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Food

Sidemouth - Screw You, Brunch

Brunch is one of the most consistently disappointing meals. Eggs and bread are cheap. You are getting ripped off.

Well, it’s kind of looking like it might be ONE OF THOSE summers. For starters, I am typing this on a keyboard that is burnt, spilled, and ashed upon, missing a W key, and an N, oh, and I just noticed a 3 as well. I also am about two-thirds down a nice Portuguese red and chain-smoking broken Belmonts between sentences. Ah, summer…

You know it’s time to clean up your act when the amount of rolled-up bills and refundable empties littering the floor directly next to your bloody pillows and mattress on the ground are pretty much the only thing keeping you from entering into a full-blown panic when you soberly realize this has gone on WAY TOO LONG and those decimals in your bank statements have been negatively switching spots faster than you can say, “Where’s my fucking purse?” and you don't even really have a real job anyway, and it’s not even July? Grab a mop and some bleach and pull your life together, man, woman. Buy some flowers. AND, most importantly, get something to eat, because you probably haven’t been real hungry lately, and toast and grapefruit Perrier is not gonna cover it anymore.

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Let me tell you something: A latte and an egg-white omelet are not going to cut it this time, either. Not even if you are feeling “bad” and order a huge mound of doughy French toast with a side of bacon AND peameal bacon (that’s Canadian bacon, guys). If you look at me and tell me you would really like to go for bruuuuunch, I will assume you have some kind of problem and I will turn to you and say, “FUCK BRUNCH.”

What is brunch? A colossal waste of time and money, that’s what. It’s like people who can’t afford it doing coke. Meal-time’s greatest posturing asshole, a meal that attracts some of the worst behavior and entitled attitude problems I can think of. My friend blames those Sex in The City whack-jobs. Where at ten in the morning will you find a stark-raving crazy person in full Acne apparel and make-up trying to rip your soul out over problematic eggs? Which they are not even going to eat? Throw in a few boozy wake-up drinks and you’ve got keyed-up, waiting-for-the-weekend psychopaths who will literally fight you if you try and ruin this fucking day for them by serving a cappuccino rather than a latte.

News flash: No one in the restaurant industry likes brunch. NO ONE. Therefore, you have a restaurant full of staff who hate you, and a kitchen full of capable line cooks forced to turn out a thousand omelets instead of getting to flex any kind of real skill. Do you know how disgusting it is to cook eggs for five hours? It gets IN YOUR ARMPITS. I know all this because I’ve worked this shift on and off for 11 years. Everyone in the kitchen is rushed because YOU are rushing us with your silent staring-at-me demands, and don’t fucking worry I do this EVERY SUNDAY and I DID NOT FORGET ABOUT YOU. Your latte is going to be a watery mess, so just suck it up and order a drip. But it wouldn’t be brunch without lattes would it, bitch?

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At every brunch there are line-ups around the block, so many hell-bent people on having the most luxurious and sexy time of their lives that it means LIFE AND DEATH, apparently, if they can’t be seated, and with a smile, the second they arrive with their slinky costumes and huge sunglasses, reeking of monogamous sex and last night’s artisan cocktails. These people want to give their two-year-olds a “real restaurant experience,” letting them run amok dangerously under molten hot pots of coffee. Young couples, with their clothes practically falling off, wet-looking, never not touching and one of them having to explain to the apparently regressed, confused of the pair every nuance of the menu. Each and every one, with their lax, half-asleep dream faces trying to psychically outdo someone else's rad frigging raging weekend. Die sexy backs, die.

Brunch is one of the most consistently disappointing meals. Eggs and bread are cheap. You are getting ripped off. Brunch is a cash grab and that is the only reason why perfectly respectable establishments subject themselves to this wrath. What is worse than feeling shafted after paying good money for a meal? How mind-blowing, no matter how creative or varied it may be, can eggs benedict go? But you don’t give a shit, do you, brunch-goers? I could serve you anything as long as it has a cute name, and some mixed greens on the side (that come from that baby mixed-green factory of cellophane and no flavor). It kills me.

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It’s a twisted reaction to working jobs you hate, the hopeful cherry on top of your TGIF. It’s a family vacation gone terribly wrong. It's capitalism’s ploy at turning the working class against itself--the working class’s weekend chance to shit on their own kind. Brunch is an illusion, an image of picnicking on the banks of the Seine, days of nothing to do but stare into the waters of your lover’s eyes. To be served, and goddamn it, you are owed. It’s not your fault, brunch-goers, this disdain I have. It’s more directed at what made you think this behavior could ever fly? I say ban brunch. Get a Banh Mi, get Bibimbap, pho, make your own frigging breakfast (I have been experimenting with what I like to call BI BIM BAM--I've got Polish, Italian and Canadian versions)!

It’s true, that when you are hungover, eggs make sense. In macrobiotic speak, eggs are at the very far end of the Yang scale and alcohol is at the far end of the Yin scale. Macro is all about balancing inside yourself, so this is a good thing to do, probably. My friend Brenna in university used to bring me over the cutest little boiled egg and salt packages on harsher days and I swear to god it helped. So get an egg! Better yet, get some Bibimbap. It is the best hangover food in all the lands. You have your egg, you have pickled and fermented vegetables, you have wholesome rice, you have, if you choose, salty meat. You have a good spice! It’s a more conscious bacon and eggs, and Korean restaurants are brightly lit and don’t give a shit about your "look," and you will never wait 45 minutes on a Sunday morning to get your fix. And you could even get it to go and sit in a park because you could probably use some sunshine and fresh air too.

Brunch thinks it’s better than breakfast. I’m not saying I need a whore’s morning meal to feel validated in my sentiments (that’s where you order eggs at a shitty diner at 7 AM and don’t eat them, putting out your cigarette in them instead). Eat well. We must all eat well, everyone gotta eat. Just go get what you need, and don’t bare skin in the AM at me. Leave brunch to those haughty blowhards who can’t handle not remembering the last three hours of their nights. Let them have stupid fruit garnishes. Let them stuff themselves with empty carbohydrates day-drunking until it’s time to go build up another week's worth of hate. If you know true morning emptiness, fill yourself with some real nourishment. Get some toilet paper and a dentist appointment, go for a walk, and leave brunch to the bitches.

Previously - Getting Happy as a Clam in New Brunswick

@sidemouthy