LONDON

Dear all my kittens,

Apologies for being such a neglectful blogger of late. I was fully under London's spell during the past several days. While my first four days in Naked Chef land were spent at the mothership--the CBCs (for those of you who don't know, that's short for Care Bear Cousins) were as gregarious, intelligent, and fun as my colleagues here and I thoroughly enjoyed my time with them--I spent the final two days in London sightseeing with one of my favorite baby cousins. Fine, Amir's 23, towers over me, and laughs at me whenever I declare that I'm his baji (that's Urdu for older sister) but he'll always be a kid in my eyes. Westminster Abbey, London Bridge, the Swiss Re Building, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, the Tower Bridge, the Tate Modern (and its crack!), we saw as much as the short amount of time I had permitted. Though I was unable to take a ride on the London Eye, I did end up taking about a dozen pics of it, plus the views from the mothership were more impressive than those offered by many other vantage points in the city.

My favorite moment(s) of the trip: it's a tie between riding the carousel with Amir in Covent Garden on Friday night and then spending most of the remaining night talking with him in my hotel room, both of us laughing until our stomachs hurt. I miss you kid!

My favorite English dish: I don't know why English food has a bad reputation throughout the world because I thoroughly enjoyed eating the traditional victuals offered in London. While everything--from the ubiquitous mash to the equally ubiquitous fish and chips, to the many varieties of savory pies--was splendid, my most favorite dish I ate was the previously blogged about treacle tart with clotted cream. My stomach's doing somersaults (these aren't necessarily somersaults of joy, mind you) just thinking about it. My cousin and I had high hopes of enjoying high tea at the swanky Savoy on Saturday, which were shattered by the fact that he was wearing jeans and sneakers. But no worries; our favorite Canadian, upon hearing that I couldn't partake of high tea in London, has asked me to join him for the late afternoon meal at the Ritz Carlton. Yes, he's dreamy.

My favorite London chain: Marks & Spencer. I could spend all day in any one of the shops. When, OH WHEN, will these United States be blessed with their own Marks & Spencer??!

My favorite London store: Fortnum & Mason was a feast for all of the senses. Talk about luxe!

My favorite London market: Burough Market, a food market through which Amir and I wandered on Saturday morning, sampling foods from around London.

My least favorite London moment: announcing that "I'm EVERYWHERE online!" during an intimate corporate dinner on Wednesday night. Yes, this might've also been one of the reasons why I felt unable to blog for the remainder of my stay. The thought of execs Googling me and finding this blog remains shudderingly disconcerting.

Needless to say, the tri-state area felt very uninspiring this morning.