coffee crunch bars

If you had some of Veronika's Coffee Crunch Bars at our August meeting and fancy making them yourself, here is a link to the recipe - American measures, conversion chart here. The recipe comes from Molly Wizenburg, who also writes at the delightful Orangette site.

Richard Reynolds, Guerilla Gardener tomorrow. With cake, perhaps.

Fete Thanks

Just wanted to say thank you thank you thank you to everyone who helped in any way whatsoever on the St Barnabas Community Fete Tea Tend tea stall. The marquee looked stunning and seemed to be packed all day long. The toasties were selling like.... well, hot cakes, and I'm sure it was a great success for us.
Pictures and more feedback from the day to follow although do keep an eye on the blog and on the Fete website www.stbarnabascommunityfete.org as they will both be updated as and when photos of the day stream in.
Niki
President EEWI

september meetings

Our next meeting is on Tuesday 15th September when Richard Reynolds is coming to talk about Guerilla Gardening. Richard's passion is fighting the filth with flowers and forks and he'll show us just what is possible. Please have a think about an area in our community or anywhere really that you feel is neglected and could do with some gorgeous planting - we'll vote on which one we'll do and get Richard to help us to plan our very own bit of guerrilla gardening.

For more on Richard go to http://www.guerrillagardening.org/

Usual time and place: 7.30pm for an 8pm start. Chisenhale Art Gallery 64 Chisenhale Road

£3 for visitors free for members. Tea and coffee provided free courtesy of Cafe Direct. Please feel free to bring a bottle!

Our Coffee morning is on Friday 18th September - Gallery Café St Margaret’s House in Old Ford Road, E2.

http://www.stmargaretshouse.org.uk/gallery-cafe/gallery-cafe

hokey pokey and other deliciousness

Thanks to everyone who made and served biscuits and other deliciousness for the EEWI stall at St Barnabas Community Fete this weekend. We made toasties, sold fruit and made gallons of tea and coffee to ward off the early Autumn chill.

Put your right arm in, your right arm out....oops, that's something else altogether, isn't it?

Here is a link to our partenrs, Cafe Direct's blog post about our most recent evening

http://brewing.cafedirect.co.uk/2009/08/19/an-evening-with-the-east-end-wi-in-good-taste/

Howlovely that even though it was traditionally the holiday season we still had a great turn out and a fab evening - I may have drunk a little too much wine....

Niki

morsbag making

For some reason, we thought that our Morsbag Making August meeting would be fairly quiet. But take 20 women, coffee tasting, cake and cookie testing and wine drinking and it turned out to be rather busier than we expected.

We started off with a talk from Rachael from City and Hackney Mind. She reminded us that one in four people is likely to suffer from a mental health problem at some point and welcomed our support for their work. Look out from more info here on their October Awareness day.

Alex and Yasmin from Cafe Direct, who generously sponsor us with the provision of coffee and tea for our EEWI stalls throughout the year, showed a film describing the way they work with growers yes, it did make me a bit teary) before we moved on to a coffee tasting session. Who would have guessed at the power of the collective EEWI palate? Read more about it on the Cafe Direct blog, with thanks to Alex for his kind words.

The more prudent among us saved the goodies to have with coffee- Coffee Crunch Bars, Coffee Victoria Sponge and Blueberry Muffins. Thanks to Veronica, Elizabeth and the maker of the muffins ( sorry - did not catch your name!


So... 20 women, two sewing machines, an ironing board, lots of snipping and sipping (OK, yes, there was some wine) ...result ONE MORSBAG!

Well, it was a busy evening and for some of us this was a new experience. Happily, lots of you took home some cut fabric to finish off and make up. Looking forward to seeing them in September.

happy endings

We had a bit of a girls together outrage at the Essex WI Federation Show this weekend. Most of the outrage was that I was driving and didn't know where I was going. Niki came to the rescue with some modern technology otherwise we would still be wondering round Hatfield Peverell.

The show was a revelation. Traditional crafts were on display - baking, flower arranging, embroidery with a smattering of stalls, cakes and jams for sale. The cross stitch work from WIs across the counties was especially charming, I thought - selection pictured here. The Federation had also asked all of the WIs to send in unfinished craft projects and there was a selection of nearly finished embroidery and tapestry for sale with a view to giving them a "happy ending".

We had our own happy ending too. Cakes and jams in our EEWI bags, we headed off to the seaside, my hopeless planning redeemed by my knowledge of where to buy a decent cup of tea and seaside ice cream.

More happy outings this weekend at our Annual Picnic. Sunday 16th, 3pm, Victoria Park on the green by the Pavilion Cafe. See you there.