#Crudefood

Fancy shit

Considering we have a category called 'Between My Thighs' I don't really feel bad about using the word 'shit' and to be honest I curse a lot. Like not in a bad way, just a casual way which I suppose isn't really as bad!

Anyways, I'm good at cooking but I usually forgo actually cooking and eat out a lot and only buy fancy convenient stuff in the shop like hummus, flavoured rice cakes, fruit, olives, expensive soups and bread.  In the last week though i've become obsessed with buying sparkling water. But not just any sparkling water, S.Pellegrino sparkling natural mineral water.  

Its not exactly hugely expensive or anything but in regards to water, I feel like a french person buying designer water in the Le Bon Marché!

Maybe it was the fact that Carrie Bradshaw drank a bottle in one episode of SATC or maybe I just like the look of the bottle. Either way i've never really drank water this much before -i'm a tea, coffee and diet coke kinda gal- so it can't hurt!

Long live fancy water!

#Confessions

Super Sexy Carrie Bradshaw!

Ever since Sex and the City ended, I think a lot of people have shared their thoughts with the world wide web in the hope of helping people, slash becoming the next Carrie freaking Bradshaw. In reality, not many people care about your problems aside from you and a few close friends.

Lena Dunham has been lauded as the new voice of a generation of girls, but really she isn't. She's funny, and certainly a lot of girls probably identify with her well written show 'Girls', but a voice of a generation??? I think not.

Super Idiotic Eimear Hassett  

The more modern the world gets, the more diverse we become as individuals and the more we try to be unique and individual. Therefore the idea that once person could sum up millions of people is ridiculous really. What isn't ridiculous though is the idea that one person could relate to a few people and I suppose that is what us three are trying to do here in the #confessions section. While we are friends, we're all quite different and we all hope to bring you funny stories and thoughts from our crayzed psyches.

So enjoy.

Hipsterly yours,

Eimear

#Crude Food

Mixed Vegetable Risotto

Serves 3

Since the whole horse meat scandal I've been reassessing my eating habits. I've wanted to become strictly vegetarian for years but my love of chicken and pork was too strong to resist (yes, I love a good sausage). Recently, the not so shocking news that processed foods are not to be trusted pushed me over the edge and spurred me on to change my ways.

In the past couple of weeks I've been cutting out meat and introducing more vegetarian options to my meals. I will admit to accidentally having a ham and cheese toastie yesterday but it was a genuine mistake - I wasn't thinking - so I've forgiven myself. I got a figare today to try risotto so today's dinner is Mixed Vegetable Risotto.

I had never eaten risotto and honestly I never thought I would be the type of girl when asked "What are you having for dinner?" would respond with "Oh I'm just doing a risotto," but here I am writing an entire post on risotto. 

Boyzone reunite 20 years on

Boyzone announced towards the end of last month that the will reunite for their 20th anniversary with a tour  of the UK and Ireland and tickets are finally going on sale this week. I expect a huge number of women in their 20s and 30s will be receiving tickets from their other halves in the coming months and perhaps attempting to squeeze into old Boyzone memorabilia. My t-shirt has long since been given away, but the memories, and some photos, remain.

Boyzone were formed in 1993 by Louis Walsh and their first album Said and Done was released in 1994. They were hugely successful in the years following and had a total of 9 number one singles in Ireland. Hearts broke across Ireland and the UK when they announced they were 'taking a break' in 2000. Since then they have reunited for two tours as a five piece in 2008 and 2009 and once more in 2011 for the Brothers tour in after the death of Stephen Gately.

The original Boyzone 

I couldn't decide whether I was happy or not that they were touring for their anniversary. The Brother tour was all well and good as it was a tribute to Stephen but I'm not so sure about this 20th anniversary tour. What is Boyzone without Stephen Gately? I can't believe it will be four years this year since Gately passed away. Stephen was probably my first ever crush and was always my favourite member of Boyzone. Looking back now, I wonder why Shane Lynch never caught my eye. Shane Lynch in those dungarees on The Late Late Show is a sight to behold; but as a 4 year old girl Stephen's innocent, 'wouldn't hurt a fly' look was way more up my street. His floppy hairstyle was also all the rage and all the girls in senior infants and first class had a crush on the boy with the same haircut. Ah, the 1990s what an innocent age. My friend and I even wrote a letter to the boys telling them how much we loved them, I found it many, many years later in my mother's keepsakes and even then I was a little upset that she'd decided to keep it. So the boys never got to know my true feelings, but here's my chance as a grown woman to scream 'I love you' probably from a fully seated performance. (You know you're old when you're going to fully seated performances.)

Stephen and that hair

In  this tour the lads will play Dublin's O2 on the 28th of November and Belfast's Odyssey Arena on the 29th of November along with a number of dates in December in the UK. It's sure to be a great show full of women reliving their childhood pretending to be girls again and grown men pretending they're still boys - but there's nothing new there.

Tickets are going on sale at 9am this Thursday the 14th of February, otherwise known as Valentine's Day, so, if by chance, my secret admirer is reading this, you now know the way to this girl's heart.

What are your thoughts on Boyzone - the foursome - hitting the road again?

#Vulgurly

The Ben Affleck Affect

So peeps I've been feeling a bit down in the dumps recently. A new year but still the same old me, I haven’t lost those extra pounds, gotten that new job in fact it’s a new year but the same old shit and I’m sure I’m not the only one feeling these blues. Why is it so hard to turn around our lives for the better? Well behold this man, Ben Affleck

  

Yes good old Ben, to look at him now he has it all, critical and commercial praise for his acting, directing and script-writing, a lovely wife and family, Hollywood bromances (both Matt and recently George) and I even hear he’s even down with Obama the ultimate cool dude. Nowadays everything he turns his hand to is a winner, heck he even managed to make Blake Lively’s acting seem tolerable in ‘The Town’, which deserves an Oscar in itself. But things haven’t always been so rosy for Ben; let’s cast our minds back to 2002 and life for him looked like this

He began an ill fated romance with Jennifer Lopez who was fresh from divorcing that K-fed wanna-be Chris Judd. Ben had met her on the set of ‘Gigli’ and it was this film that signalled the loss of the Affleck mojo. A string of movie failures followed for Ben, ‘Jersey Girl’ ‘Daredevil’ ‘Surviving Christmas’ each more horrific in their failure than the last. Was it possible that the birth of ‘Bennifer’ had caused his career to go the way of the Titanic? I mean let’s be honest people; the best thing Ben starred in during this time was this

Acting at its best if ever I saw it.

Alas Ben had become box office poison, he received more attention for being a part of ‘Bennifer’ than for his acting. His Oscar nothing more than a doorstop. 
But nobody puts Ben in the corner. He turned it all around beginning with calling off his engagement to Lopez and took to directing, with ‘Gone Baby Gone’ his directorial debut. His marriage to Jennifer Garner cemented his return to the top and like a phoenix from the flames he went from joke to man on top, Argo his current film is hotly tipped to take best picture at the upcoming Oscars.

So guys let’s take encouragement from Ben’s story his rise, fall and rise once again to the top has certainly inspired me, the guy survived Jennifer Lopez, surely then I can survive anything!

#CrudeFood

Breakfast!

I'm usually pretty crap when it comes to eating breakfast but I do like breakfast-associated foods.
So this morning it got up, and looked impressively fresh for 9am and took off into town.
We have a super cute bakery in Ennis called Carrie's cakes, which despite numerous requests does not do blood-red cakes but is just a really sweet shop.

Sooooooooo much butter

I got day old bread for like a euro and some nice pastries and scones. When I got home I tried my hand at making poached eggs, and while they may not have been perfect it all looked pretty nice and tasted swell. So as much as I love just drinking tea or a huge cup of coffee for breakfast (see overpriced liquid below), I really liked this.

I doubt I'll be eating breakfast like a queen like I did today but maybe once a week.

Hipsterly yours,
Eimear

These are my Confessions

Actually, they're not; not just yet anyway. While I'm busy writing all my confessions for your reading pleasure  here are some other confessions. We begin with Usher. Confessions was the title track of his fourth album released in 2004 and in my opinion the high point of his career. It was the second best selling album of the 2000s in the U.S. and it made it to number one on the album chart in five countries, including Ireland. 

2004 was probably the second best year in Usher's career after 2011 when he of course appeared in Justin Beiber's Never Say Never concert tour DVD thingamajig.

I'll leave you now with Usher to tell you his confessions about his mistress and what really happened on Beiber's tour bus.