Dan Bowman tuning our piano.
For years we have had Dan Bowman tune our piano. He has been blind since childhood. But nevermind that.
Dan Bowman’s 2014 contribution to the Virginia Mennonite Relief Sale.
Dan is also an avid woodworker, joyfully making a handcrafted masterpiece to donate to the Virginia Mennonite Relief Sale every year. This was his 2014 contribution.
Amazing doesn’t begin to describe him, and as I learned recently, we aren’t the only people who think so. Two professors, Mike Grundmann and Shaun Wright, at James Madison University in the School of Media Arts and Design are apparently doing a documentary about him, and hope to release it at Court Square in Harrisonburg, Va. later this academic year. I hope to see it!
I chuckled as Dan described what it is like for a video team to invade your home after you have made it spic and span and all straightened up, and they proceed to move furniture, set up lights, and otherwise totally destroy what you have just spent hours tidying. He told me how they worked at helping him be concise and respond to questions with complete sentences and all the tricks I have learned over a number of years helping to interview people for videos or documentaries as well.
Dan loves history, connecting with people, current events, the church, and always has a book he is reading (either himself, or his wife reading to him together, which they both enjoy). During our most recent tuning, he again brought up another of his favorite hobbies, astronomy.
Um, yes. How does he “see” the stars in the night sky?
When our oldest daughter turned 12 or 13, we invested in a telescope for her birthday—but really for the whole family to enjoy. Well if you know much about telescopes you know they are tricky to use, so after some initial exciting and educational use, it just kind of sat in the corner of our living room. When Dan first discovered we had a telescope in the corner by the piano (I usually describe the lay of the land for him, so he knows what’s where and pitfalls to avoid in moving about our house), he was fascinated. He admitted that one of the things he regrets about his blindness is that he cannot see the stars—but he remains enthralled.
Now with the Internet, he can pursue his somewhat unusual—for him—hobby to his heart’s content, using a website he has come to love and read almost every day: Bad Astronomy.com I was perplexed by the name.
“The Bad Astronomy web pages are devoted to airing out myths and misconceptions in astronomy and related topics.”
According to Dan, the blog for the website is always very current, very fascinating, and can be on anything related to the whole general field of astronomy.
Yesterday for instance it took on some news that had passed me by, because I was off line for about four days taking care of a grandson. Yes, I knew about the Rosetta mission with the space probe, but not about the follow up Shirtgate:
“But another event caused a stir at the same time, tangentially related to the event. Matt Taylor, the Rosetta mission’s project scientist, went on the air to talk about the successful landing. However, his choice of attire was unfortunate. He was wearing a bowling shirt covered in pinup-style drawings of scantily clad women.”
The big oops got even bigger with a bad choice of words as he described the “sexy” nature of the mission, but I won’t go into that here.
Dan likes Bad Astronomy because it describes things in such detail he doesn’t have to see the images—Phil Plait does it for Dan as he uses his computer through a screen reader and the modern marvels of technology. Dan told me he uses JAWS (Jobs Access With Speech) found at www.FreedomScientific.com which enables those with low vision or sight loss to use a computer without a mouse.
Dan and Phil and everyone who takes an interest in the world and trying to understand it, make it better, take me back to Isaiah (we could also visit Psalms or Job or other texts (even Amos!) for biblical astronomical inspiration. These days I’m gazing at the heavens frequently as we take our four month old puppy, Velvet, out for her night time potty breaks.
Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens:
Who created all these?
He who brings out the starry host one by one
and calls forth each of them by name. Isaiah 40:26He determines the number of the stars
and calls them each by name.
Great is our Lord and mighty in power;
his understanding has no limit. Psalm 147: 4-5
And this:
Praise God, sun and moon;
praise God, all you shining stars.
Praise God, you highest heavens
and you waters above the skies. Psalm 148:3-4, adapted
And Amos:
He who made the Pleiades and Orion,
who turns midnight into dawn
and darkens day into night … Amos 5:8
I take inspiration from my longtime friend Dan, unknown but wonderfully accessible newer online friends like Phil, and always from the Creator of it all (however that was accomplished). We will never be able to grasp, this side of heaven, the expanse of God’s vast universe and the wonder of God’s ways.
That gives me comfort when the news on television, radio, or online is overwhelming (ISIS, Ebola, Ferguson, and more) and scary.
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What is your favorite Bible passage related to the heavens or astronomy?
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My weekly newspaper column Another Way can be found online at www.thirdway.com/aw
(Call me chicken, but this post is a bit of dare. My great nephews.)
I dreaded someone tagging me for the Ice Bucket Challenge but squeaked through. (No one tagged me, what does that mean, do they think I’m not up to it, that I’d be a party pooper, all those self-doubts flooded me.) But now a dear and young blogger (as in she’s been blogging only about as long as yours truly) has tagged me for Blog Tag.
Ok. I’ll play this.
Only! I’m supposed to reveal my WIP (Works in Progress) and for the first time in about 35 years, I have no WIP other than my blog which of course is a continual WIP. Sometimes people ask, “What’s your next book? What are you working on?” I always hesitate to reveal my next book just in case someone else would beat me getting it written. If “most popular blog post” titles logically lead to “next book ideas,” hands down my most popular post (and most searched term) this year has been “60th birthday party ideas” stemming from this post about my husband’s 60th birthday party. OK for a blog post, but definitely not something I want to write a book about! So …
Marian Beaman sweetly tagged me for this effort and I do enjoy her blog at Plain and Fancy. We have a lot in common: both grew up Mennonite and married (gasp) outside the fold. I married a Lutheran and together became Presbyterian—which is one of the threads of my life leading to the harmony name of this blog. Marian and I both grew up Yankees, and are now adopted Southerners. So if any of those themes interest you, do check out her blog. As a former English teacher, she always writes very well!
I have lots of WIP SOS (Works in Progress, Sitting on a Shelf) or in my case, HID (Hiding in a Drawer) because so far no editor has agreed that particular work is the next greatest thing after baked bacon (that’s how the bacon crumbles at my house). I’d also have to quit my day job where I am now an editor at a publishing house which is never going to publish another one of my books until I quit, I surmise, (which is good policy) but I would also hate to jump ship to another publisher, you know?
Here are two bulging files, and what has stalled them:
- For The Session, I’d have to do a whole lotta research. Maybe when I retire.
- For Abandoned! which I began in the 1990s and for which a publisher actually expressed interest, to make it publishable today, I’d have to start all over and include cell phones in the plot line!
So that is why I don’t have any current fiction WIP. But because I live, I write. And since blogging is an immediate outlet with almost immediate feedback, I’m enjoying it as a hobby and meeting other bloggers like the four I’ll tag below.
If you really want to read a sneak graph from the novels listed in my bullet points, I’ll divulge them, below. But I live in fear of someone saying, like the curmudgeonly dear woman did at one of my first “readings” for a writer’s group, long ago, where I talked about how I had turned some of my early poetry from my journals, into a coming of age memoir. She said to the whole group: “I think its good thing you gave up poetry.” 🙂
- Novel: The Session (Brief plot: Pastor’s fight against racism in the South in the 60s.)
Elder Fred Dochtery exits the sanctuary and slams the door, clearly not propelled by a sudden urge to use the men’s room.
Kelly Fiske holds her breath as her husband, David concludes his sermon. Why couldn’t he just preach about the fruits of the spirit or even David and Goliath? Then Kelly almost smiles. Her David insisted on taking on Goliath—not every week but often enough to keep the Session stirred up. This time it was likely his comment on race relations.
David scans the congregation. Should he proceed with the affirmation of faith? Even Chelsea Buttonwood’s two year old has quit jabbering. Should he follow Fred out and do … what? Fred surely hasn’t left the grounds—his wife Fran is still scowling in her pew, the purse on her lap posed for departure. If David walks out now, it will only lead to more disturbance.
- Novel: Abandoned! (Brief plot: runaway wife mistakenly thought to be kidnapped)
The thought of just driving off without him was so unthinkable, so bizarre at first, that she really was only bluffing when she put the car in reverse and backed up. Maybe he would see her backup lights come on and get the message her patience had once again run out.
How many times in her marriage to Timothy James Herald had she waited like this? Tim had no doubt struck up a conversation with some service plaza attendant. Ever the pastor, always finding someone new to shepherd.
She could make out Tim’s face by the cash register now. Sure enough, he threw back his head laughing as if the service station guy was his oldest friend. Nevermind she and Tim were already an hour late in starting out for Christmas at her folks, due to another last minute pastoral crisis.
- Magazine article: Here are the opening paragraphs from a soon-to-be published article in a magazine I edit, Valley Living. The piece is about Sonny Randle, a local NFL 10-year veteran, now in his late 70s and set to retire again, but this time from sports broadcasting. The article is due out at the end of November.
“Hiiiii, I’m Sonny Randle!” is the trademark opening radio line Sonny says in his sing- songy rural Virginia twang. He goes up high on the “I’m” that is easy to recognize, hard to imitate.
A lot of NFL professional football players in the 1960s would have loved to imitate his ability as a wide receiver to fly down the field to catch yet another touchdown pass. What was his secret?
Sonny keeps it simple, quipping, “I ran real fast, and if guys were chasing me, I ran even faster.”
Which of these would you want to read? Why? I welcome any critique (I’m a big girl). Should I give up writing the openings to novels??
And here I’m tagging four fascinating and varied bloggers, who are invited to participate as they are able/interested!
- April Yamasaki is a Mennonite pastor in British Columbia and author of a book Sacred Pauses: Spiritual Practices for Personal Renewal, with another title soon in the works. She blogs on “practical spirituality.”
- Saloma Furlong Miller is the author of Bonnet Strings (reviewed here) and Why I Left the Amish. Parts of her story are also told in two PBS documentaries on people who left the Amish. Find out more at her blog About Amish.
- Lovella Schellenberg is one of the women who started the super successful blog Mennonite Girls Can Cook (and two cookbooks bearing the name) and writes her own blog, What Matters Most.
- Robert Martin is one of the guys behind MennoNerds blogging network, who invited me to join that bunch even though I wasn’t young, techy or male. He is the author of The Caregivers Beatitudes, which is dutifully waiting in a stack for me to read/review!
And if you’re still reading, here’s a link to my ongoing WIP, my Another Way Newspaper Column always looking for suggestions of new papers to carry the column!
This salad is one of the foods that says “holidays” to us.
(I cannot lie. This is my wonderful sister-in-law’s overflow holiday table from a couple years ago.)
I grew up in a Mennonite home when a mainstay at any potluck, family reunion, or holiday meal was any of a variety of Jell-O salads. This was also one of the first salads I grew “expert” at making while I still lived at home. Mom loved turning this dish over to me when we had company.
Congealed (eww, that word doesn’t even sound good) salads were an easy way to throw together an attractive and tasty (and sugary) dish that usually included at least fruit, sometimes vegetables (carrots, celery, cabbage), and sometimes whipped cream, cream cheese, nuts, maraschino cherries and the kitchen sink.
While gelatin-type concoctions have been in use for centuries, Wikipedia says this about the era when Jell-O really took off:
The baby boom saw a significant increase in sales for Jell-O. Young mothers didn’t have the supporting community structures of earlier generations, so marketers were quick to promote easy-to-prepare prepackaged foods. By this time, creating a Jell-O dessert required simply boiling water, Jell-O and Tupperware molds.
(Ah yes, remember those molds? I don’t even have mine anymore which we received for wedding or shower gifts.)
My home congregation’s earliest cookbook, Fellowship Cooking, included 25 (!) different recipes using Jell-O. I would wager other church cookbooks of the era would include a similar number of such.
Interestingly, Mennonite Community Cookbook, which you might expect to be full of recipes using gelatin, is actually more focused on showcasing recipes the women of the mid-century remembered their mothers and grandmothers using, long before Jell-O came into vogue. I was intrigued by “Lovina’s Amish Kitchen” cook Lovina Eicher including a recipe recently for a very fancy 12-layer Jell-O dessert that must simply take hours to fuss over. Sometimes the simple life is anything but simple, whether we’re Mennonite, Amish, or Presbyterian.
Before this becomes a treatise on the history and development of Jell-O salads, my point is this:
This is the only Jell-O salad I ever make any more and some of the family do enjoy it, partly because we generally only have it once or twice a year, at Thanksgiving and Christmas.
My kids were home recently and we kind of had an early Thanksgiving supper (with some, but not all of the traditional fixings) so I included this salad. I like it for the pineapple, the nuts, and the cream cheese. Some recipes call for cottage cheese instead of cream cheese, but I prefer the richness of cream cheese, even though it is a bit trickier to mix up (needing to soften the cream cheese so it mixes into the half-jelled Jell-O).
But for normal every day meals or desserts, my family much prefers a simple fruit salad using no gelatin, and any concoction of fresh fruits (and sometimes canned) I have on hand: bananas, oranges, grapes, straw or blueberries, mandarin oranges, etc. That would be our fruit salad of choice. And can always be thrown together at the last minute!
Cream Cheese Salad – a variation of Emma Yoder’s recipe from North Goshen Mennonite’s Fellowship Cooking, which is technically the only thing that makes this a “Mennonite” recipe. 🙂
1 – 3-oz. package lime Jell-O
1 small package cream cheese
1 cup drained, crushed pineapple
1 – 8 oz. tub of whipped topping
¾ cup chopped pecans
1 small can mandarin oranges
Make Jell-O according to package directions, using 1 cup water and bringing it to a boil. Dissolve Jell-O powder in the hot water, stirring to make sure it all dissolves. Set aside. Set out cream cheese to soften.
Drain pineapple, reserve juice. Refrigerate pineapple until you add it to the salad later in the process. Put the reserved juice in measuring cup and add cold water until you have 1 cup cold liquid. Add to the Jell-O and hot water mixture.
Refrigerate Jell-O for ½ hour to 1 hour. When partially congealed, pour into mixing bowl. With mixer, combine softened cream cheese with Jell-O. Beat on slow, adding speed as it combines. Add whipped topping. Again, beat with mixer until combined. Stir in crushed pineapple, pecans and mandarin oranges. Pour into serving bowl, or 9 x 13 inch pan (if you want to serve in squares) or mold. Chill until set, several hours. Garnish if desired with reserved mandarin oranges or maraschino cherries. Emma’s directions add “Serve on lettuce leaf.” Oh yes, how could I forget, the lettuce leaf!
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What dish or dishes are you most looking forward to serving or eating for the holidays? What dish says “holidays” to you and your family?
My kids never liked plain old red Jell-O with canned fruit cocktail. Did yours?
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You’ll find more of my family’s favorite meals and recipes and traditions in Whatever Happened to Dinner.
No, this isn’t about the election or sex or anything like that. This is about deep gratefulness.
Those who have seen my fun photo album recently of both grandchildren (11 months and 13 months) coming for a visit Nov. 1-2 know what comes next.
There is the oh-so-empty house.
The toys and books strewn here and there.
The fun of bath time with an almost-toddler. The look of glee in Sam’s eyes when I resurrect one of the girls’ old bath tubs, all cleaned up for the occasion.
The smudges on the patio door as babies now into “cruising” stand and greet the puppy eye to eye.
The house is full of poignant and throat-catching glimpses of a too-short weekend but perhaps all the more special because we can’t see our little ones or children as often as we’d like.
My mother talked about these times.
Floppy Frog seems to convey my feelings pretty well.
But I’m so grateful they are not in California or Oregon or Africa, thousands of miles away, like some of my friends’ grandkids. But if they were, I’m sure I’d find ways to adjust and to see them as often as we could.
It all goes back to when I went away from home for college, and then married a man from my new “home,” and well, you just don’t think about some of those things when you leave home for college or service or marry someone away from your home area.
I’m just so SO grateful to have grandchildren at all when I know friends and folks from church and relatives who never get to this stage.
This first year has not been easy for the parents (too personal to go into here), but they have persevered and all four parents just ROCK.
One daughter told me in leaving: “You’re the best mom and the best grandma—surprise surprise.”
Aw. I wouldn’t win any prizes but it was a nice thing to say.
A great way to start off this month of November when we all are reminded to be a little more grateful no matter what our circumstances. I love seeing the “Day of gratefulness” posts friends are sharing on Facebook etc. even though I have not done that publicly myself.
I’m reading Psalms right now and the Psalms rocket between “gloom, despair, and agony on me” and over-the-top gratefulness. On the grateful side there’s this:
O give thanks to the God of heaven,
for God’s steadfast love endures forever. Psalms 136:1
I want to be mindful of all these special blessings, each and every day. Thanks Sam, James, Michelle, Tanya and Doreen and spouses!
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How do you work at connecting with grandchildren if they live at a distance?
What are positive things they’ve picked up from you? What are thing you hope they don’t pick up?
You can also read my weekly Another Way Newspaper Column here or subscribe.
When you are the female pastor of a church, do you bring a dish for the potluck meal? I mean it seems too much to ask, right? You not only get to spend your weekend gearing up for the sometimes harried/stressful chief event of your work week: Sunday morning worship, you have to prepare something good for a potluck. You should be able to just go and sit down afterwords and enjoy the meal without worrying about bringing a dish, right? I mean that’s what male pastors would do, wouldn’t they?
Cheese grits, ready to go to a potluck
If you were Ann Held (now retired as pastor of my church, Trinity Presbyterian) you not only preached the sermon, you brought a dish, partly because your daughters loved your trademark dish so much they begged you to bring it. It also “made” the potluck for many of us. We’d clean out Ann’s lovely pottery casserole dish of cheese grits before half the line went through; if you were later in line, too bad.
What is so good about these cheese grits? It’s like mac and cheese only smoother; like a breakfast souffle only easier. This recipe has just a pinch of Tabasco sauce fire and some seasoning salt pizzazz, not even hot enough to register, but just nice.
I love plain grits, too, which I sang the praises of here. Wikipedia says that 75 percent of all grits sold are in the south, from Texas to Virginia. We’re in Virginia.
In my book, Whatever Happened to Dinner, I describe grits for the unaccustomed:
Grits come from hominy—what’s left from a kernel of corn after the yellow “cap” has been taken off. The dictionary describes grits as ground hominy with the germ removed. They are low in fat and sodium but have a decent amount of iron, all for only pennies a serving—a cheap and filling breakfast that sticks to your ribs. Grits can be eaten by people with allergies to wheat flour. Cheese grits is a variation on the basic dish and can be served as a meat substitute.
I will remind naysayers that cheese grits scores in the nutrition department because the combo of grain (corn) + milk (cheese) = a more complete protein when they are consumed together. That’s according to nutritionist Doris Janzen Longacre, author of the best selling More with Less Cookbook.
When I took this dish to a staff special break recently, someone called it comfort food. The ones who spoke up, said they loved the dish. I’m sure there were some who tasted it only to be polite.
So if you want something tasty for a brunch, lunch or even dinner, here’s the recipe. They take an hour to bake so unless you mix it up the night before, I personally would never have time to make them for breakfast but, you never know.
(Yes, it takes a lot of cheese. You could probably cut back and not notice.)
Ann Held’s Cheese Grits
Preheat the oven to 350° F. Boil 6 cups of water with ½ teaspoon salt. Add 1½ cup quick-cooking grits. Bring to a boil, then lower flame and cook until water is absorbed, about 6-7 minutes.
Stirring in the seasoning salt, butter, eggs, and cheese.
Stir in:
1 stick butter or margarine
1 pound grated sharp cheddar cheese
3 eggs, beaten lightly
2 teaspoons Lawry seasoning salt
5–6 drops Tabasco sauce
Pour into a greased 2 quart casserole or 9×13-inch baking dish. Bake 1 hour. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.
Other suggestions from my book: Serve alongside the Barbeque Spareribs or Pork Chops in chapter 3 of Whatever Happened to Dinner or the Chicken BBQ (also in the book). Or try them with some spicy Cajun or steamed shrimp, which is one way grits became fashionable in fancy restaurants in New Orleans sometime in the 1980s, according to my colleague Beth Nealon.
The last serving.
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So what do you think: if you are the pastor of a church, do you need to bring a dish to the church potluck, or do you get a free pass as an “employee”? Does it make a difference if you are male or female? If you are married and a pastor, does your spouse make the dish? If you are not a pastor, what have you observed in your church? What do you think the apostle Paul would do???
For the past 15 years or so, we have enjoyed a community tradition here in the Shenandoah Valley: cooking for the annual Lion’s Club Pancake Days in Broadway, Va. The tradition goes from 6 a.m. on Friday morning, serving all day through about 7 p.m. that evening, and from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. on Saturdays.
John Knepper stirring his famous and great sausage gravy. Photo courtesy of Dawn Turner.
Folks get up early here in the Valley.
I know families who say their fall wouldn’t be Fall without coming to Pancake Days. This year the Hoover family was there in full force: 15 or so, counting visiting relatives, grandkids, and spouses.
Husband, Stuart, far right. Can he get the sausages done in time??
But the best part about Pancake Days is actually cooking and serving the meal. (Now the getting ready/cleaning up part is a huge chore but part of the deal.) This year I finally joined the Loins Club with my husband (yes, it is co-ed now, and has been for a number of years) so although I’ve helped in various capacities as a spouse, this year I heard all the pre-planning and negotiation such an effort takes.
Usually the Pancake Days are the same weekend as the local high school’s homecoming game, but due to that being scheduled very early and conflicting with an important Lion Club district/training meeting, the first issue was that we would have to break with tradition and have the fundraiser a different weekend. So we chose one that tied in to the annual Fall Festival–a street craft show and sale event.
Would it be as successful? Would we miss the great influx of pancake eaters right after the town’s homecoming parade?
Empty sausage pan. 😦
Answer: We ran out of sausage by 9 a.m. on Saturday morning, an hour before we were slated to close at 10. So we had to close early. It was probably the most successful sale ever. (Final figures are not in yet of course.) To all those who missed out, we are very sorry about that, and will try to plan for it not to happen next year! The sausage of course is the most expensive part of the meal—great little links that are the best ever. The sausage gravy is homemade (no mix, see my version of the recipe here). While some of the food supplies are donated by local businesses, we purchase others. The proceeds from the sale go to help with the sight and hearing projects typical of Lions Clubs, both locally, nationally and internationally. To all who came out, a big huge thank you!
But the best part of Pancake Days is not the cakes, sausage, gravy or coffee, but the camaraderie: learning to know club and community members in deeper ways than you can do by just going to meetings. Service projects—whether they be for church, school or club—are totally the best way to connect and find roots when moving to a new community or seeking new friendships and meaning in an old.
Sure there are always the little controversies about who can flip pancakes fast enough, not making them too far ahead so they’ll be fresh and hot, whether to buy more supplies or fewer, who is a good worker who quickly adapts to whatever work is at hand. You have those kinds of questions and tiffs no matter what service project you are with. Don’t let them spoil the community comradeship.
Happy customers.
The Broadway Lions Pancake Days even survived changing one huge part of the tradition by transitioning from holding the cookoff in a makeshift tent made of tarps for many years, subject to rain, wind and cold October mornings and evenings. Everyone always said that was part of the fun—and what made the food taste so darn good, like when you are camping. The “tent” was pitched behind a bank in downtown, making it super easy for folks to stop by for a good hot meal after a chilly homecoming parade—before they rushed off to the big game. Those were great days too, but no one seems to mind that we’re now serving in the nearby Fire Department community hall. We’ve maintained one part of the tradition by cooking the cakes on a great old gas griddle in a tarped “kitchen.” And there are inside bathrooms instead of the great Johnny Blues.
Cooking in the “tent” portion. Photo by Dawn Turner.
But thanks to some good signage around town, and a nice article in the local paper, the sale this year was a huge roaring Lion success. We thank everyone who came out and if you are lucky enough to have a Lion Pancake fundraiser in your community, check it out. Good folks!
Grateful to Blue Ribbon Landscaping in Broadway for a great sign.
My friends dealing with serious sight problems remind me frequently of the precious gift of sight. My own hearing issues (I’ll likely be stone deaf in both ears some day) also echo in my head on dark days. Besides these major club foci, the clubs frequently contribute to other causes.
But a great benefit for all is simply building community in a time when there is so much isolation and individualism.
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What makes Fall to you? What is your favorite community or church activity or fundraiser along these lines? I’d love to hear, and what you like about it!
Author Saloma Miller Furlong at a book signing.
The initial publication buzz is off for Bonnet Strings: An Amish Woman’s Ties to Two Worlds—a book Herald Press released this past January, written by Saloma Miller Furlong. I wondered if I was too late for some reflections (not so much a review, since I work for the publisher, who would believe I would be objective?).
It took me awhile to get around to reading Bonnet Strings—lots of others on my stack. Knowing a little of the conflicted nature of Saloma’s family struggles and abuse in Saloma’s earlier book, Why I Left the Amish (although I haven’t read that one), I wasn’t sure I wanted to wade into this one.
David Furlong, Saloma Furlong, and Shirley Hershey Showalter at Herald Press/MennoMedia luncheon.
Then I saw a comment by Shirley Hershey Showalter, author of Blush: A Mennonite Girl Meets A Glittering World, which was published a year ago—that she still appreciated a “late” review “after the initial book rush is over” (here, by Leanne Dyck). As a fellow author/editor, I know these things take time to be read and gel in the mind of the reader or reviewer—and then get into a publication cycle.
Saloma has quite a life story: how many of us actually successfully run hundreds of miles away from home (as adults) on a Greyhound bus and try to start a new life with a new name, place to live, job, and have the elders of our church, family, or community come not once but twice (she hid effectively from them the first time) to hunt us down and carry us back to kith and kin? How Saloma wrestles through the dilemmas caused by her deep love for her community, faith and family while also struggling with the rules and rigor of Amish life is the core of her second memoir.
Bonnet Strings starts out with 20-year-old Saloma increasingly frustrated by the restrictions of Amish community life. Her family also had some outstanding problems, including a father in desperate need of medication and counseling, and a mother reluctant to get help at that point even though Saloma had made initial inquiries about such. So there’s the conflict and crux of the plot.
At the Harrisonburg Barnes & Noble book signing.
I was delighted to meet the author last spring when she and her husband David Furlong came through Harrisonburg on a self-sponsored book tour. They are both genuinely likeable, lovely, personable and engaging human beings. It is important to realize that Saloma has lived most of her life quietly and quite happily, out of any limelight cast by authoring two memoir-type books and telling parts of her story in two PBS documentaries, “The Amish” and “The Amish: Shunned.” Since I also wrote two memoir-type books about my own young adult years (On Troublesome Creek, Departure), I know what writing about earlier experiences can do in terms of processing and capturing the memories and the learnings—and translating how those life experiences can connect with others. I also know from working on documentaries myself—interviewing and helping people relate their stories, is often transformative—helpful and life-changing for the teller and those of us who share or hear their stories.
Saloma’s comments on community in her book gave me much to think about, and also made me reflect on and better understand my own relationships and connections to Old Order Amish or Mennonite friends and family through the years.
Through one of my associations with a local Old Order Mennonite community here in Virginia, I began to pick up vibes that although my friends welcomed us royally when we visited, a bishop expressed concern to my friends about too much contact. After reading Saloma’s book, I better understand the why behind that distancing.
Belonging to an Amish community requires strict adherence to community rules and expectations, and for Saloma, absolutely stifled her individual growth and interest in further education. She asks, can you have community without full faithfulness to community guidelines? While some communities say sure, for most Old Order Amish or Old Order Mennonite the answer is no. Thankfully in most Christian communities—however defined—the answer is yes.
I think of my own church (Presbyterian now) and small group/house church experiences. These are defined communities. There are certain expectations in membership, sure, and as house churches we write and sign new covenants each year in which we set group goals and promise to maintain certain spiritual disciplines. But thanks be to God, there is latitude, grace (when we don’t complete every jot and tittle of our covenant and goals) and a wide embrace.
Saloma genuinely enjoys talking to readers and answering questions.
I admire Saloma Miller Furlong and Shirley Hershey Showalter: followers of Christ living out their unique calls as children and women of God. Each has a different community with different parameters. Who is to say which is harder: to live within a strict community with boundaries all spelled out and enforced, or to live a Christian life with boundaries less clear but trying to be just as faithful?
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What does community mean to you?
Can you have community without full faithfulness to community guidelines?
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For more on differences among Mennonites, Amish and Old Order groups, check here.
Spoiler alert: This, so far, is an unsuccessful attempt at recreating the most decadent donut my family and I ever tasted. I share it because I’m on a hunt and in hopes that you may help figure out the missing ingredient, step, or tweak.
Back story: It all began with my high school friend Deb while we were all in Northern Indiana this summer. She served us some great homemade bread and my daughter and her husband wanted to know where she got it. She told them (I wasn’t around) about Rise’n Roll bakery between Middlebury and Shipshewana. And she also tipped them off that they had a donut that was so good and so addictive and so sweet it had the underground name of “Amish Crack.” Let me be clear: *not a drug, but it might as well be.
The donut: Freshly made at Rise’ n Roll, it’s a yeast raised donut apparently dipped in a caramel type glaze and then sprinkled with a heavy dose of cinnamon sugar. So you’ve got a warm fresh donut, coated with thin caramel and then cinnamon POWDERED sugar. Do I need to go further?
It is to die for, and yes, if you eat too many, thou shalt surely die, to quote someone in the Bible. Oh, yeah, that would be God in the Garden of Eden. Well “Garden of Edenish Delights” could be another name for Rise’ n Roll.
The store/bakery/restaurant sets out about a dozen cups of samples throughout the deli area of freshly made ham salad, tiny crackers, humus dip, traditional dip, cold meats, cheeses, jams, apple butter, pickles: some Amish-style treats, and others (like the humus) not so Amish. All of the Amish and conservative Mennonite young people working there were like a busy hive of bees, scurrying to provide great customer service while in the background, you could see the baking prep operations going on. It is the real deal. There are several of these Rise’n Roll bakeries in Northern Indiana (Middlebury and Nappanee and also small markets in Chicago and Fort Wayne) and it is a good thing I don’t live there anymore. The best news is you can buy some of their stuff online. But not the fresh donuts.
At any rate, we all fell in love with The Donut and I set about trying to duplicate the debauchery.
I found a review on line that at least gave me a hint that the glaze was a caramel type frosting. And that the sugar was as described above. But ratios? I was on my own. And while I hardly follow a recipe for everything I cook, when it comes to baked goods, I stick to recipes and usually just improvise.
This was improv from the get go.
They were good, but not THAT good.
Here is what I tried.
Using my favorite Yeast Raised Donut recipe from the good old North Goshen Mennonite Cookbook, I made half a batch (since I was experimenting, and my husband and I were the only ones home. Usually we make donuts as a party or family celebration).
Step 1: The Donuts
Raised Donuts
1 cup scalded milk
2 pkgs. dry yeast
1/4 cup shortening, Crisco type
3/8 cup sugar
¼ cup warm water
3 ¾ – 4 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
(Also takes 3-4 cups Crisco in electric skillet or other cooker to fry the donuts.)
Scald milk, then add sugar and salt. In separate container, dissolve the yeast in the warm water for 5 minutes with stirring. When scalded milk has cooled a bit, stir yeast and water before adding to the milk. Stir in beaten eggs and add shortening. Add the flour in 2 additions, using hands if needed to add the last half and knead dough for several minutes. Let dough rise till double. Punch down, rise again. Then roll out dough to 1/3 inch thick on floured surface, and cut with doughnut cutter. Put cut out donuts on trays, such as cookie sheets. Let rise again about 30-45 minute.
To fry donuts, drop in hot shortening, 375 degrees. Turn donut over once. (It will probably only take 30-40 seconds on each side to nicely brown.) Do not over cook. Remove donut from shortening and drain on paper towels.
Adapted from recipe by Sue Christener, North Goshen Mennonite “Fellowship Cooking” Cookbook, 1960s era.
Step 2: The Glaze
While warm, dredge donuts in caramel glaze. The recipe below is adapted from Ree The Pioneer WomanTasty Kitchen Recipes.
Easy Caramel Sauce (also good on ice cream, apple pie, etc.)
1 cup brown sugar
½ stick butter
½ cup half and half or cream
1 Tablespoon vanilla
Pinch of salt
Mix all ingredients in a medium saucepan over medium-low to medium heat. Cook while whisking gently for 5-7 minutes, until thicker. Turn off heat. For glaze type consistency, add more milk if sauce is too thick to dip donuts in.
Dunk doughnuts in glaze/sauce while still warm. Then let them drip, hanging on a clean dowel rod to suspend the donuts over a dripping pan for glaze to cool without making a mess everywhere (could also use the long handle of a wooden stirring spoon).
Step 3: The Sugar On Top
Cinnamon Sugar Topping
2/3 cup powdered sugar
1 Tablespoon cinnamon
Put powdered sugar and cinnamon into sifter. Sift onto the glazed donuts. Set on paper towel to absorb mess.
Like I said, they were pretty good, but not to-die-for good.
So. Here I am, a pathetic wannabe part-time recipe blogger, writing a half-baked recipe that is not the yummiest yet or the bestest.
What suggestions do you have? Have you eaten the Rise’n Roll donuts? Go there. Other reviews say it is worth driving 100 miles out of your way. While I wouldn’t literally go that far, if you’re in the neighborhood, do stop in, and tell me how YOU would duplicate them.
Or, looking at the above, what ideas do you have for improving my odds of hitting my big fat donut target??
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Homemade Doughnuts: Techniques and Recipes for Making Sublime Doughnuts in Your Home Kitchen by Kamal Grant (Quarry Books, 2014) has a recipe for Salted Carmel Icing especially for dunts. Here’s that recipe, but I have not yet tried it:
¼ cup white sugar
2 Tablespoons water
¾ cup unsalted butter, cut into pieces, at room temperature
¼ cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup powdered sugar
½ teaspoon fine salt
Instructions
Briefly stir together the white sugar and water in a small sauce pan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Continue cooking, without stirring, until the mixture turns dark amber in color, about 6-7 minutes.
Remove from heat and slowly add butter, cream, and vanilla, stirring with a wooden spoon until completely smooth. Set aside until cool to the touch, about 25 minutes.
Combine the caramel, powdered sugar and salt in a large bowl and mix until completely mixed and lump free. Cover and refrigerate before using. Makes 1 ½ to 2 cups.
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Do you think that would be worth a try? Speaking of caramel, my neighbor/blogger friend Jennifer Murch wrote about to-die-for Homemade Salted Caramel Ice Cream just last week, which does look yummy!
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And oh yeah, anyone want to open a Rise’n Roll franchise in this neighborhood??
Top Ten Things I learned About PR Working for a Poultry Company
Twenty-one years ago in October 1993, I took a three-month “sabbatical” from my job writing, producing and marketing media materials for the Mennonite church. I contacted several companies within a 50 mile radius to find anyone willing to take a gamble on a 41-year-old “intern” who had been professionally employed for about 17 years. I offered to work 32 hours a week for anyone who could give me a different media environment to see what I could learn about how other organizations or businesses conduct their public relations. I did this to improve my skills and have a refresher instead of going back to school for a master’s or other degree.
Any time you work for a specific company or position for a long period of time it can be eye opening to take a break (and I was lucky to have a paid sabbatical which the company offered at that time even for my level of employee). They were enlightened enough to know how it can benefit both the employee and the company. Sometimes that fresh outlook can be gained by just a week’s vacation, a maternity/paternity leave, or even just a nice long weekend or walk around the building if you only have five minutes. When I go for my lunch time walk (usually 20 minutes), I often come back with a fresh idea to apply to a project.
The corporate communications director for WLR Foods was a woman I’ll just call Gail. This was one of the largest poultry companies at that time in the Shenandoah Valley. Gail saw my offer and according to her description, pretty much jumped at the chance for some free labor. They were entering their busiest season of the year: the holidays (think all those holiday turkeys), were planning a grand opening for an expanded facility in West Virginia, had an annual investor’s meeting coming up, and eventually, one of their turkeys was heading for a pardon at the White House! Lots of publicity needed. Lots of positive, glowing publicity.
Since I grew up on a poultry farm (see an early blog post here on my sister and my “fight” in the chicken house) it somehow felt appropriate to be going back to my roots. Plus when I met my husband, he was working in a poultry plant, what some people feel is the lowest of all bottom feeder jobs.
A Shenandoah Valley legend, Charles Wampler, Sr., began artificially incubating turkey eggs back in 1922 which changed the poultry industry forever (some would say, unfortunately, getting away from free range turkeys and chickens). His son, Charles Wampler, Jr. (born on Thanksgiving Day, 1915, and as far as I know, still living) not only grew up on his Dad’s turkey farm, he was instrumental in the long success of Wampler Foods (before it became WLR Foods), and “gave back” by turning into a huge Valley philanthropist. In 1993, he was officially retired, but still loved coming into the office and plant once a week or so just to make some rounds and check on things.
Charles Wampler Jr., 1993
Charles Jr. checked on me one day too, as he shuffled through my boss’s office. He had one question for me: “Are we paying you?” I almost laughed. “No,” I assured him, “my company is paying my time and I am just here trying to learn all I can about how a communication office is run in a profit industry,” I said or something like that. That seemed to satisfy him. I got in that brief conversation why the company had been so successful: a caring, involved, and innovative employer who carefully watched every penny. I think other employees may have wondered if I was a lackey for management, sniffing out problems or issues in the company.
Charles Wampler, Jr., Governer of West Virginia, Gaston Caperton, CEO Jim Keeler at the Moorefield WV plant expansion ribbon cutting.
A month after my internship with WLR Foods ended, Tyson Foods made an unsolicited offer to buy WLR Foods. Now that’s a PR nightmare I was glad I didn’t have to go through. WLR ended up merging with Cuddy Farms Inc. to avoid the take over and eventually merged with Pilgrim’s Pride in 2001, which still operates in the Valley. So here are the top ten things I learned in my almost three month experiment at WLR Foods.
- It is terrifying to go out and be interviewed for a job, even if you are volunteering to work for free, especially when you haven’t interviewed for a job for years and years.
- Dead chickens or turkeys are still dead poultry even if you talk about their “livability” rate instead of mortality rate. That is just twisted.
- Hairnets always look dorky, even on company big wigs, and in photo ops the nets are there to reassure the public that you take great pains not to let hair get in the food, (especially when a photographer is around). Actually the woven WLR Foods nets did a pretty good job.
- Gail kept high heels, a suit jacket, hair spray, mirror and lipstick in her office closet for any TV interview, photo or media op that might turn up, even though the office was eight miles from town and frequently covered with chicken feathers.
- When you work for free, you just might get free coffee and more frequent lunches out on the company dime than when employed by a church non-profit. But at the same time I learned to work under more deadline pressure than I’d ever experienced: news releases that had to be edited and faxed by 10 a.m. to meet a newspaper’s deadline, or higher ups that needed to be summoned immediately—such as if the governor was on the line.
- Turkey farmers on contract don’t necessarily understand (or cooperate) that they are to call Corporate Communications before granting any interview to local media. (Gail lived in fear of a negative story breaking in the local newspaper of conditions in a poultry house showing piles of manure or “mortality”—dead chickens.)
- As head of Corporate Communications, you take the heat from the CEO if any of your staff (or unpaid intern) makes a mistake or words something poorly. (I ruefully recall the time I overheard the CEO take Gail to task for the wording in a flier I had written—and she never passed the blame off on me as the intern.
(Yes, I had a dreadful perm at the time.)
- There were only two degrees of separation between me and President (at the time) Bill Clinton. A photographer, Patricia Barrow, at that time of Silver Spring, Maryland, took this photo of me, above, for the WLR Food Company magazine. I was a little bit awed that the day prior, she had taken the family Christmas photo of the Clintons. (And this, I might add, was 1993, Clinton’s first Christmas in the White House, long before all of the Lewinsky business gave a bad name to interns everywhere, through which Clinton suffered a huge fall in my esteem).
Gail reminded stockholders how the open house in West Virginia ended up in national poultry news.
- Some of my learnings are tongue-in-cheek, of course, but seriously I learned buckets of how to take any media coverage you receive and turn it into a “good news” media story for your investors, customers and fans. My boss was an expert at—and this was long before Googling, Facebook or Twitter—at sniffing out any reference to her company in the larger press, and then showcasing that in news releases, insider “leaks” faxed to the media. If the company had a record number of people volunteering for or donating to United Way, for example, that is a good news story about the company. I felt it was something that the Mennonite church, for whom I worked, could learn from—and work to send good news media stories to places like Newsweek, the Washington Post, etc.
- My boss’s number one priority while she worked for the company was creating and maintaining her company’s positive image in the community and the larger poultry industry. There is a long history/reputation of conditions in poultry plants being like sweat shops. Community sentiment about stinky poultry operations, possible polluted ground water, feathers along the highways, smelly rendering plants, demonstrations by animal rights activities, health enthusiasts (chemicals in foods), all led to a real “challenge,” to use one of the worst buzz words that ever came out of the PR field.
Gail took a company—where many employees did look at the job as a bottom feeder job that was, hey “just a job that someone’s gotta do,” had them get spiffed up and included them in the company magazine, captured through day long photo shoots by professional photographers who, the day before, had been photographing the President of the United States. Her professionalism in carrying out PR for a company known mainly for the stink it creates stuck with me—these 20 plus years later.
This article illustrated how employees were continuing their education in their off hours.
The take away? What is your number one priority in your job, or in your home? How can you look for and hold up the positive, rather than the negative? I admired Gail’s focus—and expertise in her field. While PR is sometimes spelled “P.U.” because of the lack of respect it engenders, (for overusing words like challenge instead of problem, or mortality instead of dead birds), Gail knew her job one was keeping a positive image for her company. Ultimately I walked away from any job requiring this level of spin, but we all deal with elements of our job that we don’t like. I’m grateful to Gail for taking me on—having an intern always requires some extra work and supervision—and I hope I did more good than harm.
When people wonder how I can stand being in one place and one job/employer for almost 40 years now, I point to experiences like this internship, three maternity leaves, and the constantly changing nature of technology and media. There’s something new every day.
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How do you find focus for your work? How do you focus on the positive? How do you stay fresh? I always love to hear from anyone!
We’re still enjoying small pickings of red raspberries as we move into early October.
I messed up this spring (technically late winter), pruning back our one and only red raspberry bush, which we planted several years ago when my youngest daughter was living at home. I cut back ALL the canes instead of just the older, seasoned canes. Why I didn’t Google how to prune first, and cut later, I don’t know. She took care of the pruning earlier, so I was winging it.
However, I’m having a fine late summer/early fall crop of fresh berries every other day. 
Not really enough to do anything with except eat fresh on cereal or in fruit salad (fancied up above for company), or freeze them in small batches. Or this:
A mini-cobbler.
This was so easy it was sinful, because I had leftover crumb topping from making a quick pie out of Granny Smith apples recently. I had too much topping for the smallish pie but rather than toss out the leftover crumbs, I bagged and refrigerated them thinking I might use it sometime soon, but not sure how.
Eureka. Daughter (the red raspberry lover) was home a couple days before we took off for our grandson’s birthday weekend, so for dessert one evening, I threw together this quick mini-cobbler. Perfect end to a fall meal for two or three people.
End of story. Here’s the mini-recipe.
Mini-cobbler with raspberries, peaches, blueberries, apples
Wash and prepare 1 cup of fresh fruit (chopped up if peaches or apples). Add 1/8 cup sugar (or more to your taste) and stir. Add two drops lemon juice if desired.
Crumbs:
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup flour
Cut butter into brown sugar and flour with pastry blender or two knives. Mix until crumbs resemble coarse meal with lumps the size of peas. Grease baking dish and add fruit. Sprinkle crumbs on top of fruit. Bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes.
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What is your favorite thing to do with red raspberries, besides just eat them fresh of course.
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For more recipes and family stories check out my book, Whatever Happened to Dinner.
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