Brunch is my church. I visit the altar of meal combining almost every Sunday, like a devout glutton. It is the holiest of meals, as it is the time of day that I am most spiritually tranquil and physically ready to receive the communion of English muffin and mimosa.
As a faithful bruncher, I have prepared, out of my free will, a few commandments to ensure your experience is other-worldly.
Brunch with your partner
This is the way God intended brunch to be. You, your partner and 136 other people vying for a small table on the sidewalk that is dangerously close to a busy intersection without an umbrella to protect you from the unforgiving morning sun. How else will you know if your relationship can stand the test of time without experiencing a three hour wait for poached eggs?
Brunch with friends and their children
I say start them early and baptize them into the brunch lifestyle while they are still in diapers. But there are no two ways about it, brunching with friends that happen to be parents is complicated. However, with proper planning and basic knowledge of fractions, your morning-to-afternoon meal could turn out to be an okay time. The first step requires you to ascertain how many people are in your party. For example, four adults and a child is considered a party of four-and-a-half. However, if your friends happen to have two children, you must figure out their ages to come up with the proper fraction, which directly correlates to the type of chair and/or chair accessories you will need. Also, it is important to note that if your friends have twins or triplets this formula is useless. In this case, all you need are functional restraints.
Brunch with your parents
Honor your father and mother by feeding them food and drink that will give them acid reflux and spike their blood sugar levels for 48 hours. Are you feeling nostalgic for your teenage years, when you would beg your parent or guardian to drop you off two blocks from the movie theater so not to be embarrassed in front of your friends, but they didn’t listen to you and drove right up to the entrance and accidentally honked? Well, taking them to brunch is very much like that, only they will find new and creative ways to embarrass you and ruin any future visits to your favorite brunch spot.
Brunch with your younger friends
Don’t take the mimosa in vain. That is some serious champagne disguised in citrus and, no matter how “light” it feels going down, don’t let your younger friends convince you that shooting the revered breakfast drink is the best way to get your money’s worth on the unlimited drink package you just purchased. God punishes these acts harshly.
Brunch with your older friends
Do realize that brunching with your older friends will be easier than most other groups. They are less likely to flake out or over sleep and will only eat at places that take reservations because they are too grown to wait in line. That being said, you should be prepared for the inquisition that will shortly follow the waiter’s normally rhetorical, “Are there any questions about the menu?” Once the 25-minute question and answer session about items that they were never really going to order has culminated in requesting the world’s most customized Huevos Rancheros, they will spend the next 25 minutes explaining their digestive ailments as the reasoning behind their complicated order.
Brunch by yourself
The only person that notices your request for a table for one is the host/ess. To everyone else, you are completely invisible. Watch people all around you, as they fight with their spouse, entertain their children, order for their annoying parents, vomit on tables, and ask endless questions about the types of bread available. And then laugh and laugh. Just like God.
Mari de Armas 