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<DOUBLE-SIGH> I Shouldn't, But Oh What the Heck......
There are plenty of good blogs out there about the Amish (I hope mine is one
). There is Erik Wesner's wonderfully informative www.amishamerica.com and one of our site regulars has a nice Amish-themed blog at http://itswonderfulgood.blogspot.com/2010/02/mesimplified.html .So I hate to give attention to a blog that I DON'T think makes the grade, but, what the heck, you gotta have a little fun sometimes
. Someone called my attention to this blog. Take a look at it! Sheesh....now, really, one of the joys of the internet is that it allows a person to just do as they please. There's no law against creating a fictional blog that is an enjoyable read and that is what I would characterize Rebekah's blog - fiction. I just don't buy a word of it. Read the "about me" section...Rebekah confesses to: "sneaking to the barn and blog during milking hours." It's funny, but - in my opinion - it's fiction. What is even funnier is when people believe that something like this is real (Rebekah has a list of "followers", I pray they are just people who enjoy funny fiction). There are a gazillion reasons I think the blog is contrived, but diction is one. Some people over compensate when trying to replicate an "Amish voice", by sprinkling in phrases like "gut"..."ja"....and other stuff...things that a typical Amish person just wouldn't say in the course of conversation. On the other hand, this blog just sound too sterile...it just doesn't ring true. What do you think? Star cake anyone?
Amish Birding Symposium 2010
Adams County, Ohio is a very special place for me. It’s home to probably my favorite Amish settlement and a lot of special memories. If I can slog through my current dramas I will have a new book in the future. It will be a different kind of book than ones done in the past and it will delve a bit deeper into why Adams County is such a special place for me. Now that’s all I will say for right now. Anyway, I spent this Saturday at the Amish Birding Symposium in the Wheat Ridge settlement in Adams County. This annual event is one of the neatest coming together of Amish and English that you’ll find anyway. The day-long event features a mix of speakers talking about various avian topics. There’s usually an Amish speaker. This year it was Ed Schlabach an Amish birder from Holmes County who spoke about his love of birding. The keynote speaker was Thayne Maynard, director of the Cincinnati Zoo and host of NPR’s 90-second naturalist. Throughout the event Amish and non-Amish mingle and talk and all share their common love of all things avian. This year's event was wonderful, as always. And, of course, as with any gathering that involves the Amish food is delicious and plentiful. The day begins with homemade doughnuts and juice and a lunch-break featuring soup and sandwiches is served. I saw a couple of Amish Cook readers mixed in among the 400 or so attendees. Next year, I plan on having a table to sell cookbooks, so hopefully I'll see more of you. In addition to the speakers and the food there are a mix of vendors offering bird-houses, bird books, artwork, etc. And my sister-in-law, director of education of Cincinnati-based Raptor Inc., is on hand with some of her feathered friends.
The event is now 7 years old. When it first started, it was held in the basement of an Amish man's house with just a handful of people attending. This year it was held for the first time in Wheat Ridge's spacious brand new "community building" which will be used to host various Amish events throughout the year. Such multi-purpose buildings are becoming more and more common in Amish settlements. The buildings, however, are not without controversy. Some Amish fear that the buildings are the first step towards having a formal church building. And, indeed, some Amish settlements are now holding events like funeral visitations in them...so it'll be interesting to watch this development over the years ahead....
blackberries and Blackberries
To me blackberries are a sure sign of summer and are a wonderful way to fill a pie crust or a jelly jar. Hand-picked homemade blackberry jam spread on warm toast is culinary nirvana for its simple sweetness. How things have changed. When my cell phone (Rachel and I don’t have a “land line”) finally went kaput the other day, we went to the Sprint store where they basically “gave” us an upgrade to Blackberry phones in exchange for extending our contract for two more years. SIGH, ply us with free phones and then soak us with our bill, I'm sure. SIGH, so we did….and so far I am not a fan of my Blackberry. I liked my minimalist, big-button razor phone. The Blackberry is like carrying a mini-computer and I alraedy felt too “connected” as is. My mother left me a phone message this morning - about something not very crucial. An hour later, she calls back “didn’t you get my message, you didn’t call back?” One hour had passed. Do you remember the days when we all just had land-lines, an answering machine and if someone was gone they were gone. A person left a message and just patiently waited - 5, 6, or 7 hours - until a person returned. SIGH, times have just changed so much when it comes to communication. There are great things about cell phones, Blackberries, etc...but I am not sure that constant connectedness is one and this Blackberry phone simply magnifies the speed of life. (DOUBLESIGH, I'll be the first to admit that maybe in a month I'll be wondering how I lived without my Blackberry, but that, to me, is equally frightening)
By the way, Blackberries – ironically – are produced by a company located in the heart of Canada’s Amish country. Blackberries are made by the company “Research in Motion” based in Waterloo, Ontario. Rather ironic.
Do any of our site visitors have Blackberry phones? How do you feel about them? So far I hate mine, but maybe over the weeks ahead I’ll grow to get used to it….
Follow-Up
I guess this site has some wide reach. The other day I took issue with some media outlets in western Kentucky for their sensationalistic treatment of essentially something that was a non-story. It was about a "hit and run" buggy accident. I heard from Keith Todd, the public information officer for the state of Kentucky's Transportation Cabinet, tonight giving us a little bit more background about how the news story came about:
I wrote the news release that started all the hoopla over the Amish buggy hit and run. I also happen to have several Amish friends. I knew as I was writing it that some folks were going to have way too much fun with it. However, I also knew that if I didn't write it as factually as possible that it would get blown out of proportion even worse. When I started work on it the buggy driver was still missing. Fortunately, just as I was getting ready to send it out I got the call that he had retured to clear things up. Just wanted to provide some persepective on your comment.
That was nice of Keith to share the info with us. My quarrel was never with him, it was with the media outlets that knew full well it was not a "hit and run" in the classic sense but still couldn't resist running the inaccurate headline. Thanks for sharing with us, Keith!
Welcome Washington!
Okay, so it's not Washington DC, but I'll happily take Washington, Indiana. Washington, Indiana is a small city in western Indiana, the county seat of Daviess County, Indiana. There is a large Amish presence in Daviess County. Anyway, I received word today at the Washington Times-Herald will soon be adding the Amish Cook to their pages. I'm thrilled to have them, so any of our visitors from Daviess County, Indiana will soon be able to read the column in their local paper.
Amish Teeth
I'm not in the mood right now to spend a bunch of money on my mouth. On the other hand, though, I really need to get some dental work done. I keep putting it off and it won't get any less expensive or less painful if I keep doing so, in fact, it'll be worse for both the pocketbook and pain if I keep doing it. So today Rachel and I ventured a couple hours away to the Ohio State University student-run dental clinic. If you are anywhere near Columbus, Ohio, I highly recommend the dental school as an affordable option for oral care. Because it is a teaching hospital, rates are much lower than for a private practice dentist. Each patient is simply part of the curriculum for the students. And, no fear, it's not like a bunch of college kids are poking around in your mouth. These are upper-level students being supervised by medical faculty. Anyway, anything Amish was about as far from my mind as possible as I headed into the clinic. That was until the first person I saw upon entering was an Old Order Amish man. He was standing near a snack cart, jovially talking to someone non-Amish and sipping on some sort of chocolate drink. Now, keep in mind OSU is a sprawling, sprawling campus with a gajillion people, so the corridors are busy, interconnecting, etc, just rivers of people.....so there are little concession stands and snack carts everywhere. I didn't see anyone else Amish with the man and I didn't see him again during my two hour stay there. It was interesting to see him in the dental school clinic because, typically, dental care is just seen as a much lower priority item for the Amish (exceptions to everything, I know....but this is true as a general rule). I'm even aware of some "back alley Amish dentists" who do low-cost extractions, etc.....if a tooth is giving an Amish person a problem, they often will just pull it. Ouch!!! So, anyway, I don't have much more to say about it than that....I just think it's interesting how so many times when I think I am about as faraway as anyone Amish as I could be, my assumption is proven wrong.....SIGH, now I go back in a couple of weeks for some more dental work
Hollywood Amish Stupidity.....
Well, we have real-life stupidity going on in Iowa with Mitchell County officials badgering Mennonites over steel wheels. And, now, we have Hollywood stupidity occuring centering on Iowa. Look, in fairness, I haven't seen the movie...maybe it's the most artful indie film ever produced. But it seems juvenile. I'm a tough audience for films anyway. Take a look at this depiction of a recently ex-communicated Amish family.
One of our site visitors alerted me to this film and she really said it best in an email to me:
Have you ever really noticed the number of horror films that have used the Amish as their bad guys? Check out "Deadly Blessing". "Supernatural tale / murder mystery set in the country in which widow Martha Schmidt (Maren Jensen) and her two friends (Sharon Stone, Susan Buckner) are repeatedly frightened by an unknown assailant, while at the same time being intimidated by a group known as Hittites (referred to as making the Amish look like swingers), led by Isaiah Schmidt (Ernest Borgnine), who is the father of Martha's late husband."
There was an episode of Friday the 13th the series about a haunted quilt "The Quilt of Hathor" and a group that were Amish with another name given them. Also an episode of The X Files with an Amish like group who turned out to be aliens! Lazy screenwriters.
Hollywood likes to conveniently pigeon-hole different groups and it does seem like the Amish are just often portrayed as either "crazy" like the above writer argues, or, as I've observd "buffoons."
That is one of the reasons I loved the movie Witness. Yes, it was Hollywood fictionalization, but, by and large, it was tasteful.....
Calling Dr. Watson.....
I've talked before about the topic of aging. Rare is the person who ponders their own mortality at age 20, but, as I approach my late 30s, its a topic I ponder more and more. Maybe because it's a "new" topic, maybe in 20 years I won't think about it much because, by then, a certain acceptance sets in? I don't know. But I do know that stories like one I saw on CNN.com this morning are inspiring. I know some of you with slow dial-up connections probably won't be able to watch this, but I encourage those that do to view. CNN.com ran a story this morning about the nation's oldest practicing physician, a 100-year-old ob/gyn. Dr. Watson seemed in remarkable physical and mental health. Very inspiring to see someone who's life has been - and continues to be - so full and rich. And this was a doctor who's roots were planted during the days before health insurance red tape, copays, and COBRAS. So much simpler back then - I think. I know medicine has come a long, long way, but when did "health insurance" really begin to take root? Maybe one of our older site visitors knows? Was medical care always so expensive? If you had to visit a family doctor in the 1930s, 40s, 50s, or even 60s, did you just pay a reasonable out of pocket fee? Or were health insurance companies an equally big factor back then? Anyway, click here to view this neat story about Dr. Watson.
Store Bought Stuff...
I received a nasty note from a random reader yesterday, not about stuff I've become accustomed to, but about: store-bought food. She was indignant about the fact that recipes appear in the Amish Cook column that include - gasp - store-bought ingredients. So I thought this would be a good time just to refresh people on this. I'd say 50 years ago it was uncommon for an Amish Cook to use much store-bought stuff. But it's not like the Amish are some isolated Amazon tribe separated from the rest of the planet. Amish society is changing and over the past 20 - 30 years as farming has become less and less of a viable way for many to make a living this pace of change has accelerated. One of the changes has been an increasing dependence and reliance on store-bought processed foods. This - in my opinion - has led to a rise in obesity among the Amish, mirroring trends in the rest of society. That said, I've found the same Amish culinary creativity using the store-bought ingredients as when they were purely scratch cooks. Yes, an Amish housewife may now by some store-bought soups, jellos, and Saltines at the store, but they'll still apply the same cooking principles of simplicity and heartiness to them. So, don't be surprised to see store-bought ingredients in Amish Cook recipes in the future. It's now a pretty common occurrence in Amish culinary circles. For instance, try this pork chop recipe from an Amish kitchen!
PORK CHOPS
6 center cut pork chops
1 c. ketchup
1/2 c. chopped onions
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
Place uncooked pork chops in baking dish. Combine mushroom soup, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, and chopped onions. Mix all together and pour over chops. Bake, covered, for 1 1/4 hours. Remove, cover, and bake 1/2 hour longer or until tender.
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