By Kevin Williams
Time to buckle up for our weekly whirl into the blogosphere in search of anything and everything Plain. Have some interesting - and delicious - stuff today.
Amish Chocolate Chunk Banana Bread
AMISH CHOCOLATE CHUNK BANANA BREAD: This gem comes from an Amish cookbook and was made this past week by Patricia over at her Patchwork blog. Banana and chocolate bread, one of those funky combinations that might not sound great and first blush, but I bet it is really good. It looks delicious! Click here to read more and get the recipe!
MORE MCNULTY: Gosh, I love her artwork....it also just seems, from what you can glean from Cheryl's posts, that painting is a very healthy emotional outlet. I wish I had something like that for me as I navigate my mid-life career crises...I do weight-lift and run an those are great physical outlets, but something like painting stands the test of time and acts as an emotional release valve more so than hitting the gym, I would think. Anyway, she has posted an image of her latest watercolor, an image of a young Amish girl. What do you think? Is it finished? Or should she do more? I vote for more...I think it could be a striking image if she filled in the dress colors, etc....what do you think? Click here to see.
AMISH WHITE BREAD: You can't beat a basic Amish white bread recipe. There are many variations on the same basic theme. A blogger posted a classic Amish recipe for white bread. It's a newer version, many of the older Amish bread adaptations have lard as an ingredient. So check out the recipe here.
NORTHKILL AMISH: This is a fascinating slice of Amish history. For me, it is interesting to read the surnames, most of are still common among the Amish, I caught one (I think it was Sieber). For the Amish, history is never far from the present and this excellent post illustrates why. Click here.
SUNSETS: My post today about my Cooper's Hawk encounter got me thinking about writer Julie Zickefoose who often blogs about birds. So when I popped over to her blog I saw her beautiful piece about sunsets. Read it and enjoy her photos here. Sunsets really are captivating and under-appreciated. Whether you are in Ohio or Key West, sunsets are always a beautiful swirl of purple and pink and a lowering of a crimson curtain to another day. Time is precious and passes way, way too fast...at least in sunsets we have a beautiful bookmark to pass the pages.
Cheryl McNulty
Thank you again, as always, it's so nice when you include me in your blogrolls! So exciting! I also thank everybody who has given me advice on this painting, and so I will add more colors to the dress and maybe a slight background. I will post it as it is finished. Also, that Amish watercolor previously posted, I may do another one like it, but this time make her feeding chickens and hens as I was originally going to do, but chose the laundry option. But I liked the idea of the chickens so much, I would love to try it. I will post it when it's done as well! Thank you all for the input! And Kevin, it IS a great creative outlet, and you should definitely try it! Bet you'd be good at it, too!
Kevin
Can't wait to see how the latest turns out....and, you know, when I first read your comment I laughed: "Me? Paint? Absolutely no way." But in thinking about it, it WOULD be kind of nice to have a creative outlet besides writing...would love to see you do a post on the basics of learning to paint! I wouldn't have a clue on how to begin but it sounds fun.