Last week one of our staff shared her secrets for travelling with her son and some of the activities that they enjoyed when visiting Edmonton. This week we'll talk about fun activities for the kids in our fair city.

Calgary Public Library has some great programs on Saturday, May 21. There is a Drop-in Storytime at Country Hills Library at 11:30 and one at Crowfoot at 10:30. Bring the little ones for a half hour of stories, songs, and fingerplays the whole family can enjoy. Ages 2 to 5 with a parent/caregiver. No registration required.

Shaganappi Library is offering an exciting program, Tales from the CYPT, on Saturday, May 21, 3:30 - 4:30. Join us as the troupe of young performers from Calgary Young People's Theatre weave their tales for folks of all ages in this special preview of their upcoming show. You can register online, by phone at 403-260-2620 or in person at any branch.

Heritage Park opens for the summer on Saturday, May 21 with all the usual fun activities. My kids loved a day at the park with the horse-drawn hay-rides, the antique midway and, of course, riding the steam train. No day was complete without a visit to the candy store and the ice cream parlour.

Special events for May 23: The first 500 guests to arrive between 9:30 -10:30am will be treated to Heritage Park’s complimentary pancake breakfast served hot off the grill in Gunn’s Dairy Barn, with regular paid admission. A special Mother Daughter treat might be the traditional Afternoon Tea served at the Wainwright Hotel Tea Room.

The Calgary Zoo is a great place to visit any day of the year. "Giraffes: Behind the Scenes" is a special program which will run on Saturday, May 21st. To make the most of your visit, you can check for times and locations for free Daily Visitor Activities that run every day.

The Telus World of Science has the wonderful exhibit of Titanic artifacts which we went to see on Mother's Day and which was totally fascinating. We each received a boarding pass and became an individual who sailed on the boat. At the end, we found out who survived and who didn't. A sobering experience!

We watched the James Cameron movie, Titanic, the night before. I couldn't believe how accurate the movie was for historic details and the stories of many of the passengers. If you would like even more of the background, the library has Secrets of the Titanic, which is the story of the first undersea explorers to locate, photograph, and explore the wreckage of the ill-fated Titanic.

I wouldn't recommend the exhibit itself for younger kids, but there are related activities for children. The Creative Kids Museum has some special Titanic programs plus there is a new Imagination Playground. I would recommend buying your tickets for the Titanic exhibit in advance. It was busy!!

Summer hours started on May 15 at Royal Tyrrell Museum. Allow yourself 2 - 3 hours for a good visit to see all the dinosaurs in the museum. Some special programs will start on May 21, such as Dinosite, Fossil Casting and the Badlands tour. Visit their website for details on the programs and costs. The museum is open from 9:00 am - 9:00 pm, seven days a week this time of year. And don't forget to stop for a look at Horseshoe Canyon just before you start the long drop down into Drumheller.

And, of course, don't forget Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump for an interesting day trip.

One of my favorite drives is down the scenic Cowboy Trail, and then on to the Crowsnest Pass and the Frank Slide.

Check out this great book, Day Trips from Calgary, for more ideas on places to go and things to see!

Every family birthday at my house precipitates the question "What will we have for dessert?". The birthday meal itself is not really debated, as family members are quite satisfied with my varied offerings of salads, grilled grub, pastas and the different permutations and combinations they have come to expect from me. But dessert is another matter altogether, with lots of suggestions and opinions about what we should indulge in. One thing I know for sure: no one quibbles about chocolate cupcakes, especially moist, fudgey ones with a thick, luscious, bittersweet ganache topping.

Which brings me to what I baked for my daughter Claire's birthday this weekend. Easy to prepare and a total delight to indulge in after a lasagna dinner and a few games of pool at our home. Cupcakes offer us the complete satisfaction of having our very own decadent dessert to eat any way we like, from fist to mouth, cut into dainty quarters, taking little forkfuls of icing alternately with morsels of cake. A cupcake is all yours to do what you please with.

You can buy cupcakes at specialty shops for over $3.00 a pop but why would you when you can whip up these from scratch in almost no time at all? Birthday or not, a fabulous chocolate cupcake is a classic crowd pleaser that you can count on to boost the mood of any event on your agenda. The Fine Cooking website takes the credit for this simple but delicious recipe that helped make Claire's birthday meal special, memorable and festive:

Chocolate Cupcakes with Ganache
adapted from www.finecooking.com

1+1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour; 3/4 tsp. baking soda; 1/2 tsp. kosher salt; 2 cups granulated sugar; 1 cup strong brewed coffee, warm or cold; 1/2 cup sour cream; 1/2 cup canola oil; 2 large eggs; 4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled.

My ganache - 2 cups heavy cream; 12 ounces semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped; 4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped; 2 tbsp. granulated sugar; pinch of salt. Place chopped chocolates in a large bowl. Heat cream, sugar and pinch of salt in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir to dissolve the sugar. Do not let the mixture boil. Pour hot cream over chopped chocolate and whisk until smooth. Set ganache aside and let cool until thick enough to spread without dribbling. Ganache can be refrigerated and then brought to room temperature for spreading.

For cupcakes, heat the oven to 350 F. Line 16 muffin tins with liners or grease the cups with butter. Sift flour, baking soda, salt and sugar into a medium bowl. In a large bowl, whisk coffee, melted chocolate, sour cream, oil and eggs. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and whisk until there are no lumps. Pour the batter into prepared muffin tins, dividing the batter evenly into all 16 cups. Bake in the middle of the oven for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the centre of a cupcake comes out clean. Let cupcakes cool for 15 minutes and then remove them from the pan to cool further. Top generously with ganache.

Those of you who like to use pastry bags may wish to swirl icing or ganache overtop your cupcakes in a graceful swoosh. I just took a pallet knife in hand and got to work building a sweet layer of truffle-like smoothness onto each graceful cake. A little easier, and prettily annointed with a chocolate coffee bean.

Cupcakes are a bit of a craze right now which begs the questions, did they ever really go out of style? Aren't they always a good idea? Some food trends come and go (foam? architectural food styling? raw food?) but cupcakes deserve a permanent place on the party table.

Go crazy for cupcakes with our support:

In the spring, instead of cleaning, my thoughts turn to travel. We sometimes scratch that itch with a long weekend in Edmonton. We just came back from a five day jaunt. Here are some of the places we visited, and the Calgary Public Library items we carted along for the ride!

When Simon was little we took stacks of readalong CDs and books. I remember Anansi the spider by Gerald McDermott. While I drove, Simon followed along with the book in his carseat. I listened too so that we could talk about it together. As he got older we switched to bookcds.

Recently we’ve been listening to Rick Riordan’s Lightning Thief series. It’s a great way for the family to share a story.

Our first stop in Edmonton was the Telus World of Science. It’s always the first stop, because it’s such a great place. I love the carnival style health exhibit with the big pink tongue and disgusting smells in jars. This year the astronaut exhibit held us the longest. There are also permanent exhibits on solving a crime, helping the environment, and a hands on center for younger kids with water pumps and a dance-on piano.

Second stop- The Royal Museum of Alberta. You might want to read Stick insects: masters of defense by Sandra Markle before you go, because our number one destination is the insect zoo on the second floor. We’re always amazed by the camouflaged stick insects. The dioramas with Alberta animals are also interesting. In fact the fine paintings in the back of all their displays deserve a good look on their own.

Third stop- the new Art Gallery of Alberta. It’s a fantastic new building with a metal ribbon running through it that’s fun to explore. Simon liked the plastic whale skeletons that Brian Jungen made out of lawn chairs. These are gone soon, but a summer show on Andy Warhol will open May 28. Uncle Andy's by James Warhola is a charming picture book about Warhol’s nephew who visited him in New York. (Andy dropped the last a in the family name)

Final stop- West Edmonton Mall. 17 waterslides. Enough said!

Horatio Hornblower DVDs and Warriors books filled in the rest of our spare time. The Warriors series of novels by Erin Hunter is about clans of cats who struggle and fight to survive. Horatio Hornblower is about a young English naval officer in the 1700’s. It’s a great family movie for those with an older boy: ships and cannons for the kids, history for dads, and handsome Ioan Gruffud for the moms.

We have recently received a new book on this transformative walk, Camino Letters by Julie Kirkpatrick.

"It’s very simple: this book is a quiet masterpiece. Wrought of searing honesty, pain, and humour, these exquisite letters walk a path of brave humility and surrender. They ache with agonies, laugh with magic, bless with insight, and open to the whispered songs of grace. They are dances of sorrow, love, and spirit. They are frozen music, sketches of the divine on earth. This book is a gift."

Alison Wearing, author of Honeymoon in Purdah: An Iranian Journey

I'm off then : losing and finding myself on the Camino de Santiago (2009)
by Hape Kerkeling

Overweight, overworked, and physically unfit, Kerkeling was an unlikely candidate to make an arduous pilgrimage across the French Alps. But that didn't stop him from trying, which he describes in this humorous and inspiring travelogue. (Syndetics)

Walking the Camino de Santiago : [from St-Jean-Pied-de-Port to Santiago de Compostela and on to Finisterre] (2009) by Bethan Davies

Smoothing your way with step-by-step instructions, detailed sketch maps and profile charts, this guide lets you into Spain's cultural and culinary secrets, includes a detailed, illustrated wildlife section, and gives you all the practical information you need for a hassle-free pilgrimage. (Sydetics)

What the psychic told the pilgrim : a midlife misadventure on Spain's Camino de Santiago Compostela by Jane Christmas

To celebrate her 50th birthday and face the challenges of mid-life, Jane Christmas joins 14 women to hike the Camino de Santiago de Compostela. Despite a psychic’s warning of catfights, death, and a sexy, fair-haired man, Christmas soldiers on. After a week of squabbles, the group splinters and the real adventure begins. (Syndetics)

The roads to Santiago : the medieval pilgrim routes through France and Spain to Santiago de Compostela (2008) by Derry Brabbs

Brabbs traces the four main routes within France leading to Santiago de Compostella, the third most important pilgrimage destination for medieval travelers. His photographs of the journeys are breathtaking, showing the tiny towns and grand cathedrals where the pilgrims took, and still take, shelter. (syndetics)

A Pilgrim's Guide to the Camino de Santiago: St Jean, Roncesvalles, Santiago by John Brierley

Now updated to include newer maps and photos and weighing less to support carefree traveling, these comprehensive guidebooks to the Camino de Santiago and its offshoots contain all the information needed by modern-day pilgrims wishing to walk the sacred Way of St. James. (Syndetics)

Calgary Public Library staff will join the rest of Calgary and other cities in North America again in the annual Commuter Challenge June 5-11, 2011. This week-long initiative encourages us to improve the environment and ourselves by getting to work by any means other than single-person car commuting.

A simple login to www.commuterchallenge.ca will allow you to track your kms by mode of transport or energy saved, either as an individual or as part of a group. Try transit for a week, or cycle to work. Maybe you can carpool. Can you telecommute by working at home? Read or catch up on social media while you ride transit, and get fit while walking or cycling (dust off those New Year's resolutions). Take on other companies and workplaces in your category by encouraging your co-workers to participate.

On a related note, Castell Central Library is offering noon-hour programs on bicycle maintenance and electric bikes from 12:10-12:50 in May and June. See our programs link on the main page to register.

In the meantime, read Urban Camping by Peter Tombrowski for a Calgarian's take on getting around town with kids and no vehicle. Try It's all about the Bike: The Pursuit of Happiness on Two Wheels by Rob Penn, Cycling for Everyone by Leah Garcia, or some of our cycling magazines. Telecommuters, check out Will work from Home by Troy Johnson.

It's only one week, so get out there people!