PIGSY Art is in a Group Show in Ranelagh

 

"Sound & Vision" is the latest exhibition to open in Ranelagh Arts. Curated by Dino Notaro of Slow Lane Gallery it opens this Friday and runs for the whole of March 2024.

PIGSY is one of the participating artists in this group show and you can read more about it on his website here. 

See you at the opening if you plan on dropping in!

And in the meanwhile you can also watch a short film about PIGSY's last exhibition in Ranelagh Arts below

Sardines for days!

 Have you heard about the Sardine Challenge?!

While looking up the macros of Sardines (which I love) I happened on a video by Dr Annette Bosworth, otherwise known as "Dr Boz", all about sardines and fasting.

As I said, I love sardines, both their taste and their convenience. 

So what do you think I am doing this week?! Yes a sardine fast!

With a variety of tins of sardines available in Tesco, including John West, King Oscars (spratts) and Shines which is an Irish brand of spratts / sardines, I picked up a few cans today.  And then for dinner I had sardines along with some cauliflower cheese left over from yesterday. Really delicious and really easy! 

What do you think?  Will you give the Sardine Challenge a go?!

Out and about in Dublin

Last Thursday myself and Alice met up to go to the theatre!

We had met about two weeks previously and Alice had suggested we go to John B Keane's "Sive" which was showing in The Gaiety.

It was a marvellous performance and a thought provoking tale. A really enjoyable evening out and great to see the very well known actress Fionnula Flanagan in the role of Sive's grandmother.

Then on Friday, it was off to the cinema with Ciaran to watch "The Iron Claw". It was great! A movie about the Von Erich wrestling family and starred the always underrated, in my opinion, Zac Ephron. We saw this film in Cineworld on Parnell Street and then went for wings afterwards in All Bar Chicken on Capel Street. 

I had to work on Saturday but it was up and early on Sunday where I meal prepped for the week and made amongst other things Meatloaf and Keto Bread. 

And then later on in the day, I went to a 5pm Hot Yoga class (Bikram) in the gorgeous Yoga Yard Studio in Irishtown. It was a nice cycle to the studo with no traffic due to road closures around the Aviva stadium because Ireland were playing rugby in the 6 Nations.  Coming home was a different story because it started raining just I started unlocking my bike.

It was a great class and probably even better because I was fasting all day and was wondering if I could manage the class in a fasted state having not eaten since probably about 8pm the day before.  I did manage the class buy was well ready for dinner when I get home. I was glad I had meal prepped and had food ready literally as I walked in the door!!

The Source in Rathmines

After work this evening I walked to Rathmines to buy some items in "The Source".

The Source is a shop where you bring your own container or use a shop supplied bag to buy whatever weight of an item that you require.

It's so clever really and a good way of cutting out food waste and also extra costs.

For example, I wanted to buy a cup or two of Coconut Flour rather than a big bag as I only plan on using it to make a loaf or two of Keto bread. And I only need this small amount.

I also plan on making Chicken Shawarma and so I was able to buy just what I needed, which is a few teaspoons of gound cardamon.

It's a fun little shop, and I enjoyed browsing everything and measuring out what I planned on buying.

One interesting thing that I saw is that they sell protein powders which again you can weigh out in a small volume rather than buy those big expensive containers of protein powders. I bought 100g of Hazelnut Chocolate protein powder that I plan to add to a Keto Cheesecake that I will make this weekend.

There is lots to buy in this shop (they even sell freshly made nut butters) so I plan to go again soon for another browse.

Let me know if you have ever bought from a shop like this before - how did you find it?!

Brigid's Bank Holiday

Happy Brigid's BH!

Great to have a break from work for St Brigid's Day.  With Monday off I made a plan to do a few things over the weekend. 

The first thing I did on Saturday morning was take the bus to Ikea over in Ballymun. The bus journey was fine but Ikea was packed and hellish. When I arrived I immediately wanted to leave! 

I was buying a lampshade so I got it quickly and left and got the bus back within an hour of arriving.

With Ciaran away playing squash in Belfast, I had the opportunity to catch up on a bit of reading and am nearly finished John Stamos' biography "If you would have told me"

Fun to read about John Stamos starring in Gore Vidal's  "The Best Man" - my twin sister saw him in this play - you can read about that here!

On Sunday morning, after a walk, I sat down with a cup of coffee to watch the Tommy Tiernan Show. I specifically watched it to see a lady I went to school with (about 35 years ago!!!) being interviewed by Tommy. She is Karen Dempsey the founder of "Entheos" and also known as the Bald Headed Priestess. You can watch the interview on the RTE player and I highly recommend it - she is one interesting lady!

Ciaran came back from Belfast in the afternoon and we walked to Ranelagh to get something for dinner. Before we went to Lidl, we called to Nick's Coffee as we knew Nickie Harrington was doing a pop up with some of her art and jewellery for sale. It was nice to chat with her and her boyfriend and I got these lovely new earrings!

And then for tomorrow I'm taking part in a parade for St Brigid's Day. What fun!

Watch this space tomorrow when I share all about how the parade of "Brigid's on Bikes" goes.

Edit - 

Here's a little clip from the Karen Dempsey interview on the Tommy Tiernan Show

Cinema Sunday

I've wanted to go to see "The Holdovers" since I first saw the trailer for it.

So this morning we went off to Smithfield (on bus & Luas) to watch it at an 11.40am showing in the Lighthouse.

Before we went in to the cinema, we had coffee in Mad Yolks Cafe which is just across the square from the cinema. There are loads of tasty egg breakfast dishes but we were happy with just an Americano. They serve "Full Circle" coffee and it was pretty good.

The view wasn't bad either as we were facing the Smithfield 360 degrees viewing tower.

After our coffee, we headed over to The Lighthouse and bought tickets for the show and settled in to screen 2 to watch the film. We like this movie theatre. They have signs up saying that vaping is not allowed in the cinema - this is appreciated as neither of us like the smell of vapes one bit and we've been to certain cinemas where people have vaped through movies. Ugh.

But thankfully no vaping today!

It was a really great film, we both really enjoyed it and spent the time getting home talking about it, the characters and the acting in general. Both of us agreeing that Paul Giamatti absolutely holds your attention in every scene. I loved the overall nostalgic feel to the movie and I think the 1970's was captured perfectly on film.

All in all a great morning on the "Northside" and I highly recommend going to The Holdovers!

Guess what these are?!

 

Any idea what these might be in the picture above?

Well they are intense buttery and toffee tasting. 

Still no idea?!

Well......they are called "Brown Butter Bites" and I made them on the pan today by simply browning butter and then pouring in to silicone moulds to set. That's it, that's all I did in order to make these sweet little buttery bites.

If you want to make them you can google exactly how to do it, but all you need ingredient wise is butter.  Next time however, I am thinking I will add in some chocolate flavour (or peanutbutter!) protein powder in order to elevate these bites from a regular Keto fat bomb to a protein fat bomb. Watch this space!