A few months ago, the wonderful folks from Alouette cheeses found my blog and offered me some free samples of their products to cook with and review. I then recently found out that Alouette is a French-owned company with its North American headquarters and plant in New Holland, PA.  Alouette has a large variety of products [...]

Have you heard the term “Barn Raising” before? What does it bring to mind? To me, it brings to mind community. Let me explain what a Barn Raising is.
When an Amish man loses his barn due to fire, his neighbors, relatives and friends gather for a “Barn Raising.” The men cooperate, each performing his job, [...]

Two of my favorite back road stores to visit in Lancaster County are Country Housewares Store near New Holland and Miller’s Natural Foods in Bird-in-Hand. Both are Amish owned and operated.

I’ve been visiting Miller’s Natural Foods since the early 1980s. My uncle frequently bought antiques from a man named Eli Miller on Miller Lane in [...]

They say that each part of the world has its own unique flavor. True in many senses of the phrase; however, many parts of our country have become homogenized. With the grocery store chains and strip malls the same in every aspect, one could travel from Kalamazoo Michigan to Tampa Florida and find the same [...]

One of the reasons I fell in love with history is my grandmother’s red and white, 1959 Holiday edition Oldsmobile Super 88 convertible. Lovingly maintained by my grandfather, this car had a back seat the size of a couch and chrome on every corner. Each top-down, Sunday drive over the back roads of Schuylkill and [...]