3 days. 72 hours. The countdown to London is on!

After a day yesterday spent getting things in order (notifying the bank that I’ll be out of the country, gathering adapters, printing out travel documents, etc) I think today might finally be the day to start packing.

This should be entertaining…

SO – of course I’m procrastinating. I mean, how am I going to fit enough shoes, clothes, jewelry and more for four weeks in one small suitcase? It’s too much to comprehend. In the meantime, I thought I’d do a little book review for y’all.

“Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly” by Anthony Bourdain is a quick read (or it should have been, if I wasn’t trying to read it in the midst of moving, packing and unpacking, graduation…). I’ve read some of Bourdain’s books before, but this is his most famous – and first.

Now, word to the wise: this book will change your entire opinion of eating in restaurants. Bourdain paints a very realistic, and terrifying, picture of what really goes on in restaurant kitchens. Drugs, profanity, crumbling ceiling tiles, passing off old ingredients as new – he holds nothing back. It is not a book for the faint of heart.

It is a book for people who love food, and the New York restaurant scene. Bourdain has been around, and worked in, some of the big kitchens of the past thirty years. There are numerous incidents of name-dropping, and some big-name chefs even appear as minor characters in this chaotic memoir.

Ultimately, I like Bourdain. Despite his incessant profanity, and flippant speak, and general sardonic view on life, he tells a good story. If you like food, and entertainment, Bourdain’s books provide a good heaping of both. Just be prepared for some gory bits along the way.

Now, that’s enough procrastinating for the day. Time to start thinking about how to cram my entire part of my wardrobe into my suitcase…