be you

This is all the women in my family / friendship group. LET ME PHOTOGRAPH YOU. Happy Mothers' Day.

Peanut butter and red pear, who would have known. Also definitely go to Pieminister if there's one near you - my Lauren took me to the one in the Northern Quarter (MCR) on Thursday for a double-pie sesh. I had the 'Moo&Blue' (=steak&stilton) and the Lemon Meringue. Foodgasms all over. Such good instagramming. Shut up Meg.

northern cities beginning with L

We visited lil sis over in Leeds last friday, and she took us to the edgiest food court in the UK. If you can call it a food court (is essentially what it is). The Trinity Kitchen in Leeds houses around 30 small food&drink businesses which are constantly changing. It's so brill. We were taken aback by the state of the 'Love Rouge Bakery' cupcakes. BATTENBERG FLAVOUR ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! Anyway, never in a mall food court have I been able to lunch on Coca Cola from the glass bottle, a Lebanese meze and a blueberry cupcake in one sitting. Highly recommend.

I've also managed to get over to Liverpool (the other of the two other-northern-cities-almost-as-good-as-manchester) this week while I've been at home: we managed to get our hands on tickets to see Miranda at the echo arena. Such fun. So much wine.

These are a few shots from my enthralling time at home otherwise: delivering Easter presents (there are creme eggs inside those - how ridiculous and wondrous); reawakening my love of peanut butter in the absence of chocolate; having my mind blown at the discovery that Coach from New Girl is the REAL SON OF the Dad from My Wife & Kids (I actually gasped); hopping on the #nomakeupselfie bandwagon.

I have a lot to say on that final matter and tweet me @meganclaire3 if you want to pull this apart with me, but I'm overall a bit disappointed with the criticism of this campaign. I'm not disagreeing with the point that there is something more sinister underlying the selfie-without-makeup but I've seen much worse narcissism and insecurity on facebook. (Aren't all pictures we upload to facebook an act of narcissism? Discuss.) This campaign has managed to draw in over £8million in less than a week, primarily from young people. I haven't seen many other campaigns manage this level of engagement with Generation Y/Z and so I applaud it. I don't wear that much makeup on a daily basis, but unlike others I did not take this as a reason to ignore/deny the campaign a picture and a £3 donation. I suggest you go donate to the cause of your choice now and feel happy and jolly in however much makeup you wear.

blueberry grilled cheezus

I'M FINALLY HOME. I still have one more coursework deadline before I can take a bit of time off, but obviously had some ultimate procrastination inspiration after seeing a Balsamic and Blueberry Cheese Toastie recipe on my friend Ed's mouth-watering food blog. Ermagahd. So tasty. I recommend using way better bread like in Ed's pictures (not Warburton's granary) and way better cheese (not tesco value cheddar) but still delicious anyway. I couldn't be bothered washing/getting a new pan out so I put the toastie right in there with the leftover blueberry and balsamic. Hence the remnants of murdered blueberries on the outside of my toastie. Thanks Ed!!

feasting

This post is very long overdue. Before we emptied the nest for uni this term Chef (Richard) cooked us up this amazing feast. Good egg he is. It speaks words about me that I often post pictures of food other people made on my own blog. There's no way you'll be seeing me trying this one in my grotty Cambridge kitchen. Mum made the cocktails - she's a pretty skilled mixologist these days. We had fresh pornstar martinis, of course heavy on the martini.

I got very up close and personal with this impressive assiette of desserts, and we went old-school and played cribbage afterwards. Spiffing. By the way no postproduction with these snaps - a mixture of couldn't be bothered / thought the food looked good anyway.

I've reached the end of my tether in Cambridge right now and plan on returning to the homeland tomorrow. Hope I haven't inspired too severe a bout of food envy. Naht.

christmas & boxing

Christmas Day was GREAT. There were only five of us round the table this year (Grandma Susan got kidnapped) but the house still seemed buzzing. After opening presents Nikki wanted us to all go t'pub...so naturally we did, and t'pub was giving out free drinks! We'll be going there again... Later on in the evening after food/visitors/pudding/christmas top gear bond cars special Mairi got fed up of us all and made us all go to bed. She's going to make a fine Managing Director one day.

Boxing day we did what normal families do and went on an excessively long walk..only to end up in Tesco where the boy of Mairi's dreams was on shift and she wasn't wearing any makeup, so she died. Happy New Year everyone and hope you're all well!!!

ps. I've been playing with an open-source version of Photoshop, I think it does all the same things but is extremely hard to use for a beginner!