of flow and things
like that. And then with horror it adds in a
whole nother layer of considerations and sound design like effects
that you need to be thinking about things like that
because you're not trying to just make it sound real
and immersive, You're also trying to make it scary. So
it has to go through like both filters in order
for something to be like Okay, yes I can use
that there. It needs to sound like it fits with
them the scene, but also like is it aiding the tension?
Is it aiding the scare? Is it aiding you know,
whatever is the thing of the moment?
Speaker 1: Yeap, totally agree. And I wanted to point out too
that as we were talking about how you wanted this
show to be relatable to the audience, you mentioned that
you wanted this to be accessively scary, so not over
the top like gore or anything that's going to be
something you have to shut off really quick if the
kids walk into the room or something like that, right right, Yeah.
Speaker 3: I have found that getting into horror myself, that I
feel like a big barrier why it took me so
long to dive into horror movies, that I felt like,
at least for someone who wasn't already part of the
commune and I could get feedback and ask for recommendations
and stuff like that, it felt like there wasn't a
really good in between step to like get you into
like horror movies or horror media as like a broader thing.
You know. We had our scary stories to tell in
the dark, our goosebumps are are you afraid of the
dark and all that, But at least again, as someone
who was a bit of an outsider training to get in,
it felt like there was no step between that and
then Blair Witch Project or Grave Encounters or it, you know,
heaven forbid, I watched it before I was ready for it,
you know, or Terrifier.
Speaker 1: I'm not familiar. I'm not as big into the horror
genre as you, so I may have to google that
one later.
Speaker 3: It's very gore heavy, Okay, I will just put it
like that, and it's of a specific brand of gore
that is not everybody's cup of tea. Let's put it
like that. So if I had watched that specifically like
kind of early in my days of like getting into
horror movies, I probably would have been put off for
a little bit longer. Sure, So, Yeah, so that was
part of why I wanted at least, you know, in
my section of the world and what I can do, Like,
I wanted something that'd be more proper quote unquote horror.
It's a little more scary, but it's not full balls
to the wall that you can easily stumble across when
just going down the list of like you know, twenty
or thirty top horror movies or whatever. So I hope
that this is something that can like be a good
entry point for people to like come into the horror
space because I feel like there's a lot of interesting
stories that can be told with horror, and the more
people who get into horror means the more people I
have to talk about it.
Speaker 1: So do you like a lot of jump scares in
your horror? Since you don't tend towards the extra gore
at least, do you like being jump scared?
Speaker 3: I feel like it's a balance if it's nothing but
jump scares, where like the scary music is building, and
or it's a psych out jump scare where it's like
building the scary the music's come in and the characters
what is happening, and then it turns out to be
like a cat that's like jumping in and frame. I
feel like those can do a good job and be useful.
But if the movie is nothing but that, it's not
so much that it scares me. It's more so just
a certain point, I get a little annoyed.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I don't like jump scary movies. I do
not like the tension. I personally don't mind gore. But
if something's gonna jump out at me and surprise me, no, no, thank.
Speaker 3: You, I feel like it there's a time and place
because they can do a good job of either you know,
ratcheting up the tension and then like releasing it so
that way reset your attention level and like, you know,
the movie can go on and it's fine, or you
can use it as a the monster is around the
corner and like getting the breathing, the adrenaline, all that
sort of stuff, getting it raised up and going so
that way you are like primed and ready for like
the chase sequence that is about to happen. Yeah, I
feel like it has a place, yep, in horror movies.
But if yeah, if it's nothing but that, yeah, it's
it doesn't scare me. I just get annoyed at it
and it's like, come come on.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Presumably some people like that, feeling so good for them
I'm glad there's something for you.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I don't mind jump scares. Gore in general
doesn't bug me. But there's like a certain level where
I'm like, all right, I'm.
Speaker 1: Out, that's fine.
Speaker 3: Uh, And then yeah, I really I do think overall
I enjoy kind of more atmospheric stuff where it has
like this like low level of tension that kind of
like increases and decreases, but it's more about like getting
you like pulled in and sucked in and like just
being part of the story. I think those are like
the ones that end up sticking with me the most.
Speaker 1: Gotcha, Well, that was a very lengthy tangent beyond I'm
going to keep seeing the name of the thing. Well,
thank you for taking that little walk with me to
talk about stuff not related to the question I just
asked you. That's fine, Absolutely happy to to bring it
back to the topic at hand. Though, For listeners that
might be interested in making their own podcasts themselves, or
what software or workshop or equipment did you find most
useful in making the collection of wibor grapes, I.
Speaker 3: Would say, if you're looking for like sound design and
stuff like that, find yourself some good sound libraries that'll
make your life so much easier when you're trying to
find that specific vibe, sound effect, whatever sample. Having those
libraries kind of good to go that you can immediately
go in and you know, put in your search terms
and have stuff pop out, versus trying to troll the
internet finding your stuff or hoping YouTube. Like the things
you find on YouTube are free use and hopefully they're
good enough quality and I can use them. So yeah,
having those just like ready to go from the get
go is just such a weight off the shoulders. And
then for producing, the biggest thing that helped me was
a website called win is Good, which I have found
very very helpful in terms of establishing availabilities and stuff
like that, and it's completely free to use. And then,
like I think the biggest thing from a producer's side
of things is set deadlines. Like even if you're not
actually pressed for time or have a specific date that
you need or want to get this project out of,
just having deadlines set period for your writers, for your
casting people and stuff like that just it keeps the
project in everybody's brains. If there is something written down,
even if it's nebulous like this date doesn't actually matter,
So just having something written down as like a focus
or a goal point or something like that just helps
keep the project in everybody's brains and can help like
whip that forward momentum and like making sure this thing
is actually getting done.
Speaker 1: Yep, that makes a ton of sense. And just finding
that if people have stuff on their schedule that comes
up that makes that deadline not work out, then you
by setting the deadline probably earlier than what you actually
would need if you do need to have a deadline,
then you have that little wiggle room later on in
the production time. So yeah, that is excellent advice. I
think I will point out for the sound libraries we've
used Soundly for lengthy tangent, I believe that you had
used audio hero as another resource for your sound Yes, yes, yes,
so if anybody's looking for specific recommendations, I personally love Soundly,
and there's other audio libraries out there. There are ways
that you can purchase audio packs from different sources and
upload them into Soundly so they're easily accessible and I
just love their interface as well.
Speaker 3: Oh and also keep an eye on humble Bundle. Oh yeah,
I actually purchased and downloaded quite a few different sound
packs and things like that from humble Bundle, and they
you know, they periodically rotate through stuff, So keep an
eye out there, because I think I downloaded like three
or four different sound packs and least at least some
of it ended up being used in this episode of
Theme Party.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's such a good deal. And don't they
also donate to charities and stuff too, So I mean,
you can't go wrong. It's good stuff. Yeah. On that note,
the character Michael played by the incredible Molly Michaelson didn't
skid daddle when they had their chance before the demon
entered the room in your episode, in your experience, presumably
without demons crashing the party, what is the biggest hint
that it's time to leave or end the party? Oh?
Speaker 3: Man? For me, it's when, especially the host is kind
of just stand around. There's less and less like engagement
happening with not only the people that are guests there,
but also the host. Honestly, I just look at the
host and if they're starting to look tired, all right, cool,
I'm out and considerate. Allow me to dip out so
that way you can go to bed yep or like
before I dip out, be like can I take some
trash out for you or just something like that. Yeah.
I usually look at the host as my barometer of
like how much longer am I sticking around? Or is
it time to let them go to sleep?
Speaker 1: You are a long lasting person at a party, You're
usually not the one that's like, oh well, look at
the time, it's time to go.
Speaker 3: No. I mean, if anything, I'm an introvert, so I
don't need I.
Speaker 1: Know, for the audience. Just listening to the audio, my
face did a thing and I'm surprised, I know.
Speaker 3: So you know, introvert extrovert. It's all about how where
you get your energy from, like how you recharge.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 3: My dad major extrovert. If he wasn't being around people
at least every other day, like a big group of people,
he would get twitchy at home and he would get
like I need to be talking to people, I need
to be finding out things. But for like myself to recharge,
I need some time to myself. I need to like
completely unplug, throw on a movie I've seen a thousand times,
and just play mobile games on my phone. But when
I'm at a party, like I enjoy being around people,
but I find myself like I'll just like maybe go
sit in a corner and just kind of be on
my phone for a little bit, and like, you know,
ten fifteen minutes, Okay, I'm good. I'll let me like
get back in there. So yeah, I end up being
one of the people that sticks around. But it's because
I'm taking little breaks to recharge by social battery.
Speaker 1: Pace yourself, Pace yourself. I love that. I am way
back in high school when I took the introvert extrovert
test in some class or I don't know, like maybe
just my group of friends said it. I was right
on the edge of introvert and extrovert. So I attribute
that to my habit of packing my schedule with too
many things and then crashing after a couple of days
and then just being like I have to lay down.
Speaker 3: Yes, so I feel that it's been too much that
really hard. I think I know what test you're talking about,
and I think I also was like on the border.
I think a little more toward introvert than extrovert.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, we are the same person, but just
split in hat. So I took a little bit more
of one of the more that makes sense kin it works.
Speaker 3: But no, you were not the first person to be
surprised by that, because I do a good job, you know,
jibber the jabber and and chit chatting with new people
and stuff like that. But it's very much like I
hit a certain point and then I need I just
need to lay peace out. I need to go in
my whole.
Speaker 1: The introverts in my life to talk about how they've
unlike extroverts, they've had to learn to like mask their
introversion because it's not generally very polite to just quit
in the middle love an interaction with somebody, so they
have to pretend that they're extroverted. So I guess it's
not that surprising that, especially someone who's on the cusp
of introversion going under the radar and being harder to spot.
So yeah, that makes sense to me. Then if that
is your idea of when it's time to leave a party,
in your opinion, what is an essential element? Every party
must have a good.
Speaker 3: Spread, Like, it doesn't matter if you're watching movies, it
doesn't matter if you're playing board games. It doesn't matter
if you're just there to just chit chat and just
hang out or whatever. Catch up with each other. There
needs to be a good food spread.
Speaker 1: And by spread you don't just mean like a dip
to put on crackers or something.
Speaker 3: You need the whole No, no, no, no. We need to
have like options, you know, I need to have some savor.
You need to have some sweet dips are good, A
variety of chips, you know, maybe a couple different kinds
of drinks. There needs to be like a good variety
where I feel like I'm at like a little mini
buffet and I can kind of just pick and choose
as my mood suit.
Speaker 1: Spade, Sure, is there a dish that you look forward
to when you go to different events like that you
hope somebody else has brought.
Speaker 3: There's very little that I'm like, oh, this better be there,
or I'm just walking out the door if it's not there.
But I will say anytime I see those little mini
kiches that someone has done, I really like those. Those
are fun. I don't know there's something about them that like,
I know, you just buy them frozen. It's a whole
meal in a bike, know, right, And you just buy
them frozen at your grocery store. They're just in the
freezer section. Or whatever.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: They's just something I find really satisfying about those. So
anytime I see these little mini keiches, I guess I
know what I'm getting.
Speaker 1: I think there's an element too of it feels like
you're being the tiniest bit responsible about eating a little
bit healthy because they've got usually they've got some vegetables
in them, they got a good amount of protein in them.
But they're so good.
Speaker 3: They're so good, and there's usually like it's usually mixed
with like cheeses and then like whatever little pastry they
used to like encapsulate it in as also really good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And they'd be so finicky to make, especially that
many if you're making them yourself. I used to be
a cook in a hotel and I did not work
the banquet side, but I would sometimes help them out.
And just tiny fiddly foods are delicious, but such a
pain in the pain in the butt to make.
Speaker 3: I can only imagine how annoying that would pay to
deal with having it like make sure that it's all
still like warm and at the temperature you want it
to when you like push it out, and oh yeah, no,
thank you.
Speaker 1: Yep, yep. Well, on that note, is there is there
a recipe or a real life party food or drink
that would fit the theme of your episode that you
perhaps would bring to.
Speaker 3: So at like church potlucks growing up and stuff like that,
there would always be the wife of the music pastor.
She would always bring something called death by Chocolate And
it is like really simple. It's literally just a crumbled
up layer of brownie chocolate pudding, whipped cream and then
all of that again, so it's just a trifle. I
think it would basically be like the proper term for it.
But it's just really simple, and it's just really good,
and especially like the longer you let it sit in
your fridge, the more it just melds together. And oh
it's so good.
Speaker 1: Cream sugar and chocolate. What more can you want? Like,
h excellen, have you ever tried making one yourself? Or
do you just have to wait until church events to
be able?
Speaker 3: So there were a couple times growing up where I
would I'd Pokemom, be like can we can we like
buy brownie mix and so like the cool like the
cool whip in the thing and like chocolate pudding please,
It's She's like okay. So every once in a while,
I would make my own version.
Speaker 2: But do people still buy and consume cool Whip?
Speaker 1: I feel like as a a Midwestern girly, it was
so prominent in my life growing up, and now as
an adult, I don't know that I've I'm sure it's
in the grocery store, but I.
Speaker 3: Oh, there's lots. There's lots in the grocery store.
Speaker 1: I'm sure, But who's buying it.
Speaker 2: I haven't seen it.
Speaker 1: I miss it. I should buy some buy it. You're
doing good work.
Speaker 3: I buy it, and I make something called pumpkin.
Speaker 1: Fluff out that is very good. What's pumpkin fluff?
Speaker 3: Okay, so you take you take a can of pumpkin pure,
a thing of cool Whip, whatever version you want, like
less sugar or whatever. No, don't go with like the
fat free because then it like gives it a weird
texture and I would never have good excellent. And then
you like combine that with I think it's just instant
vanilla pudding mix, and then like your pumpkin spices and
you just fold it all together, let it sit, and
then you have pumpkin fluff and it is delicious.
Speaker 1: This sounds like a cheater version of pumpkin pie filling,
and I love that. Do you like dip pretzels into it?
Or what do you do with that?
Speaker 3: You can dip pretzels, you can do like gram crackers
are also really good. And then sometimes I would just,
you know, just dip out a fing and just eat
it with this food. Listen, because yeah, it's like you're
eating pumpkin filling and it's really good.
Speaker 1: Look, I'm not here to judge. I already said I'm
from the Midwest. I am originally from Minnesota. So if
you're at all familiar with that lady who does the
Minnesota salads that aren't really salads, relatable, I grew up
with something that is in the same vein as pumpkin fluff,
but not quite the same. We had pink salad and
it was cool whip with cottage cheese and canned vander
and orange slices, and you would mix that all together
with some yellow powder. The red Kinds would make it
the pink salad. You could also do green for green salad,
and you can swap out the canned fruit if you like.
And we would have this and I don't care who's
watching this or listening to this, it's delicious. I know
it's not salad. It is a Minnesota salad, so shut up.
It's good you got ahead of me.
Speaker 3: I was about to point it out that that's not
a salad.
Speaker 1: Listen, salad does not imply vegetable where I'm from.
Speaker 3: It's it's a mix. It's a mix of things.
Speaker 1: It's a millage of things. It's good. Try and tell
me you don't like it. Lindsay would not like it.
Who was on this last episode interview? But it's good. Well,
speaking of death by chocolate coming up with segues to
start wrapping up the show makes me want to die
by chocolate.
Speaker 2: So Elisa, it's been a pleasure chatting with you.
Speaker 1: But before we go, could you please tell the people
what you're promoting or celebrating right now?
Speaker 3: Yes, So the biggest thing is the release of my podcast.
The Collection of Moira Graves is a anthology horror series
that has a connected overarching plot and framing device. It's
a combo anthology series and kind of a serialized plot
kind of sprinkled over top of it. I believe episode
two just released. So you're done listening to this, go
to the Collection of Moyer Graves and whatever your favorite
podcast platform is and give a listen.
Speaker 1: I will also say Lisa has been in a couple
of episodes of Theme Party the podcast besides her own,
so they haven't come out yet as of the release
of this episode. But actually, no, that's not true. You
were one of the voices in the reach.
Speaker 3: Yes, I was Octavia.
Speaker 1: Octavia the evil.
Speaker 3: Mayor quote unquote.
Speaker 1: The lengthy tangent seems to love our evil mayors, So
that is a thing. Where can people find you?
Speaker 3: So you can find me at Petrie vo on Blue.
Speaker 1: Sky Petrie spelled p e t r e y.
Speaker 3: Yes, thank you, or Petrie voiceover on Instagram.
Speaker 1: And we will put those links in our show notes.
Speaker 3: And then if you want to follow the Collection of
Moyra Graves on social media, there is a Blue Sky
account for the Collection of Moyer Graves under Moira dash
Graves Excellence.
Speaker 1: Well then that just leads me to thank Elsa Petrie
for coming to my Theme Party. Thank you also to
bad Machine for making our shows music, and to Alyssa
Esteban for our show art and for story development. Another
huge thank you to Alisa and everyone involved in making
the collection of Moira Graves. If you want to learn
more about the episode in all of our shows, you
can visit our website Lengthy Tangent dot com. We've also
got a Patreon page for everything from Lengthy Tangent, so
pop on over there to see what we've got to offer.
Be sure to follow us on social media subscribes who
don't miss an episode and rate interview if you've enjoyed
the show. Our next episode will be a first person
narrative on found Families entitled Firsts and Lasts by n Netta Elsayed.
Once again, our theme for this season has been family traditions.
I've been Mareta Mo's and this has been an interview
episode of theme Party, the podcast Thank you Again, Alisa,
Celebrate Creativity. I was getting riled up over salads, so
we'll just edit that part out. Likely Tangent