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I am a very lucky cook. I've been in the business for six years I have only had to work one brunch. Brunch is the most dreaded service of the week for cooks and servers. Every Sunday hordes of hungover brunchers swarm the Bastille that is your dining room.

When I worked at Mildred Pierce years ago, my chef, Segar Kulasegarumpillai, roped me into working a brunch shift. He had high hopes that I would do this regularly and set him free from the purgatory that the restaurant is famous for. The customers are queueing about an hour before we open the doors. The cooks in the open kitchen are racing to get ready, as are the servers setting up the cavernous dining room, watching the line-up of Sunday best-dressed lambs waiting outside, knowing they’ll turn into lions as soon as they are seated.

I got out of ever working brunch again by throwing the biggest fit the kitchen had ever seen. Segar immediately realized there was no way I would do it and slunk back into hell.

“What I hate the most about brunch is how laaaaaazy everyone is. It seems the most decadent meal, attended by all in the most sloppy and spoiled way. Desperate for a latte, extra bacon, extra home fries, hollandaise. Every one pulled up to the trough in their whites and khakis. Brunch is a scene populated by, what I affectionately call, the pig dogs.” says Dana Takeda, a former Mildred Pierce server.

My husband, Kerry, has served brunch at a number of different hell-holes. During one memorable service he informed the heroin-addicted chef that they were out of fruit salad. The chef responded by chasing Kerry out of the restaurant with a knife. That guy was a psycho prick but I can sort of understand. The pressure in the kitchen for brunch is insane and it starts way before that Sunday morning service. At Mildred Pierce we started prepping for brunch on Thursday, I left before they added their Saturday brunch so they probably start prepping on Wednesday now, I know we do at Joy. That leaves Monday and Tuesday as brunch-free.

So, how can brunch be crazier than a packed Saturday night? When guests come for dinner they usually order a cocktail, an appetizer, wine, main course, dessert, coffee. Very straightforward. When a customer comes for brunch they can conceivably order coffee, water, juice and a bloody Caesar just to start and they’re usually hungover so it’s not just one glass of water, it’s buckets. Maggie Brace, a veteran of Chez Piggy brunches remembers, “Coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, refills, refills, refills, oh excuse me could I puuhlleeeeese get some more coffee over here. Coffee, coffee, tea, coffee, coffee. Oh come on have a Mimosa…..get me a fucking Mimosa.”

Gilda Greer who used to reign at the Cadillac Lounge told me, “Why would I want to carry a tray of water and juice that’s worth maybe five dollars? I’d rather carry a tray of cocktails, it’s worth a hell of lot more to the bar and to my tips.”

Now that all the beverages have been ordered and a split second before they start bleating for refills, the brunchers can order food. A typical brunch offers a choose-your-own combination of bread, eggs and meat. Let’s say a choice from rye, white and brown for bread. Poached, scrambled, sunny side up, over easy, over medium, over hard for eggs. Sausage, ham, bacon, peameal for meat. That means there are, I think, sixty different orders you can come up with out of those three components. Along with these sixty combo possibilities a cook might also be dishing up omelettes, French toast, pancakes, home fries, eggs Benedict... fun, fun, fun.

I only know two cooks who enjoy brunch, Jake Tyson and David Chrystian. Both care deeply about cooking the perfect egg and feel that that is the true measure of a cook. To me, the true measure of a cook is how much she/he can drink the night before and perform during service the next day. Jake and David measure up incredibly well in both departments.

Anyhoo, to make another comparison, dinner guests are usually well-behaved and tip well, the opposite is true of brunchers (I could never bring myself to call them guests) they demand way more attention than is possible to give and the tip is usually ten to fifteen percent on a bill that’s usually less than one would pay for lunch.

Kerry regales me with another brunch horror story: "This woman took the menu quite literally. She wanted ‘three eggs, any style’ to be one poached, one scrambled, one sunny side up. All I could say was, 'Are you kidding?' She wasn’t, so I had to ask the chef if he would do it. His response: take a flat of twenty four eggs and throw them across the kitchen at me. Tell the people reading this to never order eggs like that. I can’t think of anyone I hate more in the entire world than “three-eggs-any-style’ woman. Brunch customers are so intolerant. Like it’s their divine right to be served to death, maybe it’s the whole Sunday = Church thing.”

Ken Rubin, an economist and food writer based out of Chicago defends the good things about brunch, “It’s an excuse to sleep late, eat whatever you’d like and drink in the morning without having to make excuses about it. Besides, sex after brunch is better than sex after breakfast, since you’re more awake and have already kicked back a few.” Maybe, but I never go out for brunch as a customer, I did once and it was like being at a horror movie complete with wailing banshees (children) and drooling zombies (everyone else).

Ingrid Nugent has worked quite a few brunches in her time and I asked how she can stand to go out for brunch, “It’s easy. I don’t just tip, I over-tip.” That’s good advice, if you want to act like King Henry the (insert most hedonistic one’s number here)  be prepared to drop the coin or the doubloons… Whatever the hell he was squandering.

Ivy Knight is a Toronto-based writer and chef. She is currently Tournand at Joy Bistro with Chef David Chrystian.

READ MORE IVY AT GREMOLATA:

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Apple of the Earth: Ivy Makes Potato Salad

Heavy Course Load: Ivy Tires of Tasting Menus

A Dinner for Like-Minded Individuals: Ivy and the Chefs Cook for Themselves

Blind Wine Tasting: Ivy Gets the Critics to Guess

Moonshine Island: Ivy brings more than potatoes back from PEI

Anthony Walsh, You’re My Hero: Ivy profiles her favourite chef

Toiling in Chocolate Trenches: Ivy tries being a pastry chef

Parkdale is the New Black: Ivy defends her 'hood from latte drinking yuppie scum

The Perfect Sandwich: Ivy finds out how good two pieces of bread and a filling can be

Email Ivy at ladyslenderlegs@gmail.com