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"People need stories in hard times. They go to storytellers when times are hard like these." - Bruce Springsteen

Dear Friends,

We've always said our microphone is a stethoscope listening to the complicated heart of the nation. Recently, we sent out a call for stories to our email list for our upcoming NPR series about girls and the women they become, and the stories started pouring in:

“I received your email about your new series about girls around the world…who doesn’t have a story to be told? Take my Aunt Sally for example..." “My friend Shakundala is a painter of women. Most of the women she paints are prostitutes in India…” “You need to go to the all-female firehouse inside the California Women’s Prison and talk to the inmate/firefighters…” “I've passed this call on to our 14 year old daughter. Thank you for making this series for her, for all of us.” “My 3 sisters and I each adopted girls from Haiti and have developed a new family with the 22 girls that are their orphanage sisters. We invite you to Haiti to document these girls yourselves…”

Our new NPR series goes on air in March 2010 in honor of the 100th Anniversary of International Women's Day. We'll be opening up an NPR Phone Line on Morning Edition this January inviting listeners to call in with more stories and ideas.

Donate now to support our new international multimedia collaboration that will be heard by millions.

Your donation will directly support our work for the next year: creating on-air and online stories about women and girls around the world; developing a new series of international stories for Hidden Kitchens World; developing WHER: 1000 Beautiful Watts, the Broadway musical; producing the Cabrillo Music Festival multimedia project based on our women and girls series; teaching audio workshops (over 100 people took part last year) and mentoring young interns and emerging producers.

We are independent producers, not on NPR's payroll. No doubt you have heard of the steep cutbacks and layoffs at NPR. It is even harder to make it as an independent in these tight times. When our community supports us, granting agencies and corporations are far more likely to give significant funds to make our work possible.

In a world that needs education, health care, housing, good food, justice and peace, it's hard to come asking for money for storytelling. But storytelling has the transformative power to illuminate and address serious issues in ways that seep into the soul, that find the common threads of our humanity, that stir people to action. That is our mission, and what we can accomplish with your support.


No amount is too big. No amount is too small. Your donation is tax-deductible.
Thank you for supporting our efforts to chronicle little-known stories of our community, culture and history—stories filled with possibility. Think of all we can do together in the coming year.

We thank you for being part of The Kitchen Sisterhood.

Peace,

Davia & Nikki
The Kitchen Sisters

To contribute by check please make payable to: The Kitchen Sisters Productions, 916 Kearny St., San Francisco, CA 94113

The Kitchens Sisters Productions is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) media organization. All contributions are tax-deductible

Eggless Plain Vanilla Cupcakes

About an year back,I had bookmarked the recipe for Basic Yellow Cupcakes at Wilton's. I was new to baking then and tried only eggless recipes. Things have changed much now that I have adapted many recipes to make it eggless, thanks to blogging that I know about various egg substitutes and a special thanks to Madhuram and her many eggless events. I thought of increasing the milk quantity in the above said recipe to make it eggless. But as I said, I wasn't very sure of the outcome. At the same time around, Aparna, posted an eggless version of the same recipe. Her post gave me the confidence to go ahead and I followed her recipe to T. It was absolutely delicious and very easy to put together. As the recipe says, its a basic version. You can jazz it up to any kind of flavor you wish to. I have baked it many times with chocolate and coffee flavors.  Its a keeper recipe.

Ingredients

All purpose flour/maida - 3 cups

Cornflour - 3 tspn (I used arrowroot powder)

Salt - 1/2 tspn

Baking powder - 2 1/2 tspn

Butter - 1/2 cup

Sugar - 1 1/2 cups

Milk - 1 1/2 cups

Vanilla essence - 11/2 tspn

Mini chocolate chips for topping.



Method

Cream together sugar and butter till fluffy and light. Sift both flour, baking powder and salt. Add vanilla essence to milk.

Add milk and flour mix alternatively to the creamed butter-sugar combo. Beat well after each addition. Once you have done with both milk and flour, beat well for over a minute.

Grease the muffin tray and spoon the batter to 2/3 of the depressions. Add the topping.  Sliced cherries or tuty fruity can also be used as topping. Bake at 180 C for 30 minutes.

I got 18 muffins when I made the first time. Later on I  make only half the recipe. Last time when I made, I filled the muffin pan to half and had some batter left. I baked it in a jelly mould. Here is it

Here is the picture of  coffee flavored cupcakes. I used 1 1/4 cup milk and 1/4 cup of coffee decotion in place of 1 1/2 cups of milk in the orginal recipe.

 

Dry Fruit Laddu

Enjoying my stay @ Chennai. Swargame enrallum athu namma ooru pola varuma!!!! No way!!!!

yeah Chennai stinks a lot, that too after rain, it really stinks a lot, but its ok, its Chennai, my place, where i enjoyed the most wonderful years of  my life, My School, My College, College Swimming pool, Balaji Bhavan, haaa Great days!!!

Ok, coming to Dry Fruit Laddu. Wonderful recipe, taste great. Got this recipe from Channel [V]  Pakao.
Very simple to make.

Ingredients
Almonds - 1/2 cup
Cashew - 1/2 cup
Walnuts - 10-12 nos.
Dates - 10- 12 nos.
Marie Biscuits - 10 nos.
Milk - 1/4 cup
Chocolate - 4 squares of diary milk/any plain chocolate
freshly grated coconut/Dessicated Coconut - 2 tbsp

Method

Warm the milk slightly, add 2 squares of chocolate to it. Roughly Chop all the nuts.  Remove the seeds of dates and chop it. Powder the biscuits. Roughly chop 2 squares of chocolate. Mix the nuts, dates and biscuits  and chopped chocolates in a big bowl.

By this time the chocolate would have melted in the milk.  Now add this milk to the Nuts-Biscuit Mixture and make balls.  When you find the balls are not shaping, add 1-2 powdered biscuits and shape it well. Roll the laddus in freshly grated coconut or dessicated coconut.  Store it in an Air-Tight Container. Stays good for 4-5 days when refrigerated.

Laddus will be very mild in sweet. For a Sweeet Laddu, Instead of Chocolate Milk use Condensed Milk. Follow the same procedure, Just pour condensed milk lil by lil and make laddus.