That's the top-rated comment on "'You can never have too many mimosas’: How brunch became the day-wrecking meal that America loves to hate" (WaPo). In the article, there is such contempt:
Brunch is its own kind of religion. Or at least a pagan ritual, practiced each Sunday by urban elites who are known to pound so many mimosas that it’s easy to imagine a nationwide shortage of André on the horizon.Urban elites? Can they be the new deplorables? I can see that these people — these women — are urban (are they??) — though I don't see how what they are doing is different from women in the suburbs. Or is the geography just some sort of reverse Bible Belt?
Brunch is a lifestyle. And friends, it is also a lewk, and that lewk is off-the-shoulder and frilly, and it hobbles up the sidewalk in flesh-toned stilettos. Brunch wears coral-colored khakis and pocket squares tucked into baby-blue slim-fit blazers, or sometimes it rolls out of bed and throws on a cleanish T-shirt that says “Resting brunch face” or “You can’t brunch with us.”
All of this — but especially the mimosas and the loud and leisurely ways of brunchers — is why every Sunday, brunch cleaves us into Two Americas.
“I don’t have time to get up at 7 or 8 to go to church. But I do have time to go to brunch,” confirmed Monica Zurita, 32, of Vienna.Vienna. I figured that was the name of some Washington, D.C. suburb, and I was right. How ickily insular to just say "Vienna" like that. Vienna, Virginia is, apparently, one of those places where the people consider themselves "urban" when they are suburban and "elite" when they don't go to church. They do the theater of foodieism with crap food, and they daytime-drink bad champagne disguised by/disguising bad orange juice.
But are these women "desperate for something that can never be found"? They are at least making a show of the belief that whatever one might be looking for is not found in church. Maybe they think the meaning of life is what you see in the TV commercials — friends sitting around a table and talking and laughing. Is that an "empty, futile lifestyle"?
ADDED: A charming little poll to get you started this morning:
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These writers seem to be graduates of the Mencken School of Journalism. So unhappy with themselves, they've got to find someone to excoriate each and every day. Sad.
R Emmett Tyrrell "Betty Friedan and the Women of the Fevered Brow" _Public Nuisances_ :
The movement was born amid the sounds of the morning wash being automatically battered and dried in the laundry rooms of suburbia. The last crumbs of breakfast had been lugged away, the coffee was poured, and a scowling Miss Betty Friedan sat with the most awesome circle of women ever gathered under the roof of a modern ranch-type house. Together they deliberated, as rage feathered the linings of their bowels. The whole day yawned before them. Soon it would be back and forth, back and forth to the powder room. Coffee and house work can have that effect. These brave women were trapped with a vast expanse of desolate hours stretching out to that remote time when the kids returned from school and the idiot traipsed in with his evening paper. It was insanity, and still the infernal washing machine kept vibrating in the background. Soon the maid would be emptying it and feeding it, emptying it and feeding it. There would be telephones and shopping and God knows what all. Rosa Luxemburg had been right ; so had -- their genitalia notwithstanding -- C. Wright Mills and Norman O. Brown. It was time to hoist the black flag. Penis envy, ha!
The women began to read, and in time they began to shout. Millions of witches had been burned in the Middle Ages, yet here we were in the early 1960s and still no inquest had been held. Not even many books on the atrocity could be found. There was much work to be done.
I would never take these crazy women to brunch.
Mencken was a lover of stuff. He just didn't go along with the official version.
Tim Blair on Mencken on college presidents complaining that Mencken was driving college students to suicide.
When my son lived in DC he did note the various brunch locations in the city,
A big deal in Washington.
( That’s Washington, DC not not Washington, Utah
Who gets up at 7 or 8 to go to church?
It's like me saying I can't make it to brunch because I dont get up until 9:30.
When my son lived in DC he did note the various brunch locations in the city,
A big deal in Washington.
That’s Washington, DC not Washington, Utah
Brunch is an age thing, as in you age out of it. I did brunch sometimes with my dear wife, long ago, before kids. When you have kids, brunch is just a meal with a ticking toddler time bomb. Who needs that? Why not work in the yard?
Vienna is at the end of a subway line that goes into DC.
Most of the brunchers that the Post writes about are women who are baffled at the concept that Hillary is still not President. Maybe they're still talking about it as they munch on their gluten-free avocado toast with Quail eggs washed down with organic oj/mimosas.
The insularity of the old newspapers’ “society pages” forced into confrontation with the wider world around it. Internet Society Pages. -willie
Refreshingly iconoclast but, wow, so negative for a seemingly diverse women's beltway lifestyle piece in the Washington Post.
The only pejorative left was for the writer to name the ritual "cuntch".
The money those women spend on brunch could be donated to Emily's List instead!
Coffin birth, and now brunch in Vienna!
"Or at least a pagan ritual, practiced each Sunday by urban elites who are known to pound so many mimosas that it’s easy to imagine a nationwide shortage of André on the horizon.
Good heavens. What sort of "elite", urban or otherwise, drinks André? Even in mimosas?
""This article is sad to me. It looks like the patrons are mainly women desperate for something that can never be found.""
Could the point be to make the women feel sorry for themselves?
How brunch became the day-wrecking meal that America loves to hate
Brunch is also known to cause "Mimosa Birth"...
This is a known, but rare, phenomenon that occurs during the after brunch phase. Around two to five hours after brunch the pregnant individual, gas builds up inside the body, eventually forcing the fetus to be ejected from the vaginal canal, resulting in a post-brunch birth.
How ickily insular to just say "Vienna" like that.
For a writer in the WaPo Style section, e.g. "Women's Section", Vienna is assumed in the context of Brunch to be 10 miles away, rather than 4,000 miles.
I don't normally eat Brunch, but on last Sunday, I did take a lady friend out for an excellent one. Bistro L'Hermitage, Occoquan. Note the missing State location
This Sunday no Brunch, but an afternoon concert at Strathmore, Tchaikovsky...
Early dinner after at Chez Fran
Next week: a withering piece about the horrid people who meet for coffee.
Brunch is for Easter and Mothers Day.
Reading the article, I feel like this is an ersatz documentary of what I imagine Maureen Dowd's Sundays to be like.
As for Vienna, AU, most any cafe will please, though I would avoid both Demel's and Sacher's if you dislike being one of a thousand tourists. For more substantial fair, go to Figlmuller's. The best Schnitzel around...
"Next week: a withering piece about the horrid people who meet for coffee."
I LOL'ed.
My family has been know to attended church and following the service go to brunch. The author sounds unaware of the after church rush. This custom may be alien to the writer.
Haven't been to brunch for a while, but I always found it very enjoyable. You sit, talk and laugh with friends in the bright light of day next to a sunny window, then take a walk, go home for some afternoon delight, and take a nap with the window open and a cool breeze waving thought the curtains.
It's a great break from the usual Sunday of chores, gardening, and repair.
It does usually destroy the energy to get anything done, but that's still a valuable use of time with moderation. These women would probably just go shopping instead anyway. I doubt they cut the grass or fix a broken door when they skip brunch. That's the urban day's work.
@The Drll Sgt Those "in the know" know where Occoquan creek is. Just to the north of the Hill trail! The rest don't matter.
I associate brunch with eating with one's grandparents. Different brunches for different bunches.
When I finally retire I aspire to an "empty, futile lifestyle". My wife is not on board however, and will make me do something or other.
off-the-shoulder and frilly, and it hobbles up the sidewalk in flesh-toned stilettos. Brunch wears coral-colored khakis and pocket squares tucked into baby-blue slim-fit blazers
For some reason, that made me think of the movie Brazil.
Part of the empty, futile lifestyle I aspire to is the occasional brunch in Vienna, AU.
And the odd bullfight.
The more odd the better.
Somebody is trying on Tom Wolfe's white suit, but it doesn't quite fit.
"It looks like the patrons are mainly women desperate for something that can never be found."
You say that like it's a bad thing.
Dressing up the "hair of the dog" process ;)
"Uh..it's...brunch!"
@Khesanh 0802 said...
and Mom's Pies
wwww to Freeman:
"Next week: a withering piece about the horrid people who meet for coffee."
I LOL'ed.
My family has been know to attended church and following the service go to brunch. The author sounds unaware of the after church rush. This custom may be alien to the writer.
Indeed. It is Sunday brunch. The traditional day of rest and feasting with friends and family for all those icky Legacy Americans.
One may be disgusted by excessive drinking at any time or venue, but eating and drinking and enjoying the company of friends and family (and not working if you don't have to) has always been part of "keeping the day holy". This isn't a substitute for religion, it's just, in some cases, the diminished and commercialized latter-day manifestation of the ancient tradition. Sound familiar? (But ugh, those André mimosas. That's unholy.)
i thought brunch was what you do with family and friends after church. It's a lot of fun to see cousins, parents, kids, and triends, have coffee then a couple of bloodys, eat some nice pork and eggs, and generally relax and catch up with people you like but don't see that often. Maybe it's just the south where it's done this way? Ive never seen or even imagined imagined brunch as a female thing.
There's a rich enclave in Marin County named Tiburon - across the Golden Gate Bridge from SF. Beautiful sailing town, right on the water, with sprawling panoramic views.
Sam's Anchor Cafe has the best brunch there.
Somebody got paid to write that?
My family (immediate and extended) love brunch, but we brunch at home. You get to spend more time together after eating than you do after a dinner. The kids swim or play video games (Space Invaders, Donkey Kong, Centipede...), the guys play Cribbage, and the girls sit on the deck enjoying the view.
It's also a treat for me because there is no family dinner if we have brunch. I love family dinner but that's a lot of rushing around on a Sunday night so a break is nice.
I started planning Mother's Day brunch this week.
Vienna. I figured that was the name of some Washington, D.C. suburb, and I was right. How ickily insular to just say "Vienna" like that.
Because no one knows which city The Washington Post is published in or that the lifestyle section of a print newspaper is a local feature.
Lady, you're getting silly again. Trust me, life in rural America is just as empty and vapid. It's only proud ignorance that makes them not realize or accept it. And religion, right? Bronze-aged goat-herders' texts meant to supplant reason, fact and science. Totally a valid, literal source for all meaning.
I recently had what I suppose would count as brunch in a generations-old rural culinary equivalent of a hoggery. (Nearly every dish was a celebration to the pig as a food source - especially in its greasier and more breakfast-oriented manifestations). Locals gathered there in their weekend next-to-best, including long leather jackets and their favorite sweatshirts as advertisements. I'm pretty sure the experience would have counted for something similar to what the WaPo described.
Eventually your game of country mouse/city mouse and how the former's inferiority complex is a form of moral superiority will need to end. It's boring, useless and derivative. There are all sorts of schmucks and losers in both settings.
Brunch is a family thing for us. And it invariably follows going to Mass.
Hell yeah. Bay Area Guy. If you're going to go out for brunch anywhere (or any meal) it would be there.
I remember this cool place called Sea Ranch that hosted a totally 80s-oriented weathered teak restaurant and feel. The food even had a more minimalist '80s feel, as that was way before the current era of food porn and its associated excesses. The days when people took their dieting seriously. There was also this Tolkien-Inspired chapel nearby that looked like Gandalf's wizard hat. Pretty cool.
I think this brunch trend can be done right. If you're all into the mimosas then a nice outdoor place as described works. Especially if it's big, and maybe Latin or somesuch. Then there are big delis that seem to have the right idea. They don't feel as pretentious.
I remember going to brunch became fashionable in the 1970's because gay men took to it. It was a big deal in DC in the '80's. I fondly remember going to brunch at the Hays Adams with a friend and getting seated at a big table with a bunch of very friendly Swedes. We had a blast and everyone was the best of friends and rather tipsy by the time we left at about 2 pm. Yeah, it was a wasted day, but a fun one.
I had to look up "lewk" and found different definitions. I'll go out on a limb and observe that "loitering electronic warfare killer" is probably not germane.
"Most of the brunchers that the Post writes about are women who are baffled at the concept that Hillary is still not President."
Close. More like Bernie, at least among the brunchers I know.
That I had to look up "lewk" no doubt pegs me as unlewk.
The idea that brunch is somehow seen as separate from or an alternative to a Christian gathering shows how far Christianity has left its roots.
For a continued integration of food and faith, no one does it better these days than the Sikhs and langar!
Angel-Dyne:
"One may be disgusted by excessive drinking at any time or venue, but eating and drinking and enjoying the company of friends and family (and not working if you don't have to) has always been part of "keeping the day holy".
Indeed. We always had a big Sunday dinner after Mass. Usually some members of our extended family were present and it was the one day of the week my mother made a "fancy" dessert (a cake or pie, as compared with the fruit we normally had.) My mother was a terrific baker and generally an indifferent cook, but she put more effort into Sunday dinner. After dinner, the adults usually played cards while the kids went outside or played board games or something. I have warm memories of those meals. Apparently big Sunday family dinners are still common in Europe (and the South) but I don't know anybody here who does them routinely.
I was friends with the daughter of Italian immigrants who lived down the block. Their mother cooked ragu for Sunday dinner. I remember going over there for something and being floored by the wonderful smells. They would have something like 20 people over every week.
Life is empty and vapid?
Life is misused by some people.
As a city-boy, born and bred - but with traditional connections, native villages and small towns -
The difference between the country and the city is, on the human terrain, community. You have real neighbors, you have relations, you know their ancestors and they know yours. With some luck, everyone is born with a social life. In an American city especially, but even in suburbs, everyone is a stranger.
As for being contemptuous of the locals for their beliefs and education, this is a personality defect or affectation. There is common ground with anyone, and there is an interesting conversation to be had with anyone.
Here's to the ladies who lunch
Everybody laugh.
Lounging in their caftans
And planning a brunch
On their own behalf.
Off to the gym,
Then to a fitting,
Claiming they're fat.
And looking grim,
'Cause they've been sitting
Choosing a hat.
Does anyone still wear a hat?
I'll drink to that.
And here's to the girls who play smart
Aren't they a gas?
Rushing to their classes
In optical art,
Wishing it would pass.
Another long exhausting day,
Another thousand dollars,
A matinee, a Pinter play,
Perhaps a piece of Mahler's.
I'll drink to that.
And one for Mahler!
And here's to the girls who play wife
Aren't they too much?
Keeping house but clutching
A copy of Life,
Just to keep in touch.
The ones who follow the rules,
And meet themselves at the schools,
Too busy to know that they're fools.
Aren't they a gem?
I'll drink to them!
Let's all drink to them!
And here's to the girls who just watch
Aren't they the best?
When they get depressed,
It's a bottle of Scotch,
Plus a little jest.
Another chance to disapprove,
Another brilliant zinger,
Another reason not to move,
Another vodka stinger.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!
I'll drink to that.
So here's to the girls on the go
Everybody tries.
Look into their eyes,
And you'll see what they know:
Everybody dies.
A toast to that invincible bunch,
The dinosaurs surviving the crunch.
Let's hear it for the ladies who lunch
Everybody rise!
Rise!
Rise! Rise! Rise! Rise! Rise! Rise! Rise!
Rise!
Freeman Hunt:
Did you notice the statue of Stephen Foster that was torn down in Pittsburgh?
Do you still support removing statues? Have you found the slope slippery enough for your tastes?
“Brunch is for Easter and Mothers Day”
Or, maybe your partner’s birthday. Last couple years we have done dinner at Beverly’s, and Sunday brunch at Dockside at the Coeur d’Alene resort. The brown sugar bacon there is memorable. As for mimosa’s, the have several, but the one that is mandatory there are the Huckleberry ones (Huckleberries are big in NW MT and N ID). Usually I have to cart her out of there, thanks to the mimosas. We are trying to schedule my kid’s visit up here this year to include a Sunday - last time they ate there was in high school, and they get their PhD next month. Time flies.
One reason that we only brunch out once or twice a year is that I can’t afford the calories. Not surprised though that they are big in the DC area - a lot of fat people there. Not much to do in that area except to eat and drink, esp in the summer (area was considered a hardship posting until the invention of air conditioning).
I guess Eggs Benedict have been replaced by quail eggs, but the mimosa abides. Brunch is kind of self indulgent and affected, but objecting to it is more so.......Challa French toast with blueberries. You really can't call that breakfast.
in "Kitchen Confidential," Anthony Bourdain -- who is very negative about brunch -- makes very clear why you should never order Eggs Benedict.
And I have had to visit Sam's Anchor Cafe in Tiburon a number of times, its nice enough, true.
But in my case its been for business, a halfway meeting point with some North State relatives of ours when I had power of attorney to settle an estate.
The elites have always looked down upon the diet of the middle class. It is an obsession with them. It is one of the ways they separate themselves from the hated working class and the bourgeois, although, of course, the elites are just another type of bourgeois.
Ramanathan isn't really critiquing the idea of brunch. If you were to list her criticisms of brunch you would immediately see how class-based and silly they were (example: she mocks the cheap champagne used in brunch mimiosas. Why would you mix expensive champagne with orange juice?). What Ramanathan is doing is erecting a divide between the silly, vacuous bourgeois who enjoy brunch, and the serious bourgeois like herself, who apparently spend their Sunday mornings doing yoga or writing feminist novels.
In "Down and out in Paris and London" Orwell went on an extended rant against the practice of dining in restaurants. He thought that it was a waste of effort, since people could cook for themselves, and its main purpose was to model the class system. Some people produced and served food, other people ate it.
Orwell himself did not have a refined palate. He coud have gotten on well with a diet of oatmeal and pickled herring.
After "Down and Out . . .", after his time in Catalonia, Orwell's adherence to the ideals of socialism was diminished.
My uncle used to say that a brunch without booze was just a sad early lunch or a sad late breakfast, but in either case it was just sad. He also was fond of saying that you can't drink all day unless you start in the morning. He was quite the wordsmith.
Lot of unexpected love for Brunch here.
Sunday is also a good day to go to work, no one around, actually get things done.
I wonder if the suburb had been named Johnsonville rather than Vienna the residency description wouldn't have been D.C. instead.
If you have some dodgy relatives with whom you regularly do Brunch it might be an idea to avoid the DNA ancestry services, unless you want to cause unnecessary trouble within the family.
Took an ancestry DNA test? You might be a 'genetic informant' unleashing secrets about your relatives
Food is food- I often order from the breakfast menu at The Cracker Barrel even if I am dining out at night, so I won't ever look down on someone eating brunch. I just find it amusing that people make a point of calling it brunch- it does seem a bit silly as a way of signalling status.
Blogger Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...
Sunday is also a good day to go to work, no one around, actually get things done.
Not on the Sabbath, you heathen.
As Vienna (and the rest of Fairfax County and the rest of Northern Virginia) become more developed and over developed with hyper-density it is becoming more and more urbanized in their progressive, smart growth, walkable community, urban village utopia.
In Las Vegas there are Sunday brunch buffets to suit every taste and pocketbook. They offer plenty of material for any writer wishing to cop a superior attitude to the social class of their choice.
Ann Althouse said...
in "Kitchen Confidential," Anthony Bourdain -- who is very negative about brunch -- makes very clear why you should never order Eggs Benedict.
4/28/18, 11:35 AM
I recall that former commenter Chef Mojo did not think much of brunch either. I can see why a chef would find preparing brunch dishes boring.
(Did Chef Mojo pass away? I remember he was not in good health. If so, RIP. He was always an interesting commenter.)
As buwaya notes, if you are a vapid person you will find life vapid and boring no matter where you find yourself - city, country or suburb. Because no matter where you go, there you are.
The difference between the country and the city is, on the human terrain, community. You have real neighbors, you have relations, you know their ancestors and they know yours. With some luck, everyone is born with a social life. In an American city especially, but even in suburbs, everyone is a stranger.
That's because America was founded on depopulating the land of perhaps 100 million natives and abandoning all conventional "community" symbols in the form of king and catechism and country for an ethic of individual rights. Then, with the land cleared, westward expansion and manifest destiny paved the way for the natural thing - people moving as far away from each other and into their own, Thoreauvian selves as possible. You must think people are less territorial than they are.
As buwaya notes...
Yeah, I already addressed what he notes. He and I are founding a village together. But somehow we must not allow Hillary Clinton to have anything to do with it. After all, it takes a village... just not one that Hillary Clinton likes or is a part of.
At Sam's you get a pair of wings of a seagull poops on you. Always a highlight.
"That's because America was founded on depopulating the land of perhaps 100 million natives . . ."
Good Lord where does that number come from?
+1 for contempt for these shikkers. What is this fascination with alcohol?
It is inconceivable that the pre-Columbian population of the United States was as high as 100,000,000 given their neolithic level of agriculture. I've seen estimates as high as 100,000,000 for all of the Americas, but these high estimates of North & South American populations are treated with skepticism.
This US News & World report article gives low/high estimates of the pre-Columbian population of North America north of the Rio Grande at 900,000 to 12,250,000.
https://www.bxscience.edu/ourpages/auto/2009/4/5/34767803/Pre-Columbian%20population.pdf
HRC's villages are not simply ersatz, but fundamentally impersonal. The creation of some massive process bound institutions justified by some rhetoric about humanity.
It was extremely dishonest and the actual book was quite depressing. A bit like some boilerplated prospectus on reorganization from a management consultancy.
Good Lord where does that number come from?
From the cloaca mundi.
Those Sunday brunchers are the wives of the Deep State, those DC careerists who think democracy begins and ends with their opinions.
Mockturtle, I've read Mencken--and read about him--extensively; and I never got the impression he was unhappy about himself. He seemed to be having a ball, especially when mocking the idiocies of his era. But I agree with you about this anti-brunch article and its author. I rarely have brunch, but when enough friends are available and in the mood, I have always enjoyed. Anyone who doesn't like that can go hang.
Gee, President Per per objects to an ethic of individual rights. Color me shocked. And I'm going to guess he likes to call others "fascist."
I meant "President Pee pee." I don't know why this Smartphone decided to make that "Per per."
It's one thing to say "my ancestors committed historical injustice by oppressing the natives and colonizing their land. Therefore I shall hie me to the land of my ancestors and leave this cursed place." That statement at least his principle behind it.
But saying "Our ancestors committed historical injustice by oppressing the natives and colonizing their land. Therefore I shall make people like me who do not acknowledge their historical injustice pay, and pay, and pay." is more like what a dweeb would say who was looking for any excuse to oppress people who disagree with him.
Ironically, the 18th century settlers in the American colonies were disproportionately made up of Scots and people from the North of England who were kicked off of their ancestral holdings by absentee landlords who wanted use the land to pasture sheep.
No one has a patent on being oppressed or oppressor.
100,000,000 was the high end but I think you're right that it was all of the Americas.
Vienna, Virginia was originally called Ayr Hill or something like that. There was no doctor in the town but one was found in upstate New York who said he would come if they renamed the town Vienna because he wanted to tell people he was a doctor in Vienna. They renamed the town and got their doctor. Now they are drinking mimosas made with Andres. Plus ca change.
No Vienna brunch would be complete without a double helping of vienna schnitzel.
I just recently became aware that brunch is a thing. It’s been years since I had brunch. Way back when we were stationed at Fort Knox and when we could afford it (seldom) we would have brunch at the Officers Club. Limit one mimosa though. Sounds like things have improved if they’re now bottomless. So the hell what if people enjoy brunch?
I am very worried we will soon see a mass-shooting by a loser driven to enraged madness because he is never invited to brunch.
My neighborhood bar opens at 9:30 AM on the weekends, for "brunch". But it's a crowd of casual regulars that show up, not the lewk-sporting, mimosa-chugging lifestyle brunchers. Just the best damn breakfast anywhere in town, and it's a bar so you can drink all the mimosas you want along with it. Or mai tais. Or bloody marys. Or whiskey shots in your coffee.
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