The Art Of Brunch
Don’t miss The Breakfast Club’s french toast
By Erin Deborah Waks
‘I’ll have the avocado and smoked salmon on toast, please. And a flat white with oat milk,’ are words that, embarrassingly, come out of my mouth more regularly than I’d like to admit.
I am, also embarrassingly, aware of how much of a cliche I am. Along with some combination of pals, the number of brunches I have frequented in my lifetime is, likely, astonishingly high.
The reasons I love brunch are, to be honest, not that interesting. A not-so-unique combination of being born in the year 2000, having a caffeine addiction that is rather impressive for someone at the mere age of 24, and being the sort of pilates girl who likes to don matching lululemon yoga sets and Adidas Samba trainers, kind of sets me up to be the type of person to enjoy an 11am meal with friends - or alone. Just last Sunday, after a long run, I accidentally slipped and fell into a bakery I love, and ordered a cinnamon bun and a cappuccino the size of my head to brunch on.
Yours truly at brunch (again) last weekend
Bored of my own enthusiasm for what is, in my book, the most important meal of the day, I decided to expand my horizons and ask my nearest and dearest: why do you love brunch?
I greatly enjoyed the poetry of their responses.
Some commented on the actual food associated with brunch. ‘The food is like a full English but more bougie,’ one pointed out, another adding, ‘I’d probably say I like the food, it is delicious and you can have a somewhat healthy meal.’ Or, ‘It’s the perfect combination of sweet and savoury eats and a girls brunch is always iconic,’ and ‘It's like breakfast but bigger. And you can have breakfast as well. And lunch. The ideal extra meal.’
Plus, there’s the positive, fulfilling predictability of it: ‘Expectations are always met, if not exceeded. Even if I haven’t been to a certain place before, I’ll always kind of know what I’ll be having just because every brunch menu has a few items that are always there and always hit (think veggie breakfast etc). Also, maybe because it’s early but not too early, everyone’s in a fab mood and chat is always great.’
There’s the caffeine argument: ‘Well,’ one (extremely intelligent) friend said, ‘I love coffee, so any meal with coffee is a win.’
Then there were those who commented on the perfection of the actual timing of brunch. ‘Brunch is my favorite because I can have a lie in/be productive in the morning beforehand,’ one put it. Another pal noted, ‘I dislike both breakfast foods and eating in the mornings. Thus brunch works for me because it’s late enough that nobody is going to judge me for ordering a caesar salad and sweet potato fries as my first meal of the day,’ while another echoed, ‘it’s good for someone who can’t eat much in the morning but doesn’t want to wait until lunch.’ A third chimed in, ‘It’s the perfect time to have a late morning with friends,’ and a fourth, ‘It probably just feels like an indulgent treat to have a big meal so early in the day.’
Naturally, plenty noted the social advantages. ‘A combination of food and nostalgia’ is what makes brunch great, one observed. And then, ‘There’s no pressure to drink at a brunch so it helps in early stages of friendships that I can do something without the pressure to be drunk with people you’re only getting to know.’
But then one response stopped me in my tracks.
‘I think the tasks involved in brunch are just enough to distract me from myself so I can be fully absorbed in the flow of conversation. If my attention is on slicing an avocado, pouring a cup of coffee or not burning a slice of toast, I can't be overly conscious of my body language or my responses to what people say and do. If you're spreading jam on toast, it's acceptable to respond with a hmm, not making any eye contact, which in other settings might be rude. It just shows the low-pressure environment of what brunch is.’
He went on: ‘Brunch provides the perfect level of distraction to ease anxiety whilst not limiting conversation. It's probably the same reason that I have to draw, solve a simple sudoku or play some mindless phone game when I listen to a podcast. Or why people suggest going for a coffee, a cuppa or a pint rather than saying 'let’s go for a conversation'. It's scary, in a way, to be so up front about our desires for connection and conversation (maybe especially for men), so it's easier to pretend that the focus is on something else, something sensory - like brunch.’
Enough said. For once, I’ll finish with someone else’s words, not mine.
‘On a sentimental level, brunch with the family is one of the few opportunities I have to just sit around and chat with people who unconditionally understand and accept me, and with whom I can feel completely comfortable as myself.’
