She usually chooses a two-and-a-half-pound boneless chuck roast with just enough marbling to “make it have a much richer taste.’’ She sprinkles a packet of dry onion soup over it, pre-heats the oven to 350 degrees (if using a metal pan; if using a glass pan, set the oven at 325 degrees), and bakes it, covered, for an hour and a half. Then she adds the potatoes and carrots, covers it back up, and checks it in another hour. “If you can twist a fork in it and it’s tender, then it’s done,’’ Barbara says.

Good cooks run in Barbara’s family. In the late 1950s her parents, Ida and J.B. Miller, owned the Eatn’ House in Pinecraft, serving all the delicious recipes that Barbara knew from her childhood. The restaurant closed in the late 1960s; in its heyday it would be open from October through March and then Barbara and her parents would return north to Norfolk, Va.

Ida did most of the cooking at the restaurant, where the popular hamburger deluxe came with a special potato salad that “everyone said was just the best ever,’’ Barbara recalls with pride. “She would grate the potatoes, not cube them, and it had a sweet and sour taste with mustard added so that it was more yellow.’’

The Friday-night special was a fish fry, and Barbara says her father would often catch the speckled trout himself, casting a line from the Ringling Bridge.

Saturday night was deep-fat fried chicken, not like the broasted version that is popular at Troyer’s in these more health-conscious days, while the all-time favorite Eatn’ House dessert was her mom’s egg custard pie—rich and delicious with a flaky crust that owed its texture to lard. Oodles of calories and not exactly heart-healthy—but I find myself longing for the chance to taste a slice of that classic confection.

Barbara’s church is part of the Southeast Conference. “It’s more liberal than other Mennonite churches,” she explains. The women don’t wear bonnets or plain dress. “They think we’re more worldly because we wear slacks and shorts,” she says.

A more conservative order is the Sunnyside Mennonite Church, which Laura Jean Helmuth attends. Sunnyside often has a sewing circle for the women, which ends with a carry-in lunch of salads (such as summer bean salad or garden vegetable salad) and desserts. The women will work on a quilt on a frame in the morning and then set out their dishes for an early lunch. Peaceful, relaxing—and delicious.

Another woman who’s well known in Pinecraft for her cooking is

Saloma Albrecht, a lively senior citizen whose pies are always sought after at carry-ins at the Bahia Vista Mennonite Church. Albrecht—who, like almost every other Mennonite woman I met, refuses to characterize her cooking as anything special—makes all her pie crusts from scratch.

“I find Gold Medal flour a little heavy, and Pillsbury is not too bad, but I like White Lily the best,” she says. She easily rattles off the instructions and I think to myself, “How hard can this be? Maybe I can do this.”

But then again, maybe I don’t need to try, since homemade pies are the crowning glory of Pinecraft’s restaurants. Gail Pentz agrees.

“I better tell you about the two-pie weekend,’’ she says. She and her husband, Keith, had invited friends from Orlando to spend the weekend with them. Gail went to Troyer’s to pick up her favorite peanut butter pie and figured “that it was enough for eight slices,” which meant dessert for Friday and Saturday nights. “We ate the whole thing the first night,” she admits with a grin, and she went back the next day for another one. It also was entirely consumed.

What makes it so delectable? Maybe it’s the peanut crumbs and whipped cream on top, we speculate, or the dreamy filling with just the right amount of sweetness.

Troyer’s manager, Willard Schlabach, says the fresh peach pie and coconut cream pie are also big sellers, but he agrees with Gail about the peanut butter pie. “The crumbs and vanilla cream layers with bursts of peanut butter make it,” he says, and it’s the perfect way to end a meal that might include one of Troyer’s most popular entrées: broasted chicken. Marinated overnight in herbs, salt and water, it’s meltingly tender and flavorful.