Diasopric Dining XXIV: Enemy of a Farmer

Waiting in line to get into a fashionable disco makes complete sense since the payoff is usually drugs and sex. But waiting in line for bacon, sausages, waffles and pancakes on a cold—or for that matter perfectly lovely—Sunday morning represents a human aspiration as irrational as dying in an attempt to climb Mount Everest. Brunch is a totally hopeless meal for which long lines of salivating dolts wait like sheep being led to slaughter to have their appetites murdered, rendering them utterly incapable of having the big Sunday meal of Chinese food that is scripturally ordained in the Old Testament. Nowhere is this crack-head mentality more in evidence than at Friend of a Farmer, an establishment on Irving Place in Manhattan. Near-riot conditions prevail in the morning hours when crowds of peons, lured by the greasy bouquet produced by fried nitrates, dutifully line up to satiate their archaic drive for defunct Americana. Indeed, what goes on at Friend of a Farmer and similar establishments should be deemed unconstitutional and prohibited under federal statute. In the meantime, there are rehabs and recovery programs for those who can’t wean themselves from this insidious addiction. The crash from a brunch high takes the form of an immobilizing lethargy, caused by the huge lump of carbohydrates that is beached like a dying whale in the large intestine of the sufferer, who inevitably falls into a  deep sleep, followed by a massive headache and feelings of disorientation and existential malaise.