There are few things that I understand less than buffets. I really just don’t understand.

I have a few friends that are very keen on going to places like the Menpick. I just don’t get that. If I wanted to walk around and carry things, I’d cook. I go out so that someone can do the work for me. I sit. You bring me my food. Now places like the Menpick look all fancy and have fancy people and fancy clothes and even fancy food but it’s still a buffet.

I’m not just set against fancy buffets like the Menpick; I’m set against all buffets.

First, I don’t like the psychology of a buffet. I feel like I have to ravenously gorge myself in order to get my money’s worth and too often I eat myself nearly sick, or at least lethargic, and that’s just unpleasant.

Second, I really don’t go out to eat so that I can walk around and pick up bits of food and cart them around and balance them on a tray as other people try to push past me to get their grubby hands on one more shrimp cocktail or one more gelatin dessert.

Nearly my favourite thing to do is have brunch — and I have to admit it’s the one thing I miss most of all since I started this project. I love the leisure of brunch. I love the attitude of brunch. I love getting together with missed friends over scrambled eggs with cheese and three kinds of pig-engendered meat. But I like breakfast buffets the least. First, the attitude of a brunch is entirely disrupted by people popping up and down to go fetch their own French toast. Second, — I appear to be in a counting mood — buffet breakfast food is nasty. French toast becomes like packing foam. Bacon has been robbed of its life essence — like instant coffee — and all of its glorious flavour. And third, I don’t like to get in a queue for food, especially breakfast food. Something about waiting to get to the trough behind other breakfast revelers makes me feel like the runt of the litter.

Food should have an aesthetic. Scooping up gnarled unholy bits of ruined bacon out of a heated silver bucket is not my idea of fun. And it ain’t pretty.

Walking like cooking is work. Balancing trays is tricky. Pushing past people who can’t decide whether they are going clockwise or counter-clockwise is confusing and agitating. I don’t even like those plain white plates you get at buffets. They feel so communal, still dripping from the harried dishwasher. No, buffets shouldn’t be.

I know I feel better for having said so.

SS