I could have stomached losing my home, but I couldn’t stomach my parents losing theirs in my pursuit of what is still an unfulfilled dream. And while the dream has been dinged and dented, it’s still alive, a talisman to a time when life was simpler and slower.

I’ve talked about the origins of the Amish Cook column in countless interviews and in our books. But what I’ve rarely said publicly is that the Amish Cook story really begins before I met Elizabeth Coblentz in 1991. The path to what would become the column started in the naïve dreams of my youth, on the barbed fence between adolescence and adulthood.

When I was an impressionable and spiritually searching teenager, I saw my first horse-drawn buggy, shiny and black like a Sunday shoe, on a family trip to Adams County, Ohio. Filled with questions about this unknown (to me) culture, I was so enthralled that I seriously considered joining the Amish faith. Other outsiders have done so successfully. What would there be to dislike about a creed that embraced family and faith all rolled into spiritual simplicity?

People who join the Amish faith are known as “Seekers” (there’s a great story about such a family in the newly released Everything But The Kitchen Sink book) .After a period of reflection, and with some sadness, I passed on an Amish existence. But years later, shackled by my Blackberry and stuck in the web of the internet, I still wonder about where my life would be if I had chosen the Amish? Would I be happier? Spiritually richer? I found some answers last week when I spent the day with a seeker in rural Logan County, Ohio.

While I couldn’t join, I became a seeker by proxy. I reasoned I could do the next best thing and keep a fascinating culture and religion in my life and bring it to others. So 20 years ago I set in search of an Amish columnist. The journey to The Amish Cook’s door first took me first through the smoke-colored, hardscrabble hills of beautiful Adams County, Ohio and storybook towns outside Mansfield, never dreaming the column would one day appear in the very places I was exploring. I tell the whole story of this journey in an upcoming memoir called, appropriately, “Not So Simple.” ( There is an excerpt in the “Kitchen Sink Book“, but Not So Simple‘s release is a couple of years away)

As I get older, I realize the limits on the time we all have to make a difference and that weighs on me. My new Seeker friend in rural Ohio and I discussed our separate journeys as we gently toured the countryside on his open horse-drawn buggy. He believed he was divinely destined to his current Amish life and I believe I was destined for mine, but for what purpose? He’s a Seeker who sought and found, while two decades later I’m still seeking.

But now that the bank battle is over, I believe the column can enter a new more stable period if properly funded. And I believe the way to do that is through another giant book drive. Content is currency and our books do offer a wonderful tribute to 20 years and a provide us with a foundation to build 20 more upon.

I am energized and excited at the possibility of The Amish Cook column reaching huge new audiences in the years ahead, because of the vast reach of the internet. Perhaps this belief is naïve, the last whimsical vestiges of the unsure 18-year-old I once was. But I’d like to know for sure. Readers lifted the millstone, but let’s heave it into the sea and let it sink to the bottom so the column can soar. And that can be done with this October book blitz. Back in the spring I’d had hoped to sell 300 sets of books, that didn’t get done, but hopefully the final half can be done now.

BOOK SPECIAL INFO: All SEVEN softcover cookbooks, including the newly released editor‘s Amish Cook Everything But the Kitchen Sink book is now being offered again for the lowest price that they’ll ever be offered for: $89 (plus $6 shipping) for all six 200-page titles through Oct 30. To order these titles DIRECTLY through Amazon.com go www.amishcookonline.com/books and that will take you to the Amazon store. Photos of the books can seen there. Orders for the “seven set” can also be placed (and back order status check on) by calling . Telephone and online orders will ship same day. Orders accepted by mail by sending checks for $95 to Oasis Newsfeatures, PO BOX 157, Middletown, Ohio 45042 (allow 2 – 4 weeks for delivery). Additional sets can be ordered for $70. All orders will be placed through and will be filled by Amazon (including backorders). Individual titles are also available for $20, plus $5 shipping. Titles available are: The Best of The Amish Cook, Vol 1, Best of Vol 2, Best of Vol 3, Amish Cook Treasury, Family Favorites & Facts, Original Amish Cook cookbook and editor’s Amish Cook Kitchen Sink.

Meanwhile, try this favorite.

Amish Milk Pie

3 eggs

1 cup molasses

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

3 cups thick sour milk

2 (9-inch) unbaked pie shells

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Beat eggs. Add molasses. Combine sugar, flour and baking soda and add to egg mixture. Add thick milk. Pour into unbaked pie shells. Bake for 10 minutes; then reduce oven temperature to 325 degrees and bake for 40-45 minutes.

Sprinkle top of pie with cinnamon, if desired.