The Amish Cook By LOVINA EICHER Daughter Elizabeth, 15, penned the column for me last week which I appreciated. I hope everyone enjoyed her letter. I think she does a very good job of writing! She also does a great job helping me with the household duties while the other girls are in school. For instance, last week she baked over 300 cookies. She baked 2 different kinds of sugar cookies, one kind was the "world's best sugar cookie" the recipe for which I have shared with you before in this column. The other kind was a softer sugar cookie. She used the recipe my oldest sister, Leah, always used. I like these cookies but I just have never had much luck with the recipe. Elizabeth's cookies, however, turned out really nice. Needless to say they are going very fast in this household, especially after daughter Susan, 13, came home from school and mixed up some homemade frosting to put on them.

100 of the cookies were to take to our church services on Sunday. These are the ones they use to pass around to the younger children half way through the three hour service. Our church district has almost 90 children under the age of 10. There are a lot of babies and small children and if we have visiting families that makes for even more. Yesterday the services were well-attended with visitors from Ohio and Indiana plus other visitors from neighboring church districts. They set up 5 tables which had to be set twice to feed everyone in shifts.

Meanwhile, my husband Joe has been hunting deer every free moment he gets. He was lucky on the second day of shotgun season and got a doe. We kept the tenderloins but otherwise ground the rest into sausage. I am making deer bologna with the sausage and am processing it in wide-mouth quart jars. After it is cooled off we will shake the meat out of the jars and slice it. We will see how we like the meat that way. Joe still has his hopes up in getting more deer before the season ends. We had some pretty excited children when they heard that Joe got a deer.

We just heard last night that Joe's grandmother fell and broke a bone but we don't have many details yet. She will be 96 on December 9. We sure hope she does not have too much pain with it with the break. Daughter Verena will be 12 on December 10 and she always writes to Joe's grandmother. To think she is almost 96 years old and still answers every one of Verena's letters, which is very precious to her. We wish her God's blessings through this ordeal.

Thanksgiving is here already and I don't have my turkey yet. I want to get one before Thursday. We will enjoy the day at home with a big turkey dinner along with some family and friends. I wish everyone a safe and blessed Thanksgiving. We have many, many blessings to thank our Heavenly Father for, not only on Thanksgiving Day but every day of the year.

Here is the soft sugar cookie recipe that Elizabeth made:

Soft Sugar Cookies

This makes 100 cookies, but you can adjust the recipe measurements to your size preference.

4 cups white sugar

4 tablespoons baking powder

2 cups shortening

2 tablespoons lemon juice

3 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 cups buttermilk

2 tablespoons soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

10 cups flour

Preheat oven to 350. Mix together all ingredients except flour. Then add the flour gradually. Chill the dough a few hours or overnight. Drop by teaspoon onto greased cookie sheet and bake for 8 to 10 minutes. Sour milk can be used instead of buttermilk. Best when frosted.