One Knife Kitchen

(Or how to cook Thanksgiving Dinner with ONE knife)

    We have just returned from spending a week in a guest house on a Mennonite farm in the Amish country of Pennsylvania. In our living/kitchen area, there were 11 windows. We could see the countryside all around us dotted with Amish houses and farms. Everyone of these homes were as clean and neat as anything I have ever seen.

   This is a picture of the owners' house. Our guest house was attached to the left side as you look at the picture. We had 3 bedrooms and 1-1/2 bath, kitchen, living area. Lots of room and beautifully decorated.

   We planned to cook Thanksgiving dinner in our guest house with Deedie, Mitzi, me, Tim, Amy, Gabe, Annette, and Tim's mom, Ruth attending. I discovered early in the week that the kitchen was meagerly equipped (in my way of thinking and cooking), but I was determined to make-do with what was there. I had one butcher knife which was not very sharp, no cutting board and no Pampered Chef chopper. After cooking several days, I learned to like coarsely chopped apples in my tuna and even wondered briefly why I had 5 Pampered Chef knives and 4 Cutco knives in my drawer at home. The cleaning up was much easier with only one knife, especially since there wasn't a dishwasher.  There was a TV in the living room, but no TV service. It was connected to a DVD player, and we even watched part of an old Andy Griffith movie one night. Our Thanksgiving dinner turned out very well, with turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, peas, corn, deviled eggs, cranberry sauce, ham, a special dressing that Ruth makes and pumpkin and pecan pies purchased at an Amish bakery. Ummm good! It was a gorgeous day and a beautiful setting to enjoy Thanksgiving.

   Of course, being with Tim, Amy and Gabe part of every day was the reason we were there and it couldn't have been more fun. We enjoyed Gabe, who turned one on Sunday, November 25th, the day we had to leave. He is so smart, with a laid back, sweet nature and it was hard to leave him.

   The owners of the home we stayed in were industrious and hard working. She has a gift shop in the town of Bird In Hand, as well as runs the household where we were. Every year at this time, she along with her sisters and sisters-in-law, mother, grandmother, etc. stop everything they are doing and put together Christmas wreaths from live trees. They have a building behind where we were and they worked all day and into the night. They make them by the thousands and trucks pick them up and deliver them to retail stores all over the country. We were able to watch for a few minutes one morning and it was very interesting.

   We shopped one day at Lena's gift shop and wee surprised to discover that there must be Amish people who live in China, because a lot of the gift items in her shop said "Made in China". She also had a lot of beautiful handmade items and we enjoyed looking. We loved looking at the countryside and driving around just looking at the farms and passing the horse pulled buggies. Mitzi jogged a few mornings and had to dodge the horse droppings.

This is a picture of the front porch of the main house.

The top two pictures were taken on an old well, and the bottom one is at Gabe's birthday party on Saturday.

   Between Mitzi and me we took between 200 - 300 pictures, so if you ever have a free day - just come on over.
   We loved the simplicity of the life on the Amish farms. Everyone does their share and they work hard, but they are always smiling and friendly and I would go back again if ever given the chance.

Long Winter Days

Having just returned from 10 days seeing our grand children and brand new great grandchild, Gabriel Keith Baker and all the activities that involved, life now seems a bit hum drum. In days past I could cook something yummy for us and start new projects.
But with my diabetes having gotten a little out of control and with pain in both feet constantly that cuts down tremendously on activities I enjoy. I see the foot doctor next week, so maybe I will get a diagnosis and I have purchased (through my new Kindle) a book called "The 30 Day Diabetes Cure" It is written by a doctor and he explains in graphic detail what will happen to me if I don't get my Type 2 Diabetes under control, and it is not a pretty picture. So after having read some of it on Tuesday, I went to the health food store on Wednesday and bought a cart full of food he suggested I eat. I started the diet on Wednesday and have managed to stay on it for two days. I think the first 10 days is the worst because he's trying to get all the sugar out of your body and get it cleansed for the next phase. I haven't been brave enough to read that far yet, just trying to survive one day at a time for 10 days. I'm finding it cost a lot more to eat healthy than to eat fast foods, good homemade baked potato soup, etc. That is definitely not on this diet, nor are the bagels with cream cheese and the boxes of donuts the motel put out each morning for our breakfast. I know I have to take this diet seriously because the doctor just keeps adding medicine on top of medicine when my blood sugar goes up. Actually the doctor who wrote the book said this isn't a "diet" but a lifestyle change and I thought "whoopeeeee". When you get older, eating out or cooking "good" food is about the only pleasure we get, so I'm thinking of other things to do beside eat.
One of my favorite things to do is read and play with my new Kindle. I've downloaded several books, the Bible, a few games and Amy taught me some things about it while we were there. She just got hers for Christmas and could do more than I could within the first 30 minutes. Of course I have several books for classes at church that I need to be reading as well. Every time I sit down to read one of those books, my restless legs kick in and if I take a pill so I can sit, it puts me to sleep.
I'm not really complaining, even though it may sound like it. There are so many people that our ladies class visit who are so much worse off that I count my blessings all the time.
So yesterday I hobbled up to Home Depot and looked at their carpet. We may carpet the sun room, so that's a fun thing to think about, especially since we won't be watching the Cowboys in the playoffs, and it looks like the Mavs won't make it either. Come on Ranger's baseball season.
Spring will be here before we know it and I get to go dig in the yard. Can't wait!
I may just start a new jigsaw puzzle. Getting older is definitely not for the faint hearted.
More later and maybe it will be positive.