Poetry, WriterFriends & Cupcakes – Celebrating WomanWords’ 15th Birthday at Caffè Lena

There’s been no time to add recipes to this blog since March 26th. I’ve been baking cupcakes and freezing them. Creating decorations to adorn them. Drawing up the “WomanWords program” for our Feature appearance at Caffè Lena’s open poetry mic (and printing it). Pulling together what items needed to accompany me to the event (tablecloth, printed lists of ingredients for all four kinds of cupcakes, napkins, etc.). Thawing the three sets of cupcakes that were frozen. Researching how I might transform a regular cupcake recipe into a gluten-free one; then making and baking the gluten-free cupcakes early in the morning of the reading. Making all the frostings/icing and then topping all the tasty cakes during that same morning.

Oh yeah – then I had to figure out what I might read too.

It all came together: Wednesday night, April 4th, was a wonderful evening of sharing words and enjoying cupcakes at the bargain price of $1.00 each – all proceeds going to Caffè Lena. I don’t know how much additional open mic income it brought them, but I made sure we wouldn’t run out of cupcakes during the evening. I planned for, and delivered, extra – keeping some home for us and expecting that any excess would travel home with our daughter Kristen (one of the readers), to take to her officemates next day. There were even two gluten-free options for those who can’t do gluten, since Leslie Neustadt baked g-free, semi-homemade, carrot cupcakes topped with dashes of sugar.

There’s something quite awesome about being on the same stage of a musical institution where people like Bob Dylan, Arlo Guthrie, Don McLean, Ani DiFranco and many other music icons once performed – especially when I don’t play a musical instrument and, although I can carry a tune most of the time, I certainly can’t aspire to a recording or music-writing career. Lena’s is the oldest, continuously-operating coffeehouse in the United States, and it’s a credit to all who work to keep it running that this historic site remains “a place to experience” in Saratoga Springs, NY. The Caffè Lena Open Mic, hosted monthly by poet Carol Graser, is just one of many cultural offerings that can be enjoyed at Lena’s nowadays. I was honored when, several months ago, Carol invited WomanWords to be the Feature at a future open mic, and so happy that she liked the idea of scheduling it in April to coincide with our 15th birthday (“birth” not anniversary, because women birth… including words and other forms of creativity!).

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For those who don’t know about the WomanWords Collective: here, in part, is what I wrote on our now-outdated website years ago (which AlbanyPoets so generously hosted):

Statement of Purpose:

• To rekindle our Creative Fire
• To tell our stories
• To encourage others to tell their stories
• To empower ourselves and each other

WomanWords—the History:

The WomanWords Collective began as WomanWords, a small writing group meeting in Colonie, NY (a suburb of Albany) at the Mandala Center for Creative Wellness in April 1997. WomanWords was a direct result of founder/facilitator Marilyn Zembo Day’s desire to duplicate the magical inspiration she’d experienced at two summer conferences of the International Women’s Writing Guild (IWWG) on the Skidmore College campus in Saratoga, NY.

Leaving the Skidmore conference in 1995, Marilyn felt empowered, enthusiastic, inspired to write and create. By November or December of the same year, she wondered what had happened to all that spirit. Returning to the conference in 1996, she realized what she required to keep the energy flowing: a continuing network of supportive women such as she’d discovered at the IWWG event. As she departed Skidmore, she vowed to either find a writers’ group that met her needs or, if she wasn’t successful in her search, to create one.

During the winter of 1996-97, Marilyn contacted then-IWWG Director Hannelore Hahn to request a “zip code” list of IWWG members in the area for use as a one-time mailing list, and she also brought flyers around to local libraries and bookstores to solicit membership. A dozen women showed up for the first session, and WomanWords has been going strong ever since. Over the years, meeting schedules changed to accommodate the ebb and flow of both the numbers and schedules of participants, as well as Marilyn’s schedule. When Mandala Center closed in 2002, the meeting place also had to change. But always it was clear that the alchemy of a web of supportive, creative women was critical.

It wasn’t until WomanWords was asked to read as a “collective” at a local open mic in Albany in late Spring 2003 that Marilyn realized this was truly what WomanWords had become (thank you, Don Levy, for helping to better describe the entity into which WomanWords has grown!). No longer simply a small writing group, WomanWords has expanded to include a myriad of other activities, with [hundreds of women] having attended various events and many more receiving the e-newsletter, locally and across the country (and into other countries as well). [There have been workshops, retreats, writing weekends, readings, an open mic series, publications and more. Click here if you’d like to see photos of some activities on the old website.]

Today, we no longer meet monthly. I plan a few “special events” under the auspices of WomanWords each year, sometimes to benefit some place or organization like Still Point Interfaith Retreat Center (where most events are held), always with the goal of offering a safe, creative space for women who want to tell their stories, to write.

As for our most recent “event” – at Carol’s wonderful open mic – here’s that “story” in a few of the pictures:

Carol, our host

Marilyn

Leslie

Kelly

Mary

Kristen

Kittie

Lesley

Judith

The WW Readers at Caffe Lena - wish there was time for all my WomenWriter friends to have been readers!

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So we had something to celebrate. What better way than with words and cupcakes!?!

I wasn’t so much “into” cupcakes until Kristen began to make them for parties at her workplace. Then it turned out that both she and her brother, our son, Adrian, both “got into” cupcakes. So I baked a few… and later a few more… and now I love the idea that there are so many ways to vary them, to enrich – and other people love them too! There are even cupcake “wars” on Food Network. And it’s not so unusual any more for a bridal couple to opt for a huge display of wedding cupcakes rather than a many-tiered cake at their reception. Cupcakes are “in” (although now Kristen has gone on to creating “cakepops” – which tend to be too sweet for me when made with all the frosting that hold thems together in many of the recipes).

I’m not going to attempt to include recipes for all the Caffè Lena cupcakes in one posting. Right now I’ll provide the recipe for my favorite of the batch, Banana-Walnut Cupcakes. Let me herewith confess that, as I recuperated yesterday from the previous evening’s festivities (and the preceding preparations for it), I managed to indulge in three of those delicious delights (breakfast, lunch and dinner desserts – oh, all right, the breakfast one WAS breakfast in total, but then it’s kind of a muffin, only smaller, right?). Maybe I’m confessing but I’m not feeling guilty at all. Worth every calorie.

So here’s the recipe, including frosting/icing. It originated with 500 Cupcakes: The Only Cupcake Compendium You’ll Ever Need by Fergal Connolly (Sellers Publishing Inc., 2005), coming into its/my own with a few changes, including switching-out the margarine for butter, and adding an egg plus some cinnamon. Tomorrow (or very soon): I’ll fill you in on the frosting I whipped up for those Heavenly Cupcakes in my last post. After that, the other two.

 

BANANA-WALNUT CUPCAKES
Yields about 18 cupcakes

Ingredients

• 1¾ cups mashed bananas
• ¾ cup packed light brown sugar
• ¼ cup honey (I used orange blossom honey)
• 4 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 2 cups self-rising flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• ½ tsp. cinnamon (I use Saigon Cinnamon)
• Pinch of salt
• ¾ cups roughly chopped walnuts

Process

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Place paper baking cups into regular cupcake tins. If not using paper baking cups, lightly grease and flour each cupcake slot.
3. In a large bowl, combine bananas, brown sugar, honey and butter. Beat with an electric mixer until well blended.
4. Add the lightly-beaten egg to banana mixture. Beat well into mix.
5. Slowly add flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Mix well.
6. Fold in chopped walnuts.
7. Spoon batter into individual cups in the cupcake tin, to about 2/3 or ¾ full.
8. Bake for 20-22 minutes or until a wooden toothpick stuck in the center comes out clean (tops will “bounce back” when touched gently).
9. Remove pans from over and place on wire racks or trivets. Allow to cool for 5 minutes.
10. Remove cupcakes from pans and place on racks.
11. Allow to cool completely before frosting or freezing.

(If freezing, wrap each cupcake individually in plastic wrap, making sure to get out all air. When thawing later on (preferably no later than a month beyond baking date), remove plastic wrap as soon as taken out of freezer to avoid a gummy outer texture on tops – especially if you’re not going to frost them, or if simply sifting confectioners’ sugar on top.)

WALNUT FROSTING
for Banana-Walnut Cupcakes – more than enough for all of them!

Ingredients

• 4 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 2 to 3 cups confectioners’ sugar (start with 2 cups, add as needed to thicken)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla powder (can use extract, if preferred)
• 1 cup ground walnuts (or more, if you prefer)
• 2 to 4 tablespoons milk (I use 2%, and sometimes I need more than 4 tblsps of it!)
• walnut halves for center-top of each frosting cupcake

Process

1. Add cream cheese, confectioners’ sugar and vanilla to a large bowls, beating to a creamy consistency – ADDING a tablespoon or two of milk as needed, to make it creamier (but not liquid-like!). Or perhaps you’ll need more sugar – for a sturdier consistency.
2. When the frosting has reached the consistency preferred for topping cupcakes, beat in the ground walnuts.
3. Frost cupcakes.
4. Center a walnut-half on top of the cookie (it helps identify the kind of cookie too, should you be offering a variety!)