Sometimes a recipe fails. What to do? My luscious coffee cake, laden with garden raspberries, rosy rhubarb and toasted hazelnuts nestled too snugly into the baking pan and came out in fits and starts. Broken. But essentially excellent. Too good to waste. That was never an option. So, I got myself some fresh berries, whipped up some heavy cream, and basically assembled a deep dish extravaganza which we scooped up hungrily with spoons.

I had it in my mind that I could also incorporate a tiramisu concept into this creamy creation. I took my mangled cake and cut it into bite sized morsels. I tossed these morsels with some strong, sweetened coffee before laying them in layers in my pretty bowl, aiming for an almost pudding-like softness to the dessert. Trifle is usually spiked with liquor and tiramisu is coffee-laden, so it was not too bizarre to combine the two techniques. The result, moist, flavourful cakey layers sandwiching some lovely thick cream and fresh strawberries. A perfect and decadent finale to a dinner with friends. An overnight rest in the fridge melded the flavours so the dessert was just as great the next day. It didn't last much beyond that.

Take a baking mistake and turn it into something else. There is no recipe to give you. Broken cake plus cream and fruit equals a trifle. Use a nice sherry on a sponge cake or sweetened espresso on a chocolate cake for some oozy moistness. Use real whipping cream that you whip yourself and sweeten it gently with icing sugar just before it is at its billowy best. Annoint it with some pure vanilla essence. Some nice combinations could include mandarin oranges with orange zested cream and a vanilla sponge cake, or raspberries with a chocolate cake and mocha cream. Cherries and kirsch with cream and white cake would be elegant and sublime. Use what you have. Build a dreamy, creamy, layered dessert in a glass bowl for all to see what lies inside. Chill and scoop. Heavenly.

Have fun playing with your food with help from these books:

Each year, Calgary Public Library employees round up their white elephants and hold a silent auction whose proceeds are donated to charity. In fact, there’s more to bid on than just white elephants. There are Christmas crafts, hand-knit scarves, baked goods, electronics, and a variety of other items. This year, we collectively raised and donated over $3000 to Calgary's Inn from the Cold.

In a similar vein, the staff in Central Library’s Business, Sciences and Social Sciences department holds an annual white elephant lottery. Staff purchase tickets and place them in envelopes assigned to each elephant. The more tickets you buy, the better your chances of winning the item – but it’s still a draw, so things are tense! As a department, we raised $200 and donated that to Inn from the Cold, too.

Prior to the lottery, as I rooted through my home, searching for perfectly good but unused items, I found myself thinking Who’s going to want my set of only 3, slightly inelegant wineglasses? But sure enough, someone did. And as I lugged my own not-quite-new treasure home, I thought Who would ever part with a totally wicked turtle lamp (with glowing shell!)?

If you don’t use it, need it or love it, then give someone else the chance. White elephant sales are a festive and fun way to support a cause or charity of your choice. They’re also an opportunity to reuse and reduce, and to avoid the chaos of holiday-season shopping malls.

Hope you had a great Christmas holiday!

I have been feeling some pain over the last week with a disc out of joint in my neck, so it is a good time to look back to an older post I am nostalgic about. As soon as I can, I will hop over to the stove and whip up a batch of these tender, nutty, aromatic stove-top cakes to eat slathered with caramelized bananas.

Waffle-making is a task I take on without much prompting on the weekends, filling the kitchen with warm, vanilla aromas as my family lounges about drinking coffee. When I found a recipe for Hazelnut Waffles, I knew these would knock everybody over, adding a toasted nut nuance to the panoply of flavours I was about to launch.

Obviously, you need a waffle-maker for this project and I am happy to say I inherited an old-fashioned cast iron clunker from my mom after she gave up participating in this sort of kitchen slavery. For those of you not so inclined, may I suggest you take the beautiful batter and make pancakes instead? Surely you have a frying pan! I like to think we are all in this together.

Waffles speak to me of breakfast and brunch but I have been known to present them later in the day as well, even calling them a summer supper, topped with frozen yogurt and fresh fruit. Sometimes a multi-course meal just makes no sense and a tender, furrowed stove-top biscuit is exactly suited to our desires.

The other impetus for waffle-making in my house is having extra bananas, as I have been told that waffles without caramelized bananas are hardly worth waking up for. If there was ever a good reason for getting up in the morning, this is it.

Chocolate Hazelnut Waffles

2/3 cup hazelnuts, toasted, skinned and ground medium fine (see Note ); 2/3 cup bittersweet chocolate, chopped medium fine in a food processor (optional, but really yummy); 2 cups all-purpose flour; 1/2 cup whole wheat flour; 2 tbsp. granulated sugar; 3 tsp. baking powder; 1 tsp. kosher salt; 4 large eggs; 2 cups milk; 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted; 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract.

Combine ground hazelnuts, chopped chocolate, flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together in a medium bowl. Gently whisk eggs, milk, melted butter and vanilla in another bowl. Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients and whisk until smooth, about 30 seconds. Use this batter according to the directions of your waffle-maker, or use it to make pancakes. Excellent served with carmelized bananas or fresh fruit and maple syrup. Makes 4 4-sided large waffles.

Note : To skin hazelnuts, toast in a 350 F oven until starting to turn golden and fragrant, about 8 minutes. Wrap the warm, toasted nuts in a clean dish towel and let cool. Rub vigorously to remove most of the skins. Don't worry if you don't get all the skin off.

Caramelized Bananas

Slice 3 - 4 bananas about 1/2-inch wide along the diagonal. In a large frying pan over medium heat melt 2 tbsp. sweet butter, 2 tbsp. brown sugar, a pinch of salt, 1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon and a few gratings of fresh nutmeg. Add a splash of rum and stir to blend. Add the bananas and let them caramelize on each side. Serve hot over waffles.

Wake up to something special this weekend:

So-o-o, you have the kids home for the next two weeks and are looking for some activities that will keep them away from the TV and computer. There is so much to see and do, your problem will be making a choice.

Calgary Public Library has free programs during the break. The library is offering everything from holiday music and storytimes to video games and giant chess. Check out our Programs page to see what is offered near you! And don't forget to stock up on all the wonderful books and movies available through the library.

Heritage Park has closed their main gates for the winter but just outside the gates you will find the Haskayne Mercantile Store, Railway Cafe and Gasoline Alley Museum open year round. If you have a car crazy kid, you will want to visit Gasoline Alley. It is a hands-on, interactive museum with vintage automobiles and a storytime every Tuesday morning at 10:30. They are celebrating the holiday with Winter CARnival from December 27 - January 8.

For the military buffs in the family, visit the Military Museums of Calgary. And for your child who is fascinated by airplanes, there is the Aerospace Museum and Spaceport.

The Calgary Zoo is offering their fantastic Zoo Lights display until January 7th, excluding Christmas Day. There is a storytime on Thursday, January 5th from 11:00 - 11:30. And, of course, you can come to see the animals every day from 9:00 - 5:00, except for Christmas Day.

Fort Calgary, with its lively interpretive centre is open over the holiday season from 9:00 - 5:00, except for January 1, December 24, 25, 26, 31 and January 1.

Telus Spark, the new Science Centre, offers many interactive activities, including the Creative Kids Museum. Be sure to check the special holiday hours.

And don't forget the Olympic Hall of Fame and Museum at Canada Olympic park and the Glenbow Museum with its marvellous exhibits of Canadian Western heritage.

The City of Calgary offers a listing of outdoor cross-country skiing, skating rinks and tobogganing hills, which may or may not have snow if this lovely warm weather continues. Perhaps it will be hiking rather than skiing.

The Royal Tyrrell Museum is always a great day trip. Find out more by checking our recent blog, Walking with the Dinosaurs. Don't forget to check for the holiday hours.

Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump also makes for a great day trip.

You can always look to the mountains if there is no snow in Calgary. Find out all the great activities through the Banff-Lake Louise site.

You can find coupons for some of the above attractions at www.calgaryattractions.com. (Most of them expire by the end of 2011)

Happy Holidays!!

Environmental publishing is growing like topsy, providing readers with volumes of good books from which to choose.

I certainly don’t claim to read exhaustively in this area, and there are many recent publications that are still on my “to-read” list, including Andrew Nikiforuk’s Empire of the Beetle.

But when I reflect on my reading this year, these are the titles that immediately come to mind as compelling books that helped to enlarge my understanding of the world:

Becoming animal : an earthly cosmology by David Abram - David Abram’s first book, The Spell of the Sensuous has become a classic of environmental literature. This book with equally poetic prose, reminds us of our animal senses and the elemental kinship between the body and the earth.

Goodlands: a meditation and history on the Great Plains by Frances W. Kaye. Anyone who loves the Great Plains and has ever wondered how the prairie ecosystem became so distorted should read this book. Kaye divides her time between a farmstead outside Lincoln, Nebraska, and a house in Calgary, so that she may always be close to the prairie land that drives her research.

Homegrown & handmade: a practical guide to more self-reliant living by Deborah Niemann. Plenty of us look at the environmental challenges we face and want to throw up our hands. Author Deborah Niemann suggests that instead, we get those hands to work, creating a cleaner, healthier life for ourselves and our families.

The Leap : how to survive and thrive in the sustainable economy by Chris Turner. Moving from our current unsustainable mode of life to a more sustainable model requires a great leap. Local author, Chris Turner, presents a well researched guide to recent developments which make this leap seem more feasible.

Wheat Belly by Dr. William Davis - In an age of gluten intolerance, this controversial book presents a chilling story of how through genetic modification, an ancient dietary staple has been transformed into one of the most damaging food products in today’s world.