Wildflower Baking

Juneteenth commemorates the day in 1865 when freedom finally came for enslaved Black people in the Confederate states when Union troops arrived to Galveston, Texas. This was TWO YEARS AFTER the Emancipation Proclamation was signed and two more additional months after the Civil War ended.

As the National Museum of African American History and Culture writes “Juneteenth marks our country’s second Independence Day. Although it has long been celebrated in the African American community, this monumental event remains largely unknown to most Americans.”

If you celebrate July 4th but have never learned about Juneteenth, interrogate why that is. Why is it that this year is the first time in history Multnomah County and this City of Portland have declared Juneteenth a paid holiday. Why isn’t June 19th a national holiday?

Today- particularly if you are white - honor that Juneteenth celebrates Black freedom and resistance and please take the time to learn about Portland’s enduring history of racial discrimination.

We will be posting lots of actionable items in the stories today. Things about how racism was written into the Oregon constitution, how reparations are vital to acknowledging and overcoming our history of violence against Black Americans.

And remember, you’re on stolen land.

🍒 🍐 🍏 NOW ACCEPTING YOUR FORAGED FRUIT!! 🧺

These cherries come from a customer in St. John’s and we will be making little galettes with them for next weekend. Order through the link in bio! Sadly, the days of deliveries are over, but pre-order to pick up Saturday and Sunday from 9am - 1pm. 💗

In an effort to keep supply chains as simple as possible, connect with our community and enjoy the bounty that this land has to offer, we are calling on our neighbors who have lots of fruit with nowhere to go.

We will offer you trade credit for cherries, plums, peaches, apricots, figs, grapes, quince, apples and whatever you got too much of. The idea of using our customers fruit that is as local as possible is VERY exciting for us! We go through a ton of it and plan on using even more by dehydrating it and replacing the other dried fruit we’ve been buying. It usually comes from California and sometimes is treated with preservatives. Not our fave.

The past months have really demonstrated how strong we can be when we work together. Figuring out creative ways around systems where there seems to be no alternative is something scrappy people like us are doing on the daily. This fosters independence from all damaging systems that we have all been indoctrinated to depend on. How can we break free?

When we help each other, we realize there are alternatives to things like police and grocery stores. Mutual aid helps wean us off these systems that are ultimately damaging to communities, families and young people.

Step by step we can reimagine another future and it begins right in your own backyard. ⚡️
@ Portland, Oregon

Wildflower Baking has always been a lot of things, some people might argue TOO many things. How can a cute little bakery also be an educational resource and a radical tool? How can we challenge such oppressive systems through cookies and croissants?

The fact of the matter is, when we limit our business, we limit the parts of ourselves that show up to work. Bringing only a portion of myself to work has always felt inauthentic to me. Like yes, I can certainly be a friendly person selling cookies, but I also have this deeply analytical and radical side that I feel drawn to express through this business.

And as Katie has started working here it has become clear that she too feels the need to express more than just her recipe ideas through this business.

As a food business, our responsibility for transparency is becoming more and more important. We want to spark difficult conversations through comfortable food.

We will be doing some investigation into the ingredients we use on a daily basis: how are these things colonized, appropriated or stolen? Do we still need to use them?

We will also continue to question the white male dominated food industry that we are undeniably a part of. This MUST change and we really want to be a part of this change.

We will continue to recognize the privileges that have allowed us this opportunity (as two white liberally educated women from affluent backgrounds) to run an unconventional bakery.

In all of this, we hope to gain your support, the support of your friends and continue to build a community that resists the conventional food industry that is so damaging in so many ways.

So thank you for following us this far. If you’d like to sign up for our newsletter (Katie is writing this and it will include more thoughts and resources) you can do that at the bottom of our online store website.

Hope to see some beautiful faces at our pick up window this weekend. We are still here to nourish you. 💗

As always, changes are a-brewing.
We are introducing this strawberry rhubarb galette with sourdough spelt crust. It will take the place of the handpie in the Wildflower Baking Box, so be on the look out for that little stunner.

Also, this will be the last week we do deliveries. While it seemed like a useful function at the height of quarantine, it hasn’t seemed very high in demand and spending that energy driving around town doesn’t feel like the best use of time right now. There is still one more opportunity to have a delivery: this Sunday 6/14. So get those orders in now while you still can!

I’ve made a few updates to our website and online store to include resources on antiracist work. Right now that work includes centering the Black community, but don’t forget about the people indigenous to this land, the many tribes that thrived among the Willamette and Columbia Rivers before the land was stolen from them by white colonialists. On our website their is an entire tab entitled “ON STOLEN LAND” that includes the part of this story, as well as resources to learn more and how you can change this narrative.

In our store there is a donation link to , a Black woman run who “empower BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) communities in Portland by leveraging economic deposits from communities of privilege to empower BIPOC communities and begin to move towards economic equity.” I’ve also included a link to .cargle’s Public Address on the Revolution. She’s a bombshell and one of the first people who taught me about antiracist work. I highly recommend starting with her compiled resources and listening to her.

I’ve also started relistneing to the podcast portion of “The 1619 Project,” an interactive, multimedia by (Nikole Hannah-Jones) that reclaims the narrative of slavery and race in this country. I could not recommend it more.

Stay safe, stay well and stay out there y’all. Remember that all of this is just one gigantic act of LOVE.

Weekend Update:
Pastries and breakfast sandwiches available for pick-up today from 9am to 1pm at our window located at 833 NW 16th Ave. We will have lots of extras today so please swing by!