The Amish Cook from Oasis Newsfeatures

According to the Young Center for Anabaptist Studies at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania, the most recent state to roll out the welcome mat for the Amish is South Dakota.  Tucked away in the state's far southeast corner a group of Amish families have settled near the town of Tripp.  As is often the case, I was amused by the reporter's approach of the Amish. The writer seemed uneasy and appears to have just barged in on the Amish family.  As a reporter/writer, I always ask an Amish family "when is a good time to talk to you? Should I come back?"  It's just more polite than catching people in the  middle of a busy work day and expecting them to drop everything to talk to you just because your Amish and I'm a reporter....and you get a much better story that way....SIGH, that aside, the Mitchell, South Dakota newspaper article provided a little insight into this new settlement.  Click here to read.

One of our Amishcookonline site regulars who was traveling through the area attempted to find the Tripp Amish back in August.  Her email to me:

Good morning Kevin, its 7:40 a.m. here in Spearfish, SD.  We went to Tripp yesterday and looked around and didn't find the Amish settlement - no signs of them, no buggy tracks or horse droppings, but I recheck the internet site that I originally saw and it says there are six families in the area.  We did see a group of either Amish or Mennonites (old order) at The Falls Park in Sioux Falls on Sat. morning, they were traveling someplace west and had a driver with them.  I'm really bummed that I didn't see any signs of the Tripp Amish group. 

Sounds like the settlement is pretty small and just off to the west, so it would have been probably easy to miss, but I was bummed our reader didn't find them either, maybe sometime I'll make it up that way.

Okay, the New York Times has an article on tomorrow's FRONT PAGE entitled "Crisis in Amish Country."   The content of the article itself is okay, even interesting/revealing.  But the headline?  It implies that there is a "crisis" roiling the Amish and in reality this is one sick man in one isolated Amish community in Missouri.  The man's background is actually quite atypical of the Amish.  Do sex crimes happen among the Amish?  Of course!  The Amish, as fallible humans, are the same as everyone else....there are sinners among them, some very bad ones....but I wouldn't say sexual crimes are running rampant among the Amish as the headline implies.  In fact, the story itself says the opposite, the Amish community was quite disgusted and troubled by the sins of one of their own.  As noted the article itself was interesting...but if one lone Baptist somewhere was convicted of a sex crime would there be a story saying "Baptists in Crisis."  Probably not.  To read the article, click here.

The Harrison Ford flick "Witness" is 25 years old this month and not surprisingly for the Amish Cook's editor, the movie tops my list as my favorite movie of all time.  I have probably seen the movie 20 times.  Yes, the movie is pretty formulaic fiction, but it does a relatively decent job of portraying the Amish, I think.  The barn-raising scene is probably, in my opinion, the most true-to-life.  The movie takes me back to the time when I was first "discovering" the Amish, so in addition to holding my interest because of the "Amish angle", there is a whiff of nostalgia with it.  I didn't see Witness the year it came out, I was only 13 and I really have no memory of it debuting in theaters.  Harrison Ford said in a recent interview that the script really "holds up well" over time, and I agree.  In addition to the barn-raising scenes, I love the depiction in town with the tourists.  If you have not seen this wonderful film and like Harrison Ford movies, make a point to rent this from your video store or "Red Box."  There are a handful of violent scenes in the movie, but most of it is just good, fun fiction on film.  By the way, 25 years later, Harrison Ford still acts, Kelly McGillis has generally retired from the movie scene...and a young Viggo Mortensen made his first film appearance as Kelly McGillis's other "love interest."  He has certaintly gone on to a good career.  So, in celebration of this film's silver anniversary, anyone care to share their favorite Witness scene?

My stockpile of anniversary books has just come in, so those who ordered them from me directly will get theirs in the week ahead.  Anyone else can order them from Amazon, I just had a limited supply of my own to sell.

Meanwhile, I ran across a nice review of our 20-year anniversary book in the St. Joseph, Michigan newspaper. Really, I'm not trying to be mean by not giving out Lovina's address to reporters (or anyone else for that matter).  It's just that Lovina really values her privacy, family-life time, etc, we are lucky she takes the time to share through her column.  Most Amish wouldn't even do that.  If Lovina made time for everyone that wanted to stop by, she'd be greeting readers all day, instead of taking care of the "home fires."  We have had readers figure out where she lived and stop by unannounced, wanting a tour of the house, wanting to meet the kids, wanting a slice of pie..Most of the readers have been perfectly friendly, but that isn't the point. I know how I would feel if someone just dropped by without warning...I mean, if it's Mom or something that is fine (most of the time) but a total stranger?  If I was in the middle of something important it could be quite disruptive.   But this was a fun article by a reporter who reviewed our book and sorta tried to find Lovina's place (I won't say whether she was close or not).  The bakery in the photo looks so small, but the food is probably wonderful!

People who have received their copy of the Amish Cook's Everything But the Kitchen Sink book may have read the signficant section about the Barbara Weaver murder.  This was a murder that occurred in Holmes County last year that received shockingly little media coverage.  Homicide is extremely rare among the Amish so I'm just surprised that the case didn't generate more coverage.  The local paper, the Wooster Daily Record, barely touched upon the Amish aspect.  In a nutshell Eli Weaver's Mennonite lover - Barbara Raber - shot and killed his wife (Barbara Weaver) while she slept.  The Weavers had five children who were home sleeping at the time of the killings.  Weaver and Raber were both found guilty and are serving jail time. Raber, however, is now appealing her conviction. For those of you who really want to dig into the meat of this case, I am posting the full appeal here.