I learned to recognize failure. - Anthony Bourdain

And, well, for most of my life I’d been way too far up my own ass to be of any use to anyone — something that only got worse after Kitchen Confidential. I don’t know exactly when the possibility of that changing presented itself — but sometime, I guess, after having made every mistake, having already fucked up in every way a man can fuck up, having realized that I’d had enough cocaine, that no amount in the world was going to make me any happier. That a naked, oiled supermodel was not going to make everything better in my life — nor any sports car known to man. It was sometime after that. The precise moment of realization came in my tiny fourth-floor walk-up apartment on Ninth Avenue. Above Manganaro’s Heroboy restaurant — next building over from Esposito Pork Shop. I was lying in bed with my then-girlfriend — I guess you could diplomatically call it “spooning” — and I caught myself thinking, “I could make a baby with this woman.

Linh has informed me of something called ‘fox’ coffee, ca-phe-chon, a brew made from the tenderest beans, fed to a fox (though I have since seen it referred to as a weasel), and the beans later recovered from the animal’s stool, washed (presumably), roasted, and ground. Sounds good to me.

They're professionals at this in Russia, so no matter how many Jell-O shots or Jager shooters you might have downed at college mixers, no matter how good a drinker you might think you are, don't forget that the Russians - any Russian - can drink you under the table.