What Róisín's listening to and what she's not eating
LISTENING TO . . .Duke Special's new album I Thought This Day Would Never Come. You think the boy from Belfast can't get any better, and then he does. Sublime vocals on the title track from Fight Like Ape's MayKay is icing on the cake. Out next Friday.
NOT EATING . .. Hairy crackling. Having invited myself to my sister's house for dinner three nights in a row, I figured I should provide the main course on the third night. At the local farmers' market I took a while deciding between several organic (what recession?) cuts of pork, before choosing a leg. The leg was covered with a generous layer of skin that I suspected had the potential to make cracking crackling.
My sister's household is full of crackling connoisseurs - the almost eight-year-old would live on the stuff if you let her. But even for them, there is a rubicon of crackling across which they will not travel. "Ugh, they forgot to shave his legs," said the eight-year-old when the crackling emerged from the oven, sporting hundreds of spiky black hairs.
I remember a time when her mother wouldn't say no to a bag of pork scratchings, the hairiest bar snacks known to man. Next time I'll bring the tweezers.
roisin@irish-times.ie