Amish potatoes and corn

I just got home from an interesting weekend spent with friends in Holmes County, Ohio. This is Amish country in Ohio and we had fun exploring cheese stores, bakeries, antique shops and a 'hardware' store that stretched on for a couple of blocks and sold an amazing variety of stuff including some hardware. Sort of an eastern version of Wall Drugstore in South Dakota without the turquoise jewelry (at least I didn't find any).  In the evening we enjoyed a Christmas variety show at the Amish Country Theater. It was not, as I expected, a play about Amish people but rather a series of acts including a buck tooth MC who told corny jokes that still managed to get a lot of laughs, an excellent a capella men's quartet who made beautiful music and a ventriloquist who was the hit of the show. His routines with his rooster puppet and his 93-year-old man puppet were very funny but his best routine was using four volunteers from the audience as his 'puppets'. He instructed the volunteers to stand in a row and simply move their mouths as he stood behind them and tapped them on the back, quickly or slowly according to how fast he tapped them.  He, of course, provided the voices, high and squeeky for the tall macho guy, deep and solumn for the petite woman. The four volunteers moved their mouths as instructed and it was amazingly effective and very funny. 
Much of the countryside we drove through was rolling hills full of farm scenes right out of Currier and Ives. It would probably have been beautiful but much of yesterday was spent dodging gushing rain storms which took a lot of the fun out of strolling or driving from place to place. I almost forgot, one of the high points for me was my absolutely decadent lunch of mashed potatoes and noodles.  Comfort food from my childhood and perfect on a rainy day.