mpurqrs

Brunch must have been invented by a female. When we lived on the East Coast, brunch was a late, Sunday breakfast at home. It was an edible excuse for me to sleep more and cook less.

On the West Coast brunch is big business. On the West Coast you don't have bunch, you DO brunch. On the West Coast you do brunch on Saturday or Sunday.

There are two kinds of brunch - menu and buffet. If it's my choice, it means my birthday is on a weekend.

I avoid brunches on major holidays - especially Mother's Day. I don't want to pick a corsage out of the eggs benedict.

I like buffet brunches more than menu brunches. If it's my choice, I choose the buffet with more choice.

Having my big meal at midday is good for my conscience, which foolishly feeds on the idea I'm going to exercise afterward. I don't - unless walking to and from our car to nap on the couch counts as exercise.

Having a fixed price for this munching marathon, no matter what the price is, is a bargain when you have teenage sons.

Some brunchers wait for a table with a view, which makes it easier to get a table with the view we want - of the buffet.

Our system is to make three trips to the table - appetizers, entrees and desserts. Okay, occasionally there are four trips. The extra trip is for the best of show in the appetizer and entrees categories.

I'm proud to say we've never made five trips. At that point I think our server would give us troughs instead of clean plates.

In the buffet line I'm usually behind Mr. Pile-it-on or Ms Indecision. Usually the almost-gones taste better than the hardly-trieds and few brunchers are willing to try something they don't recognize and that doesn't have a name card.

Not me. I'm always looking for something new and different. I can get runny scrambled eggs, dry sausage and unripe fruit at home.

Yes, some brunches are better than others; but I always eat too much. I leave the restaurant not wanting to see Belgian waffles, cheese blintzes or bread pudding for at least a month.

In the meantime, I wait for an enterprising chef - an enterprising, female chef to invent lunner. After all, by combining lunch with dinner, she'd have an edible excuse for sleeping more and cooking less.

KNIGHT PIERCE HIRST takes humorous looks at life. Take a minute to make yourself smile at http://knightwatch.typepad.com