Brunch

BLACK METAL BRUNCH
A Culinary Review by the Illustrious and Infernal Psycho Butcher

Since my unfortunate period of incarceration, I have made a point of appreciating the small things in life that a person might otherwise ignore: candlelight, black nail polish, wood smoke. One of the greatest of these small joys is the ritual of brunch. It compares favorably to a Sunday afternoon, spent on the floor of a prison cell, administering a homemade tattoo with an unraveled bass string and the broken contents of a Bic pen, though I must admit, the latter has its charms as well.

Regarding the reasons for my incarceration, my attorney has advised me that, if I am to stay in the country, I should not comment. Suffice it to say that my actions were ethically justified, and aesthetically as well. Ahhh, wood smoke.

Brunch is, in fact, a perfect example of “Nature Red in Tooth and Claw” as the Englishman would have put it. The better the brunch, the more a person is forced to wait, in the cold or the rain, or for enduring hours spent crouching on a charming Wicker-Park sidewalk, reading the vapid nonsense the publishers of Red Eye choose to print rather than real news. In fact, the longer the wait, the better the food, because the gluttonous hoards of humanity do not assort themselves randomly. Those cretinous individuals happy with a Waffle House stack of pancakes, or Moons Over My Hammy sit comfortably, stuffing their obese bellies without so much as a hunt for a space to park their minivans, while the truly astute breakfast enthusiasts all flock to a tiny cluster of establishments. Among the best of these is the Bongo Room. I have not been there since before my incarceration, and in truth, it was at its best before my original incarceration, in the 1990’s. I am told that the lines for brunch have stretched two city blocks, down Milwaukee Avenue and through the parking lot of an adjacent Burger King, (now closed, thank Odin). Many was the Sunday morning when my bandmates and I were forced to wait outside this place, cigarettes in hand, for hours, for a mere taste of the heavenly pleasure of the chocolate chip pancakes there. I am sure they are still divine.

In essence, the weak do not deserve to eat good food. The stupid eat bad food without realizing it.

I write all this because I recently dined at Hot Chocolate, for brunch, and it was worth the hellish wait. In fact, they provide free coffee, and fragments of delicious pastries, while encouraging the would-be patron to sit on comfortable furniture. This was, frankly, amazing to me. When brunch came, I was delighted. Each member of our party had a dish that amounted to a novel interpretation of a classic delight. The grilled cheese sandwich was delightful. The real trick was the analog of the Egg Mc Muffin that my drummer was kind enough to share with me. It was heavenly. The donuts there live up to their reputation- for them it is perhaps worth waiting ten years in a cramped cell.

Very recently, we repeated the brunch ritual at Café Lula. Before my incarceration, this was a small, hipster, diner. It was the sort of place a person would pretend to read the Onion as they waited for an inexpensively-priced and expertly-rendered interpretation of eggs and potatoes, as they nursed a hangover from hours of drunken screaming. It has come up in the world, rising to the top of a culinary food chain that has sent formidable phonies to their dark demise. The brunch there is truly magnificent. The French toast, for instance, was an infernal delight, with layer after layer of mysterious pleasure stacked neatly for annihilation at the business end of a fork. The trout was magnificent. The fish did not die in vain and must have gone to Valhalla for its contribution to the pleasure of a greater being.