A while back, I went to the University Book Store to hear Anthony Bourdain read from his latest book, The Nasty Bits. During the Q&A, someone asked him if there was anything he regretted eating. "For moral reasons?" he asked rhetorically, before supplying a definitive "no" in the same breath. Bourdain went on to describe filming a segment of his TV show with the Masai people; there was freshly slaughtered meat, but no running water. "For three days, nothing I ate didn't involve shit or dirt—I regret that."

When it comes to food, I have only one regret, which I carry with me every day and which is best described by Delmore Schwartz in his poem "The Heavy Bear Who Goes with Me": "The hungry beating brutish one/In love with candy, anger, and sleep/Crazy factotum, disheveling all." The truth is, all I really want to do is experience the whole world through eating—and I regret that doing so with total abandon will certainly lead to obesity and/or premature death.

Looking back on this year, the only thing I really regret (or rather, that my cholesterol levels, blood pressure, high density lipoproteins, and mortality regret) is that I cannot start every day with breakfast—two fried eggs over medium with bright runny yolks; two oily sausage patties; and a wide, dreamy, silky white pool of grits topped with a wholly excessive pat of butter—at the Silver Fork.