Amish Breakfast Casserole
We enjoyed hearty breakfast casseroles during a visit to an Amish inn. When I asked for a recipe, one of the women told me the ingredients right off …
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"I left the Amish at 17 - we weren't allowed phones, makeup, or boardgames"
A mum has revealed what it was like to grow up in a strict Amish family which banned make up and TV - and why she left and never returned. Naomi Swartzentruber, 43, said she was expected to wake up at 5am and help on the farm from the age of five. She left school at 14 - to cook, clean and help with chores full-time. In her teens, she began to rebel in “small” ways like wearing lingerie under her gowns, listening to the radio through her neighbours’ window and secretly dating non-Amish boys. But at 17, she met a man who offered to let her stay with him - so she ran away and hasn’t been back since - and visits her family yearly. Naomi, an author from Coolidge, Arizona, said: “I started feeling really rebellious - I decided I wanted to get a job, find an English boy, and wear whatever I want. “When I was younger, I started wanting cars and radios and bikes - but our very strict rules forbid them. “I started noticing all the things my neighbours had that we couldn’t - at the time, I was told I’d go to hell for watching TV.” The Amish value simple living - and ban lots of elements of modern life, like technology, fashion, and vehicles. Anyone who isn’t within the Amish community is referred to as ‘English’, Naomi said. Naomi says she was born into the strictest Amish branch - and her childhood was simple and happy. From the age of five, she was expected to help with the farming and the housework. Living on a farm in Michigan, with 12 kids, she’d wake up at 5am to feed the chickens, cook the day’s meals, work in the garden and clean the house. She said: “We’d get up at dawn and work all day until the sun went down. “Women would be expected to do the cooking, cleaning and washing the clothes - while men would do all the farming. “There wasn’t much time for play - and we had to dress modestly. When I asked my parents why we had to dress and work, they said it was ‘just our way”. Naomi went to school until she was 14 years old - after which, she was expected to cook and clean full-time, she said. A year later, she started to branch out by going to ‘English’ yard sales near the farm. There, she started to sneakily buy modern clothing like t-shirts and shorts, as well as “dollar store” lingerie, and would wear them underneath her church dress. Her brother was also given a radio by their cousins, and they secretly used to listen to it back at the farm. She said: “The first time I heard modern music - it was ‘Pickup Man’ by Joe Diffie. “It made my world go round. …
17 Timeless Side Dishes Your Grandparents Loved
These 17 side dishes are classics that have stood the test of time because they’re simply delicious. These aren’t fancy, fussy creations; they’re …
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