Confession Time: My Amish Fetish

The farm located at the western edge of my world is situated very near a large Amish settlement.  We have been making a concentrated effort to patronize their establishments. 

 

Let’s screech to a halt here and let me confess something (it’ll help you understand the workings of my brain—so you can tell me later how my brain works):

A gazillion years ago (more than 20) I cut a recipe out of the paper (Wednesdays’ papers had the food section—favorite!!)  for Amish apple pie.  Yum!!  Then, to my great surprise, that very cook/author had a series on PBS where she cooked from her recently published cookbook.  THEN…to my astonishingly great surprise, I found her cookbook for sale in a gift shop, of all places.  So…I bought it.  AND THEN, I begged Cowboy to drive me 3 hours north so I could “see Amish people.”…and he did!! (to my drop-dead-from-shock great surprise).

I saw lovely Amish farms, immaculately kept…. surrounded by stunning flower beds and bountiful vegetable gardens.  Barefoot Amish children, 3 at a time, on a horse.  An Amish farm wife grilling out … on a gas grill …. Wait!..... POP! went that romantic bubble!  I cook on a gas grill!     Nonetheless, I have been fascinated by the Amish lifestyle.   Over the years, more and more Amish settlements have sprung up in our Midwestern state that serve to both foster that fascination and smack me into reality.

So now … here out at the western edge …  there are many Amish who run delightfully simple yet charmingly fun shops….there, see….the romantic bubble is filling back up!  Added to the list of stores to shop are the boot store, the variety store and the bulk foods store.  Today we headed out to the variety store…’cause I needed a few kitchen gadgets – and I like to look around that their handmade things for sale.  I ended up buying more than I had on my list (went in for a covered butter dish…came out with a bottle brush, a dish-drainer tray, a pie server, and a butter dish).  The young clerk was working on an embroidery piece while we shopped….I know, cute! Right?

Then.. off to the bulk foods store…Cowboy “needed” a tray of their sticky buns.  The gravel roads wind so confusingly and are marked with both tire tread and buggy wheel tracks.  We’re trying to learn our way out here without the help of the GPS.  Slowly but surely we’re getting more familiar!  We met a horse and buggy driven by a lady wrapped in a black shawl.  We all exchanged waves.  Then we met a couple guys on tractors from the county highway who were mowing the roadside.  They were too busy to wave.   We finally reached the store, our taste buds geared up for sticky buns!!   <cue the game-show loser sound-bite:  whah whah whahhhh> They don’t bake those until Friday…frown….and to top that off:  they have a funeral to go to this Friday so they aren’t going to make the sticky buns at all this week.  Boo hoo!   So, we bought some rolled oats (for my oatmeal cookies to be baked later today…my recipe is on my Farm Girl’s Kitchen page) and brown sugar, chili powder and …a pumpkin for the front porch….see, Cowboy…it wasn’t a wasted trip!!

It’s an incredibly beautiful October day!