Let the Evening Be-Gin
If you don't know, I went to Smith College, a women's college in Western Massachusetts and an incredibly formative four years of my life. It changed my worldview so much that I continue to be involved in lots of ways, volunteering in a variety of capacities to give back. Smith College is part of a college group called the Seven Sisters, made up of - you guessed it - seven all women's colleges on the East Coast. There is Smith, Mount Holyoke, Bryn Mawr, Barnard, Wellesley, Vassar, and Radcliffe (even though Vassar and Radcliffe have gone co-ed, we still let them be part of the club). Why, you may ask, is all of this important? Because the Seven Sisters have formed quite an extensive network - and I was super lucky to be featured as a presenter in one of the events!
The event was a comedy hour - to get some 7S comedians some work given the COVID shutdown - and our organizer thought it would be great to have one or two people present beforehand, to mix drinks and get the crowd a little more jovial for the evening. I was selected to kick things off by presenting two sister-themed cocktails and discussing food pairings.
What is a sister-themed cocktail, you may ask? Good question - I had no idea either. John and I put our brains together to come up with some good presentation drinks. My requirements were minimal ingredients (because the more complicated, the more difficult) and to make sure the ingredients that were included were as common as possible. I also wanted that sister-theme, so I went with a variation on The White Lady drink, and we changed up the ratios a bit and added some simple syrup, to get what we called Sister Suffragette - a nod to the connection that white has to the suffragette movement and women in politics. The other drink, to create some variation, was The Bright Cider of Life - basically an apple-cider Old Fashioned, to bring back the nostalgia of apple-picking in New England autumn (it's a thing, I promise).
A few behind the scenes details - since the original White Lady cocktail called for egg whites, and not everyone may be comfortable with drinking raw egg whites, we tried LOTS of different ways to get the drink white...all of which resulted in some truly disgusting combinations. So we went with the egg whites, and if people didn't want the egg white, it could be omitted. For us it was an awesome experience to try them in the cocktail and we are converts - it feels weird to put raw egg white in the mixer, but it is absolutely worth it.
Since about 370 (!!!) people had bought tickets for the comedy set, I was nervous about this big audience, so I had to do a couple of rehearsals before the big day. Those were pretty key, actually, because it helped me figure out how to best orient myself in the kitchen and what I should have on hand and ready.
When Saturday rolled around, it was by far the biggest Zoom meeting I had ever been on. While I've been on lots of webinars, this was the first meeting 150+ I had been on where everyone could be unmuted and chatting. It was pretty amazing to see women from all over the country, of all different class years, saying hello, asking questions, and in general, being boisterous. When I got started, I think we had about 200 people on the call, a larger audience than I've ever done something like this for. I was spotlighted, so it was rather interesting when people popped in to ask questions or life hacks, because I couldn't see who they were.
Honestly, even though it was somewhat chaotic to have around 200 people unmuted, it was the closest I felt to a big party-vibe in a long time. We then went on to have four other amazing performers, one other to present about cocktail trivia, and three comedians. All in all, it was such a fun experience and something I would love to repeat again in the future!
Shoutouts to the other presenters - Sophia Fredo BMC ‘19, Rohita Kadambi MHC'11, Alice Cutler Vassar '99, Ashley Gavin BMC ‘10 and to Annie Wright BMC ‘92 for putting the whole event together!