Focaccia Bread

 Fresh Focaccia Bread right out of the oven

2 1/2 c. Flour

1 tsp. sugar

1 tsp. Salt

1 put. Yeast

1 c. Plus a tablespoon or 2 of water

Drizzle of olive oil

[ grated cheese & oregano, olive oil ]

Directions:

Dissolve yeast in water, add sugar and salt, add some olive oil, then add flour... add more water if needed slowly. Shape in ball, cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise 1 hour

Now spray 8 x 12 Pyrex with non-stick spray.

Mix dough and place in Pyrex dish. With fingers spread across bottom of Pyrex dish. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with oregano, and cover with grated cheese. Cover with plastic wrap. Let rise 1/2 hour

Preheat oven for 350 degrees. Bake 30 - 35 min... Oh Yummy

Candlelight

 

MY GRANDMOTHER ONCE TOLD ME that each of us has a candle inside us just bursting to come out and light up the room. "Just imagine," she told me, "if everyone's candle burst out at the same time! "

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I TRIED TO WRAP my mind around the idea that there was a candle inside me, a lit candle ... "Oh, what a wonderful day that would be!!!" she said.

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"Why grandma?"

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"Why? ... because there'd be no more darkness, no more sorrow, no more suffering, no more violence, no more killing ... the world would be bathed in light and happiness and joy and love ... "

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I THOUGHT ABOUT THAT for a bit. How difficult it might be to get everybody's light to shine at once. I told grandma that.

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SHE CHUCKLED, then said: "You just make sure your light is shinin' bright ... "

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AND FOR many decades now, I've been tryin' ...

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I've been tryin', grandma ... I've been tryin' ... 🌺🌸💓

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~ author Michael Traveler, author/poet

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What is holodomor

 Thank you Joe  Becigneul for sharing

At the entrance to the memorial park in Kyiv, there is a sculpture of an extremely thin girl with a very sad look holding a handful of wheat ears in her hands.  Behind her back is the Candle of Remembrance, a monument with details reminiscent of authentic embroidery that can be found on traditional Ukrainian costumes.  This is a monument that commemorates a historical event known as the Holodomor.

 What is the Holodomor?

After the end of the First World War, Ukraine was an independent state, but in 1919 the Soviet Union "sucked" it into the community of Soviet states.  The Ukrainians, who even then considered themselves a Central European people like the Poles and not an Eastern European like the Russians, tried to restore Ukraine's independence.

In 1932, not wanting to lose control of Europe's main granary, Stalin resorted to one of the most heinous forms of terror against one nation.  In the process of nationalization, he took away the grain-producing land from the Ukrainian peasants, but also all its offerings, thus creating an artificial famine.  The goal was to "teach Ukrainians to be smart" so that they would no longer oppose official Moscow.  Thus the people who produced the most grain in Europe were left without a crumb of bread.  The peak of the Holodomor was in the spring of 1933. In Ukraine at that time, 17 people died of hunger every minute, more than 1,000 every hour, and almost 24,500 every day!  People were literally starving to death in the streets.

Stalin settled the Russian population in the emptied Ukrainian villages.  During the next census, there was a large shortage of population.  Therefore, the Soviet government annulled the census, destroyed the census documents, and the enumerators were shot or sent to the gulag, in order to completely hide the truth. 

World War.  Their poison gas was hunger.  Their Hitler was Stalin.  Their Holocaust was the Holodomor.  For them, fascist Berlin was Soviet Moscow, and their concentration camp was the Soviet Union.  Today, 28 countries around the world present the Holodomor as genocide against Ukrainians, which you could not learn about in school, because almost all evidence was destroyed and victims were covered up for decades, survivors were forcibly silenced by not having the right to vote until recently.

The Holodomor at that time broke the Ukrainian resistance, but it made the desire for Ukraine's independence from Russia eternal.