We were high all the time, sneaking off to the walk-in at every opportunity to "conceptualize." Hardly a decision was made without drugs. Pot, quaaludes, cocaine, LSD, psilocybin mushrooms soaked in honey and used to sweeten tea, Seconal, Tuinal, speed, codeine and, increasingly, heroin, which we'd send a Spanish-speaking busboy over to Alphabet City to get. We worked long hours and took considerable pride in our efforts - the drugs, we thought, having little effect on the end product. This is what the whole life we were in was about, we believed: to work through the drugs, the fatigue, the lack of sleep, the pain, to show no visible effects. We might be tripping out on blotter acid, sleepless for three days and halfway through a bottle of Stoli, but we were professionals, goddamnit! We didn't let it affect our line work. And we were happy, truly happy, like Henry V's lucky few, a band of brothers, ragged, slightly debauched warriors, who anticipated nothing less than total victory - an Agincourt of the mind and stomach.

Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential (123-24)