Brunch menus are an open invitation to the cost-conscious chef, a dumping ground for the odd bits left over from Friday and Saturday nights… Cooks hate brunch. Brunch is punishment block for the B-Team cooks, or where the farm team of recent dishwashers learn their chops.
A brunch view from the end of Venning St. in the Old Village.
There are those chefs who hate brunch. They hate the short turn from a Saturday night into the pre-sunrise hours. They hate what they perceive as the low brow nature of breakfast. They hate cooking eggs.
They probably hate making people happy.
I am not one of them. The short turn is a drag, yes, but I have always loved brunch. Loved eating brunch out. Loved cooking brunch at home. Loved the sleepy conviviality and languid hours hazing into an afternoon of freshly squeezed screwdrivers or my dad’s bloody mary’s. And as a chef, I love sharing these with my guests. I love the opportunity to play with composition, to be a bit less serious, get off the grid and outside the usual paradigm.
And play to a chef is just as fundamentally important as it is to any child. Far from drudgery, brunch to me is a big stack of Lego’s or a chance to build dirt forts for Star Wars toys. And it’s as much a pipeline to Proust’s Madeilleines as any formal degustation. So yes, let it be said that I play with my food- after all, I love brunch.
