I went shopping this week and picked up the most gorgeous berries I’ve ever seen. The blueberries were at least a centimetre in diameter and the blackberries were at least two centimetres long. Not only did they look phenominal, but they tasted better than any berries I’d had in a long time. I knew I had to do something special with them.

That “something special” was berry cheesecake waffles. This recipe combines my standard pancake and waffle recipe with a slightly sweet cheesecake topping that makes this an over-the-top yet keto-friendly meal. My mouth watered so strongly while photographing it, I almost couldn’t wait. And the flavours and texture did not dissapoint.

Without further ado, here is my berry cheesecake waffle recipe along with approximate carb counts.

The Recipe

For the waffles:

2 large eggs (1 net carb)

2 tablespoons almond flour (1 net carb)

0.5 teaspoons coconut flour (<1 net carb)

0.5 teaspoons psyllium husk fibre (<1 net carb)

0.5 teaspoon baking powder

0.5 teaspoons vanilla extract

pinch of salt

For the topping:

2 tablespoons cream cheese at room temperature (2 net carbs)

1 tablespoon butter at room temperature (0 net carbs)

1 tablespoon Swerve confectioner’s sugar (0 net carbs)

0.5 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 teaspoon Tutti graham style crumbs (~1 net carb?

6 blackberries (1 net carb)

8 blueberries (1 net carb)

Instructions:

Mix waffle ingredients well and allow to sit a few minutes while waffle maker heats up. Pour batter into waffle maker and wait until preferred doneness.

While cooking, use a whisk to beat topping ingredients minus the graham style crumbs and berries. The consistency should resemble melted marshmallows when ready.

When waffle is done, top with berries. Drizzle cream cheese topping over berries and waffle. Sprinkle graham style crumbs over top.

Enjoy!

As an English teacher, my favourite course to teach was Writer’s Craft, as it gave me the opportunity to inspire and coach young writers along their writing journeys. It was always my goal to publish my lessons and/or create a series of online courses, and that day has finally come.

Announcing: THE SHAPE OF STORIES: A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE FOR FICTION WRITERS.

Designed with new and aspiring authors in mind, this book is suitable for use as an independent, self-taught course or as a textbook in a course. This book is chock full of writing tips and tools, prompts, exercises, and mentor texts to use as examples on your quest to unleash the writer inside you.

From the back cover blurb:

In the magnum opus of her teaching career, seasoned English teachers , author, editor, and publisher Elise Abram curates a collection of lesson plans and techniques related to the craft of writing.

Abram’s method uses mentor texts to demonstrate elements of the art of storytelling, including crafting believable characters, gripping plots, and finding your author’s voice. Each lesson includes a number of writing exercises, exemplars, and self-assessment checklists to help you assess your progress as you complete the assigned tasks, building upon previous lessons as you hone your writing chaps. 

• Use mentor texts to read like a writer
• Practice showing and not telling
• Construct believable characters
• Pen plots that keep the reader turning pages
• Experiment with different points of view
• Blog and journal about your experience
• Self-edit your work

Learn about the elements of storytelling from past and present masters of fiction as you study their techniques and apply what you learn to your own writing. Discover your writing style as you complete the activities in this course as you learn how to shape stories worthy of publication.

THE SHAPE OF WRITING: A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE FOR FICTION WRITERS is available on Amazon.

Today, I retired my best-selling book, a novella entitled Throwaway Child, and here’s why.

I wrote Throwaway Child in 2012 as an attempt to bring awareness of the Canadian Native residential “schools” to the fore. At the time, I was still reeling from the fact that this travesty was left out of most history courses. I had not learned of this dark chapter in Canadian history until I took a course on Native education in university in the late 80s, and I was shocked, to say the least.

If you have not read it, Throwaway Child follows the case of a child’s skeleton found in the basement of a building that was once used as a Native residential “school.” It follows forensic anthropologist Palmer Richardson, archaeologist Molly McBride, and police detective Michael Crestwood (also featured in The Mummy Wore Combat Boots and Phase Shift) as they investigate what led to the child’s death and burial. It has been in publication for nearly ten years and has sold the most copies out of any of my other books, but given the fact that the murderer proves to be another Indigenous child at the school, and in light of recent events, I have decided to retire the story.

You see, the children interred at the residential schools were the victims of such abuse that to make the murderer (accidental though it may be) Indigenous and a child no longer seems fitting. This is particularly true in the wake of the discovery of so many unmarked graves of Indigenous children who lost their lives while inmates at these “schools.” I cannot justify turning an innocent victim of systemic genocide, cultural or otherwise, into the perpetrator of the very crime being visited on so many others like her. I also cannot help but wonder if the story wouldn’t have been more satisfying if I’d put Palmer in charge of excavating one of the mass grave sites to determine the abuse that had been visited on the untold numbers of children who never left the “schools.” Imagine how much more satisfying the story would have been had it climaxed in handcuffing an administration-level official who had either participated in the travesty or turned a blind eye to the abuse.

It is for these reasons that I have decided to unpublish Throwaway Child with my apologies for falling short of accomplishing the very goal I set out to meet with it’s publication.

Yesterday marked the third mass, unmarked grave found in association with Native residential “schools.”

For the uneducated, Native residential “schools” were a ploy by Canada’s early government to facilitate the “civilization” and Europeanization of Canada’s Native population. In existence in Canada from about 1880 through 1996 (yes! 1996!), these so-called schools were nothing short of concentration camps into which all Native children were shunted as a matter of law. This was a joint endeavour between “Christian churches and the Canadian government as an attempt to both educate and convert Indigenous youth and to assimilate them into Canadian society.” The net result of this horrific practice was the cultural genocide of generations of Native people, and as recently discovered, the actual genocide of (among others) innocent Native children.

I hesitate to call these places schools. School is supposed to be a place of learning and enlightenment where people leave better off than when they arrived. I doubt there are many (if any) Indigenous people who would claim this describes their experience there. Those of us who knew of the existence of these institutions have long suspected there were many children who entered their doors never to exit. That statement is mind-boggling enough, but now that the sheer number that is the body count shaping Canada’s shame is coming to light, we, as Canadians, should be shocked, sickened, and mortified.

In the last month alone, the remains of 215 individuals in Kamloops, 751 in Saskachewan, and 182 in Cranbook, B.C. There were 130 of these places in operation in Canada over the approximately 100 years of their existence. Do the math: if we take an average of the three known mass graves thus far uncovered, we are looking at approximately 50,000 children slaughtered and buried in unmarked, mass graves. Disposed of in the same way as trash before organized garbage collection. This is not okay (to say the least).

Today is Canada Day, a celebration of Canada’s confederation on this day in 1867. Residential “schools” came into existence barely 10 years after that. Lighting fireworks at bar-b-ques in celebration of Canada as a country has been the way we’ve always celebrated, but not this year. Anyone lighting fireworks and cooking meat over an open flame in honour of Canada’s confederation this year should be ashamed. I will be marking this dark day in history by lighting a memorial candle in memory of all those who perished at the hands of our government. We should never forget the human toll paid so Canada could be established as a country. Do not celebrate the bloodshed and bodies felled; mourn them instead. Mark the existence of Canada Day, not with celebration but with sorrow, honouring those whose way of life and actual lives were unceremoniously taken so that we might live here.

This is the first in a series of poems (and possibly rants) I plan to write about teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Accessible doors locked so I have to use my hands—

Once, twice, three times, four—

on the same handles used by several hundred students

and several dozen teachers.

“Attention Staff: Please sign the log sheet located on the filing cabinet upon entering the room.”

I must sign into the “private” office I share with up to eight colleagues

“Maximum number of occupants: 5”

but only five of us can access our possessions at any given time.

“High Touch Surface: Remember to disinfect after every use.”

“High Touch Surface: Remember to disinfect after every use.”

“High Touch Surface: Remember to disinfect after every use.”

Fridge…microwave…printer.

“Maintain physical distance”

In a room where students sit no more than four feet apart

“Face mask required for entry”

with ill-fitting masks.

The students arrive all too soon,

forgetting that I have asked them to remain in their seats

and get my attention

before asking a question.

The double the normal length lesson begins.

Some students are with me while

others catch up on sleep,

and I am envious.