Basile Matt - Brunch life: comfort classics and more for the best meal of the day

BREAKFAST IS A MEAL, BUT BRUNCH IS A CULTURE. Its talked about, craved, and lined up around the block for. People will sit in bed and scroll through Instagram until a brunch picture so over-the-top egg-oozy, sugar-rush-inducing, and completely over-baconed pops up and has enough suggestive smell and taste powers to get them out of bed. Have you ever heard someone talk about their favourite brunch spot? Its almost a political debatepassion and conviction for all things covered in cheese, baked, then fried, and finally topped with a sunny-side-up egg. Brunch is something people get behind and believe in. Its habitual, its comforting, and it has the power to let you indulge, allowing you to be you in the most liberating kind of way. You want to crush a bacon doughnut and two mimosas and wear track pants? Sure, why not! Its brunch, after all. So much more than just toast, or juice, or the godforsaken protein bar. Its happiness on a plate.

About seven years ago, before Ky and I started the Fidel Gastros food truck or opened up Lisa Marie, I used to have this thing called a weekend. It was glorious, from what I remember. I rarely made plans ahead of time, but one thing was always set in stone: Sunday brunch. For the better part of a year, I would wake up every Sunday and walk on over to my local brunch spot in Toronto, The Stockyards. I would often go alone, sit at the bar, and order a cup of coffee, a basil lemonade, a bacon doughnut, and fried chicken and waffles. It was a two-hour window in my week that was reserved for me. I didnt have to say much to anyone. I could just shut out the world while I sat and ate. It didnt matter how long I waited or how long it took me to finish. It was about being immersed in my brunch life.

Monday to Friday I sat in a cubicle watching the sands of time fall very, very slowly. No matter what I had to deal with during the week, I knew that I had brunch to look forward to. Its practically all I talked about at work. We would have Monday morning status meetings and my turn would come. Matt, what did you get up to this weekend? The flurry of emotions this question unleashed. Oh man oh man oh man, I had chicken and waffles for the first time ever. You mix hot sauce in the maple syrup and melted butter and you just cover it all and You get the idea. I took over the meeting with my brunch excitement, trying to get people to understand how much I loved brunch, trying to get them to share my excitement. I know this may seem pretty deep for a bacon doughnut, but its true. Brunch became my way of understanding myself better, and then bringing people who were equally excited into that world.

When we opened our restaurant, Lisa Marie, we made sure to have a brunch that really captured my enthusiasm for this favourite meal. We wanted a menu that made people say, What the fudge? Five years later, we have a lineup every weekend, and I still get a rush from working the line in the kitchen. The only thing that makes me happier than waiting to eat this meal is watching a full restaurant of people eat our brunch.

Brunch Life brings together amazing brunch stories and recipes in one place. There are chapters completely devoted to eggs Benedict (). But brunch isnt just a blanket word for eating breakfast in the afternoon. Its a culture thats embraced differently everywhere you go. Throughout the book weve homed in on specific brunch cultures embraced by such cities as Toronto, Nashville, and San Francisco.

Page after page, Brunch Life aims to be just thata showcase for everything and anything that makes brunch culture, a window into a food phenom that is all-consuming and radiant with fanfare. Its about the people who make it and the people who eat it. Its the eggs on your plate and the story of the chicken that made them possible as well as the rustic sourdough toast casually placed next to them and the story of the twelve-hour labour of love that went into baking it perfectly. Its being okay with waiting in line and finding hidden gems in your city. Its about snapping and filters and double tapping and tagging and all the other things cool kids do nowadays to let you know that brunch just happened. Its about being epic, being happy, doing it solo, or sharing that moment with others.

Brunch isnt just a mealits a way of life.

AT LISA MARIE, our brunch people come in for their staples, for that one thing that theyve been craving all week. Theyre excited and happy to be a part of a clubdare I say, a breakfast club. The power of brunch is, in part, a result of its recurring, habitual nature. It involves traditions and go-to spots. I even have a pair of official brunch socks. But no matter what, its the food that creates that initial attachment, the memories of where it all began. Like getting bacon and eggs after hockey practice. A stack of pancakes on the first day of summer. The smell of biscuits in the oven and the golden glow that would shine through the window. Its in these classics that memories were created. That being said, this chapter pays homage to brunch staples, like my Lamb Shank Hash () include everything you love about traditional steak and eggsincluding a beautiful piece of meatbut I love these because theyre eaten with your hands (Im still a kid at heart) and are shared. These are our brunch pioneers, our first loves.