The Amish Cook from Oasis Newsfeatures

CAPTION:  This is a not-so-great photo of one of my copies of "An Amish Christmas".  The book was very plain, in keeping with Amish tradition.

I'm feeling a little nostalgic today, so this is a good topic.  The past 20 years of "Amish Cook" have been, as many of you know, full of highs and lows. I won't rehash that all here.  I often refer to the Original Amish Cook Cookbook as our first cookbook.  That was the first real effort by the late Elizabeth Coblentz and I, published way back in 1993.  But there was actually another cookbook before that.  At the time I called it a "cookbook-let."   It was a tiny 40-page wire bound book called "An Amish Christmas", packed full of holiday recipes and notes from Elizabeth's daughters. I had never, ever published a book before and knew nothing about it, but once word got out through the column that this book was available we were swamped with orders.  It was unbelieveable.   There are not very many copies of this book left...I personally only know of one or two.  There may have been about 800 printed (that was a ton of books for me back then).   Just out of curiosity, do any of our readers out there have an original copy of this book?  I know one copy somehow ended up in the Grant County Public Library in Kentucky.

In celebration of the Amish Cook's 20th anniversary "An Amish Christmas" will be released this holiday season.  It should be ready to ship next week and will be available through Christmas.  There is NO pre-ordering, when it's ready, it's ready and will ship the same day the order is placed.  The book is an updated version with letters from Lovina's children, some new recipes, thoughts from Lovina and myself.  It's not a very large book, so the price point will be appealing to many.  Makes a great gift!

Here is one recipe from An Amish Christmas, a nice fall salad.  Most of the recipes in the book are holiday or seasonally themed and are quite simple, but tasty.

AUTUMN SALAD

2 cups of diced apples

1 cup of grated carrots

1 /2 cup of raisins

1/2 cup mayonnaise

Peel apples and dice. Add grated carrots and raisins. Using two spoons to mix salad, add mayonnaise. Serve on 4 salad plates.