Notes on Charleston: Brunch

“Let it die.  Let there be a new beginning…Goodnight.”

—Charles Bukowski

    Sunday is a holy day set aside as a day of rest and recovery and reserved by a higher power for early drinking and greasy breakfast foods to revive the soul after a late-night binge.  What?  You thought I was on a spew about religion?  Hell naw, son.  I’m here to spread the Gospel of Brunch!

    I have always been fascinated by the concept of “brunch.”  You’re telling me that people, like normal people with social drinking habits, gather around a mound of yolky eggs and fried meat and drink between 10:00AM and 2:00PM…on the Sabbath?  I couldn’t believe it at first.  I thought it was a myth, some tall-tale concocted by bitter alcoholics who wake up to crack a raw egg into a glass of beer.  Every time I visited Eva I was always on some tangent about wanting to find some brunch Sunday morning.  It became my Bigfoot, my Loch Ness monster.  I heard stories of this crypto, but never witnessed it.  Eva and I never went.  I never lived my best life.  Somewhere deep down in my being I held onto this spark of hope that one day I could experience this elusive beast in all its violent brutality.  I became a junky, a freak, like one of those weirdo creeps who get off in furry animal suits.  I found my fetish and I wanted to go balls deep.

    I finally had my chance in early May of last year when I discovered brunch wasn’t just a Charleston monopoly…they had it in Southern Pines, too!  After working two weeks straight, I finally had a day off and so did my then-girlfriend.  We had a date day planned and for starters, I wanted to do brunch at First Watch.  I was full of excitement and anticipation, talking it up the entire 45 minute drive my house.  I knew exactly what I wanted to order.

    When we arrived I was like an acne-faced virgin walking into a whorehouse with a wad of hundred dollar bills.  I was about to make it rain in this bitch.  We sat down but I didn’t need a menu.  I ordered water, black coffee, and a Bloody Mary with all the trimmings.  For the main course it was shrimp and grits garnered with andouille sausage, peppers, and covered in a thick sauce of heavy cream.  I did not leave disappointed.  I finally found my elusive Bigfoot after all these years of searching.  And it was everything I hoped it would be.  

    Now a full year later I still have this kink for brunch and am currently living in the brunch capital of the world.  So much so that Eva thinks it’s an overpriced gimmick and refuses to imbibe.  But I’m too far gone.  I’m hooked on this thing harder than any vice I’ve ever put into my veins.  I wake up in the morning trembling with excitement for 10:00AM.  My last brunch I spent at the Metro Diner and despite them being out of Bloody Mary mix and having a piss-poor waitress, I left happy.  But today I didn’t want to drop $25 on a meal.  I wanted to cook.

    I had my heart set on huevos rancheros with chorizo, but I was struggling.  I didn’t have a frying pan.  Apparently “fully furnished” does not include a goddamn pan or more than one large pot.  So I would have to buy one.  Fair enough.  I scoured the web after my roommate left for work, combining various recipes in my mind for some decent enough dish to call my own.  I definitely couldn’t make ranchero sauce.  I didn’t have the ingredients, the pots, pans, dishes, etc., nor could I justify that expenditure for one meal.  So I settled—a tortilla topped with a sunny-side-up duck egg, surrounded by chorizo and sliced avocado, and covered in salsa verde.  After a run to the store, I had everything I needed…overly-priced mini frying pan included.  I was so enthused I had to hide my crotch with the pan when I left the supermarket.   

    Everything came together in the skillet as I poured a mimosa—Prosecco and orange juice.  The egg had a double yolk but I was too hasty in the cracking so I punctured the perfect yellow mound of goodness when I cracked it into the pan.  Everything else assembled nicely and it made for a hearty breakfast.  Two glasses deep of mimosas, I received a text from Eva.  “On the way.”  Part of brunch down here in the Low Country consists of a little moving around.  She showed up at my door with two dogs a while later and we headed to the county park across from my apartment complex.

    One part of Charleston you must accept, besides the terrible and never-ending traffic, is the lack of parking.  That side of the park was full so we ventured over to the other side.  Paved trails and long walkways over the marsh encircled a small island.  We maybe walked a mile or so, taking in the scenery and picking up dog shit with little bags conveniently located on stands throughout the trail.  Most of the walk consisted of thick coastal swamps but it eventually opened up on the small island and you could witness the sheer beauty of the long towering bridge over the waterway.  You get this feeling of being small in some all-too-huge world.  A feeling of impermanence when you look at all mighty Mother Nature surrounding you.  The Spanish Moss, the looming oaks, the brush, the mud, the salt water, the tiny scattering crabs, and pools of fish, the vast marshland all around…it was there before you and will survive you.  It will devour the bridge and every house on the coast long after we are all gone.  

    Another feeling: freedom.

    Endless wetlands, endless saltwater seas, an almost endless bridge, endless miles of cars bumper-to-bumper and you feel the vastness of it all.  You know something is out there for you.  Whether it’s this small island and the charm of nature, some favorite meal, new friends, or maybe your soulmate.  As you watch the cars like little dots scatter across the bridge, you can imagine that anything is out there for you; anything is possible.  You just have to know where to look.  This park I passed multiple times on the way to work, never casting even a half-interested glance, it was here the whole time…waiting for me.  I just needed a nudge.  What else is out there for me, waiting to be discovered?  Maybe next time I won’t need a nudge.  I feel more confident here.  I’m remembering who I used to be before I grew all closed-off and anti-social.  It’s all here, son.  But you got to be willing to go out and get into the thick of it.