I grew up in a very predominately white religious community in the mountains of central California (Oakhurst/Coarsegold to be exact) and have managed to separate myself from almost everyone I went to high school with/knew growing up through religious happenings on facebook. That’s started evolving after I came out, then the ignorance involved with the major sort of initial public transitioning by a celebrity with Caitlin Jenner, and eventually sort of ended with this election/girls claiming milo yiannopoulos and tammy lahren were heroes.
It’s weird to me to hear the word bubble being used, mainly from people in areas like this, to describe the large hubs or the ‘elite coasts’ when being where I am now I can easily go into a grocery store and be the only white dude in there, and drive past more than a church for christians, mormons, jehovah’s witness and seventh day adventists on my way there. Growing up everyone went to a church or was involved with God in some way, you sort of stuck with your own religious group, nobody I knew was gay or queer in any form (minus one guy that was brave enough to be himself and was constantly bullied for it), the only people of color I knew personally could be counted on my two hands, and about a third of them were adopted by white people in my church.
That, right there, is a bubble.
When you’re someone that lives in this environment it’s extremely easy to just ignore what’s going on 40 miles away in Fresno, or anywhere in the world for that matter, and when something doesn’t go your way you either blame the democratic president or if he’s republican say it’s in God’s hands and you don’t worry about it.
I wish I were joking.
I see these statuses on facebook now by the few people that have managed to hang on through my political rants that I went to church with and it’s like they’re completely blinded by what’s going on but it’s because it doesn’t affect them in any way. Zero repercussions because they’re content in the life they live. They ”were able to open their eyes that morning along with their family because god is good and they’re in good health” so what’s happening to all these minority groups is not an issue. I had a girl I went to high school with post this whole status about people needing to stop complaining and calm down because presidents change all the time and she was in good health god bless, and about 40 straight white people had liked it, so I did the thing any angry person would do when the actions he’s done are normalized and pasted the whole transcript from the bully bush pussy grabbing bus convo as a comment.
Needless to say she unfriended me and wrote me a whole long message about how that was wrong and she never asked for it because SHE DIDN’T VOTE FOR ANY CANDIDATE and that it’s sad that I have to base my being as a person on a president. *read* she’s a straight white woman that has nothing being taken away, it doesn’t affect her, so she doesn’t care. Place that under white privilege in your dictionary.
When my fundamental rights as a human being have the possibility of being threatened, it is an attack on my being as a person, as a human being. When the vp and cabinet members are being picked have a whole list of targets for LGBT people, minorities, and women, there’s an issue with that, and even if I didn’t fall into one of those categories I’d still give a damn because I’m a decent human being that cares about equality.
Her response? She likes to appreciate the little things in life and not worry about that. She’s content with getting to have her grandmother in-law at her wedding (good thing she’s not on that lis of countries, amirite?) holding hands with strangers, and watching rain fall.
Watching. the fucking. rain fall.
The takeaway from all this is that if you’re in her shoes/bubble, and you don’t know why people are upset with the new president, then figure it out, do some research.
Spoiler Alert: it’s not just because Hillary lost.
There’s a reason almost 3 million people marched in the Women’s march, why LGBT people are worried about the “godly man” mike pence that believes in electrocuting gay youth to ‘convert them’ to heterosexuality. When in doubt, ask one of your LGBT friends or poc their thoughts, and if you don’t know anyone that’s LGBT or not white then that, right there, is the problem.
Now we get to quickly talk about the food (we’ll get back to our regularly scheduled programming this week because it is, after all, my job to take pictures of food and write about it, but let it be known right here right now that when something needs to be said we’ll be talking about it.)
This pudding! I had the pleasure of going to one of the #bennettbrunches a few months ago for the release of my bb Molly‘s new book and we had to bring something for an Israeli brunch and this white boy had no idea what to bring so I searched molly’s site and found sort of a sweet Israeli couscous dish and said why not and it ended up going over very well with everyone. I love the idea of sort of a tapioca/rice pudding but with pasta and adding the element of a semi tart dried fruit and the warm spice of cardamom to send it over the top.
It’s officially winter citrus season according to instagram, where everyone’s been flashing their goods in beautiful lighting while side bragging that they won’t be getting scurvy because they’re eating the equivalent of a tube of emergen-c in one sitting.
I would choose boobs/ingesting more vitamin c than my body can handle.
I mean, that color.
Happy Friday Happy Weekend Breakfast Planning.
I had a bunch of leftover hard cider from the holidays so I wanted to utilize it for something that wasn’t drinking 4 by yourself while watching tv, and I landed on waffles. If you can make waffles with club soda and beer then cider is an obvious answer to the equation.
The even better news is that even if you don’t have the hard cider you could easily use a nice light beer or if you’re doing the no drinking for january just for funsies you can do any club soda or seltzer water, godspeed.
You bet your ass we’re double dutying that batch of 
The drink is actually just a twist on a classic bourbon punch with a bright hit from the marmalade and a splash of the fizz from my spirit La Croix. You really could use your favorite spirit in here though. I tried both vodka and rum along side the bourbon and the main thing that helped the bourbon cross that finish line was it’s ability to pull out more of the orange flavor from the marmalade like a wizard.
‘Tis the season for making a huge batch of something in plans to give it as gifts then put it in the fridge and forget about it for a couple weeks.
I actually ended up making this because I bought a 5 lb bag of clementines at the store because they were on sale and then once I got home I really realized how much 5 lbs of clementines was and if I ate them just like they were all by myself the acid would eat my teeth.
The method from this is actually from Nigella Lawson and it makes the whole marmalade process a thousand times better. No overnight soaking, no 4 hour cook times, barely any hands on time with my food processor decision. You just hot tub the citrus for a little bit then blitz it all in a food processor and cook it down with enough sugar to power a small cruise ship.
Each batch makes a good quart and then some so it’s perfect for gifting in smaller jars. I would 100% suggest doing it with 
