Just Plain Wrong

The MennoBrarians
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Three Mennonite librarians discuss depictions of Amish, Mennonites, and other plain groups in media and popular culture. We review Amish romance novels, other Amish fiction, movies, TV episodes, and more! New episodes most Wednesdays. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram @plainwrongpod

  1. 20 AUG

    We need a bigger spreadsheet: Wrapping up Season 7

    In this episode we discuss the highlights of season 7, share some stats and also stories and corrections from our listeners. Highlights include the story of how the More with Less cookbook got into trouble with a chain of restaurants, the rise of ebikes in Mount Hope, OH, and more. Additionally, here are some of the resources shared by Steve Nolt about the Old Order River Brethren including: A number of very informative books in the MHL, about Amish and other Plain groups, were written by an Old Order River Brethren author, Steve Scott.  The occasional medical column in Pathway’s Family Life magazine that the MHL gets sometimes has a health Q&A with Dr. Michael Sauder, who is Old Order River Brethren.Another OORB of note is poet G. C. Waldrep, about to retire from Bucknell University. He is a convert to the OORB.  The OORB drive cars, have never limited higher education, and haven’t spoken PA Dutch for many generations, so they are, in some ways, an attractive option for converts who have higher ed and only speak English.  Interestingly, Waldrep provided a photo of Plain hat rather that a head short for his Poetry Foundation bio.  They don’t prohibit photos, but discourage them.  We always love hearing from listeners! You can reach us at plainwrongpod at gmail.com, or on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. If you want to help support the podcast financially, please consider joining our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/plainwrongpod or buying merch at TeePublic Follow us: Twitter: https://twitter.com/plainwrongpod Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/plainwrongpod/ Website: http://plainwrongpod.com/ “Just Plain Wrong” is produced, written and edited by Erin Milanese, Abby Nafziger and Matilda Yoder. Our intro music is played by Erin, and the outro by Miriam Augsburger. Both are "arrangements" of the Doxology from the Mennonite Hymnal. Logo design by Ida Yoder Short. Canva design (used for Social Media posts in Season 4 -6) by Abigail Adams.

    33 min

  2. 6 AUG

    That's Very 2000 of You: Discussing Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult

    This week the MennoBrarians discuss the selection chosen for us by our Discernment Committee level Patreon members: Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult, published in 2000. This book has it all: a mysterious murder, a lying Amish teenager accused of the crime, a cutthroat but disillusioned big city lawyer, and a 28 year old ph.d. student studying ghosts that turns out to be the baby's father. We chat mysteries, plot twists, and what maybe didn't hold up so well 25 years after publication.  We always love hearing from listeners! You can reach us at plainwrongpod at gmail.com, or on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. If you want to help support the podcast financially, please consider joining our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/plainwrongpod or buying merch at TeePublic Follow us: Twitter: https://twitter.com/plainwrongpod Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/plainwrongpod/ Website: http://plainwrongpod.com/ “Just Plain Wrong” is produced, written and edited by Erin Milanese, Abby Nafziger and Matilda Yoder. Our intro music is played by Erin, and the outro by Miriam Augsburger. Both are "arrangements" of the Doxology from the Mennonite Hymnal. Logo design by Ida Yoder Short. Canva design (used for Social Media posts in Season 4 -6) by Abigail Adams.

    1h 14m

  3. 23 JUL

    Better Than Jimmy Carter Cake: Discussing Mennonite Community Cookbooks with Amy Harris-Aber

    This week is part 2 of our cookbook series! We chat with Amy Harris-Aber, about Community Cookbooks - informally published cookbooks often associated with families, camps, or churches. We chat about Amy's research on Mennonite cookbooks, discuss our fave recipes and cookbooks, and much much more.  Amy's websiteAmy's article on Russian Mennonite Community CookbooksCookbooks / articles / books mentioned:  Feminist Rhetorical Practices – Jacqueline Jones Royster and Gesa E. KirschGoessel Centennial Cook BookRosie Grant - Gravestone Recipes (book), ghostly.archive (Insta account) Tasteful Domesticity – Sarah WaldenRecipes for Reading: Community Cookbooks, Stories, Histories – Ann BowerMelting Pot of Mennonite Cookery History of Cookbooks - Henry NotikerClaiming a Piece of Tradition: Community Discourse in Russian Claiming a Piece of Tradition: Community Discourse in Russian Mennonite Community Cookbooks by Amy Harris-AberErin’s -  Memories and Recipes from the family of Jesse & Anna Shetler  Abby’s - Wilderness Wind cookbook, 2nd editionTillie’s - From the Kitchens of CMC (Columbus Mennonite Church) We always love hearing from listeners! You can reach us at plainwrongpod at gmail.com, or on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. If you want to help support the podcast financially, please consider joining our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/plainwrongpod or buying merch at TeePublic Follow us: Twitter: https://twitter.com/plainwrongpod Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/plainwrongpod/ Website: http://plainwrongpod.com/ “Just Plain Wrong” is produced, written and edited by Erin Milanese, Abby Nafziger and Matilda Yoder. Our intro music is played by Erin, and the outro by Miriam Augsburger. Both are "arrangements" of the Doxology from the Mennonite Hymnal. Logo design by Ida Yoder Short. Canva design (used for Social Media posts in Season 4 -6) by Abigail Adams.

    1h 5m

  4. 9 JUL

    What is food? A Snake Draft of Published Mennonite Cookbooks

    This week, the MennoBrarians draft published Mennonite cookbooks. We chat cooking blogs, favorite recipes, and much much more.  Draft picks (stop reading if you don't want spoilers!):  Erin - Simply in SeasonAbby - More with LessTillie - Extending the TableTillie - Mennonite Community CookbookAbby - There’s always room at the table - Kaleb WyseErin - Peppernuts Plain and FancyErin - The Daily Feast - The Graber FamilyAbby - The Lost Art of Real Cooking: Rediscovering the Pleasure of Traditional Food One Recipe at a time by Ken Albala and Rosanna Nafziger, 2010Tillie - Food that Really Schmecks: Mennonite Country CookingHonorable Mentions Menno-Night Caps, Sherri KlassenMe, Myself, and Pie: Amish Recipes. Sherry GoreMelting Pot of Mennonite Cookery: 1874-1974, Edna Ramsayer Kaufman Homage: recipes and stories from an Amish soul food kitchen, Chris Scott  We always love hearing from listeners! You can reach us at plainwrongpod at gmail.com, or on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. If you want to help support the podcast financially, please consider joining our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/plainwrongpod or buying merch at TeePublic Follow us: Twitter: https://twitter.com/plainwrongpod Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/plainwrongpod/ Website: http://plainwrongpod.com/ “Just Plain Wrong” is produced, written and edited by Erin Milanese, Abby Nafziger and Matilda Yoder. Our intro music is played by Erin, and the outro by Miriam Augsburger. Both are "arrangements" of the Doxology from the Mennonite Hymnal. Logo design by Ida Yoder Short. Canva design (used for Social Media posts in Season 4 -6) by Abigail Adams.

    1 hr

  5. 25 JUN

    Laundering the Laundry: A conversation with Karen Johnson-Weiner, author of the Lives of Amish Women

    This week, the MennoBrarians chat with Karen Johnson-Weiner about her book, The Lives of Amish Women. The book captures the diversity of the experiences of Amish women, with Johnson-Weiner's research relying heavily on correspondence and interviews with members of Amish communities. We chat about her research, her friendships with Amish women, why there hasn't been much research published on Amish women and much more! We really enjoyed The Lives of Amish Women and recommend you add it to your reading lists if this is a subject that interests you. Note: The audio for this episode is more "echo-y" than usual due to Karen needing to record in an unexpected location (a stairwell!). Thank you to Johns Hopkins University Press for providing us with review copies of the book.  Links: Lives of Amish Women Karen Johnson-Weiner's website We always love hearing from listeners! You can reach us at plainwrongpod at gmail.com, or on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. If you want to help support the podcast financially, please consider joining our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/plainwrongpod or buying merch at TeePublic Follow us: Twitter: https://twitter.com/plainwrongpod Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/plainwrongpod/ Website: http://plainwrongpod.com/ “Just Plain Wrong” is produced, written and edited by Erin Milanese, Abby Nafziger and Matilda Yoder. Our intro music is played by Erin, and the outro by Miriam Augsburger. Both are "arrangements" of the Doxology from the Mennonite Hymnal. Logo design by Ida Yoder Short. Canva design (used for Social Media posts in Season 4 -6) by Abigail Adams.

    49 min

  6. 11 JUN

    An Experience That Cannot Be Described: Discussing the Movie "Holy Matrimony"

    This week, the MennoBrarians chat about the movie "Holy Matrimony," a 1994 comedy movie starring Patricia Arquette and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. In the movie, Patricia Arquette's character, Havanna, is unknowingly dragged into a Hutterite colony by her boyfriend Peter who she is forced to marry, and then after Peter dies in a car accident days later, she must marry Zeke, Peter's 12-year old brother per the rules of the colony. If you think that's weird, just wait til you hear us break down the rest of the plot! We do a very detailed plot recap, and chat Hutterites (who, for the record, do not believe in Levirite marriage), state and county fairs, and what on earth this movie was trying to do.  You can find Holy Matrimony streaming on YouTube.  We also reference the podcast How Did This Get Made? that does an episode on Holy Matrimony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLQbY4byIUo (or you can find wherever you get your podcasts).  We always love hearing from listeners! You can reach us at plainwrongpod at gmail.com, or on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. If you want to help support the podcast financially, please consider joining our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/plainwrongpod or buying merch at TeePublic Follow us: Twitter: https://twitter.com/plainwrongpod Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/plainwrongpod/ Website: http://plainwrongpod.com/ “Just Plain Wrong” is produced, written and edited by Erin Milanese, Abby Nafziger and Matilda Yoder. Our intro music is played by Erin, and the outro by Miriam Augsburger. Both are "arrangements" of the Doxology from the Mennonite Hymnal. Logo design by Ida Yoder Short. Canva design (used for Social Media posts in Season 4 -6) by Abigail Adams.

    1h 9m

  7. 28 MAY

    Joe Would Know: A Conversation with Eric Bradley

    This week, we chat with Eric Bradley, our friend, colleague, and the new Head Librarian of the Mennonite Historical Library (MHL). We chat primarily about genealogy and genealogy research, but also touch on MHL resources, Eric's faith journey, and much more. Some of the genealogy resources mentioned in this episode:  Swiss Anabaptist Genealogical Association https://www.saga-omii.org/Grandma Online: https://grandmaonline.org/gmol-7/login.aspFamily Search: https://www.familysearch.org/en/united-states/Mennonite Historical Library website: https://www.goshen.edu/mhl/  We always love hearing from listeners! You can reach us at plainwrongpod at gmail.com, or on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. If you want to help support the podcast financially, please consider joining our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/plainwrongpod or buying merch at TeePublic Follow us: Twitter: https://twitter.com/plainwrongpod Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/plainwrongpod/ Website: http://plainwrongpod.com/ “Just Plain Wrong” is produced, written and edited by Erin Milanese, Abby Nafziger and Matilda Yoder. Our intro music is played by Erin, and the outro by Miriam Augsburger. Both are "arrangements" of the Doxology from the Mennonite Hymnal. Logo design by Ida Yoder Short. Canva design (used for Social Media posts in Season 4 -6) by Abigail Adams.

    56 min

  8. 14 MAY

    Snowflake, Snowflake: A Snake Draft of Mennonite Poets

    This week, the MennoBrarians draft poets! Specifically, Mennonite poets, or poets we make the case are close enough to Mennonite to count as Mennonite poets. We chat about the history of Mennonite poetry, share the bios and snippets from our favorite poems, and chat about our own poetry phases - including Abby doing a special reading of a poem she wrote as a tween, Snowflake, Snowflake.  Draft picks:  1. Patrick Friesen, "The Moon in the Streets" (Tillie) 2. Kate Baer, "Life a Wife" (Abby) 3. Julia Kasdorf, "The Mennonites" (Erin) 4. Carrie Newcomer, "I Believe" (Erin) 5. Jean Jantzen, "Wild Grapes" (Abby) 6. Jeff Gundy, "The Cookie Poem" and "How to Write the New Mennonite Poem" (Tillie) 7. Yorifumi Yaguchi, "Gravestones" (Tillie) 8. David Wright, "A New Mennonite Replies to Julia Kasdorf" (Abby) 9. Ann Hostetler, "Iconoclast", and also editor of A Capella, an anthology of Mennonite poetry Honorable mentions (we cut this portion of the podcast for time, but want to still give these poets a shout out!) - Jesse Nathan (Erin) - Daniel Shank-Cruz (Tillie) - Dennis Hoffman (Tillie) We always love hearing from listeners! You can reach us at plainwrongpod at gmail.com, or on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. If you want to help support the podcast financially, please consider joining our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/plainwrongpod or buying merch at TeePublic Follow us: Twitter: https://twitter.com/plainwrongpod Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/plainwrongpod/ Website: http://plainwrongpod.com/ “Just Plain Wrong” is produced, written and edited by Erin Milanese, Abby Nafziger and Matilda Yoder. Our intro music is played by Erin, and the outro by Miriam Augsburger. Both are "arrangements" of the Doxology from the Mennonite Hymnal. Logo design by Ida Yoder Short. Canva design (used for Social Media posts in Season 4 -6) by Abigail Adams.

    54 min
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About

Three Mennonite librarians discuss depictions of Amish, Mennonites, and other plain groups in media and popular culture. We review Amish romance novels, other Amish fiction, movies, TV episodes, and more! New episodes most Wednesdays. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram @plainwrongpod

Information

  • Creator
    The MennoBrarians
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2025
  • Episodes
    120
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2025 Just Plain Wrong
  • Show Website
    Just Plain Wrong

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