Tuesday, April 25, 2023

Woke Up

Braided Blueberry Bread | recipe developed by www.BakingInATornado.com | #recipe #bread

 

You're familiar, I'm sure, with the saying "you don't know what you don't know." Well, I'm proof. It's actually kind of embarrassing to admit it, but I didn't know. The simple truth of a family in which I was a member, one of the inner circle, nestled and nurtured in its cocoon.

But I didn't know. And in some ways, the truth set me free. Opened my eyes.

I was maybe 5 years old. Relatives were over for a cookout, and while the adults were in the house doing adult things, I playing outside our house with Susan. Susan lived across the street, she knew a lot of my extended family, as I did hers.

At some point, the front door opened and Susan looked over.

Susan: Hi, Mrs. P.
Me: Mrs. P? 
Susan: Yeah, your grandmother's at the front door.
Me: That's not my grandmother, that's Aunt Rose.
Susan: Are they twins?
Me (laughing): No, they're it twins, they don't look anything alike.

Later in the day:

Me: Mom, this is funny, guess what Susan said.
Mom: What?
Me: She thought Nana and Aunt Rose were twins.
Mom: Honey, they are.

My grandmother and one of her sisters were twins. Identical twins. Who knew?

Apparently, everyone but 5 year old me. 

In retrospect, I understand why no one actually thought to sit me down, make a point of providing that information. 

Although many people (I learned) couldn't tell them apart, they looked completely different to me, my perspective based on having grown up with them, both viewed and seen as individuals.

Within my tribe, we saw them as different. From the outside looking in, they looked exactly the same. 

Family is one thing of course, our very first subculture, but as we grow there are many others with which we choose to identify. And when enmeshed, insulated in those groups, we run the risk of forgetting that there are other perspectives than those in which we've found comfort. Ones, even if we reject, we are better for just knowing. A reminder that we need each other to see the whole picture.

Our country, at this pivotal point in our existence, is moving in the opposite direction.



Woke Up | graphic designed by, featured on, and property of www.BakingInATornado.com | #MyGraphics #blogging




Unfortunately, a lot of power is in the hands of those (like, most prominently, DeSantis in Florida) who do not want us to see the whole picture. Those who are actively working to force us all to be and think and feel the same. Their same. They use their power to dictate what the whole picture can be, are manipulating access to anything outside of the lines they've drawn.

Banning books, health care, even discussion of what makes us different, rewriting our history, our access to information, our health care. One of whom (yes, DeSantis), in his march toward authoritarianism, towards creating us all in his own image, has taken to punishing companies, shipping off human beings, taking over curriculums.

They, those who see diversity and thought as a detriment to their personal vision, have named the movement to maintain our freedoms as "woke." They mock woke, use the term as an insult to bully anyone not willing to give in to their vision. 



Woke Up | graphic designed by, featured on, and property of www.BakingInATornado.com | #MyGraphics #blogging


  

When, in reality, "woke", unfettered access to information, free thought, celebration of and growth through diversity, is pragmatic, constructive, propitious to our growth as a society. 

It's not an exaggeration to say that our very existence could in the balance. It is nurtured and nourished minds that solve problems, not just in society, but on earth. Our food sources, flour, fruits, it can all be in jeopardy. 


Braided Blueberry Bread | recipe developed by www.BakingInATornado.com | #recipe #bread

Braided Blueberry Bread


 
If we are to grow, have the tools to meet challenges, to adapt, to thrive, we, as individuals and as a society, need to woke up.


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Braided Blueberry Bread         
                                                                                      ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
1 (1#) loaf frozen bread dough
3 oz cream cheese, softened
1 TBSP cookie butter (speculoos)
1 TBSP brown sugar
3 TBSP blueberry preserves

2 TBSP melted butter

Directions:
*Wrap the frozen dough in a piece of greased plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight (or for about 6 hours).
*Mix together the cream cheese, cookie butter, brown sugar, and blueberry preserves. Set aside.
*Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper.
*Roll the dough on a floured surface to about a 16 X 9 rectangle. Cut into 3 strips, 16 inches long by 3 inches wide, and spread the cream cheese mixture down the center of each strip to about an inch of the top and bottom, and to about 1/4 an inch of each side.
*Roll one long side of each strip over the filling, then do the same with the other side, forming 3 ropes. Gently pinch the edges. Move the strips to the prepared baking sheet, side by side.
*Squeeze the top 1 inch of the strips together and fold under. Loosely braid the strips then squeeze the bottoms together and fold under like you did at the top.
*Grease a large piece of plastic wrap and cover the braid loosely. Set aside for 4 hours to rise.
*Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Remove the plastic wrap, gently brush the melted butter over the top of the braid. Bake for 30 minutes. 

 

15 comments:

  1. What i don’t understand is the acceptance of this. I don’t understand the people of Florida not standing up and saying wait a minute, no this isn’t happening. Look at Tennessee, the people said no ! I don’t understand Trump followers, McCarthy followers and I really don’t understand FOX followers.
    When did we stop thinking for ourselves? Donna

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Autocrat supporters don't get that those autocrats will throw those supportes under the bus without a second thought.

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  2. Things have gotten so bad in some ways i just don't even know how to comment any longer.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Astute observations, all. I am absolutely flummoxed by it all. A friend sees it like the fall of all great civilizations. I hope she's wrong, but it sure looks like a duck and quacks like one.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I hope she's wrong too, but every day seems to look worse than the day before.

      Delete
  4. The bread looks nice not something I have ever tried
    I don't understand the whole WOKE thing, i have a grandchild who now says they are Non Binary, I don't get ti and hoe it is a passing fad

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I hope you try this bread, and I hope you find it in your heart to support your grandchild.

      Delete
    2. I don't need to understand to support and support I do

      Delete
  5. The word woke has been used and overused so much that it has lost all meaning (except to followers of a certain group of politicians, to which has turned into a dog whistle, if I could use another current phrase). We've seen the destruction of both a word and the progress of the last 50-60 years, before our eyes, and whether we will, as a society, wake up in time to put a stop to what is happening, remains to be seen. There has to be a point of no return, and we may have passed it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I can feel both your hope and your dismay, and I'm right there with you.

      Delete
  6. As someone who welcomes discussions with people who don't see the same way as me I'm at a loss why some people don't.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think it takes a fragile ego to be unable to listen to someone who doesn't agree with you.

      Delete
  7. Amen! Thanks for speaking this. And, BTW, my grandmother was also a twin. I never met the twin because she did of the typhoid at 7.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. How sad. My grandmother almost died at birth. There's a weird story about nourishing her with beer, I need to ask my mom about that.

      Delete

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