The perfect Sunday lunch?

One of our chefs has gone awol. Not a word has been heard from him since his last garbled and really rather peculiar phone call late on Friday afternoon. It's odd, there's no doubting it, but not surprising, chefs do things like that from time to time. I worked with one guy who disappeared for the best part of week only to arrive back into work as if nothing had happened. He used the "family crisis" defense which explains nothing and prevents further poking from curious colleagues and management. The fact that the current milk carton candidate went awol on payday should be taken as a good sign that he will return like a missing dog when he needs fed.

I'm due a "family crisis" of my own. I'm feeling a bit disillusioned with life at my current restaurant. So I've taken a few days off to consider and cogitate, maybe a bit of rumination too. I'm far too lazy to go awol. Going awol involves a degree of planning and no doubt large quantities of alcohol. I cant be mithered with either. But it's time for serious contemplation of where I'm going with this lot.

If last weeks guests were full of mindless chatter and equivocation then this weekends were the exact opposite, quiet to the point of devotional. I mean it was like a meeting of the Marcel Marceau fan club. I welcome quiet guests with open arms. It's good to give the larynx a rest from time to time but good grief not talking to me is one thing but not talking to each other is a bit much. Sundays eh...

There are two main types of Sunday afternoon lunch guest. The first being the smug and relieved hangover free types. They are normally full of chat and wonder about the day ahead, making plans and conversing at a slightly and not so slightly elevated level. The second are those that are suffering and labouring under the heavy yoke of the previous evenings libations. Hangovers and family fun Sundays don't sit well together. The mood is strained and overwrought. Parents snap at their juiced up kids. Parents snap at each other. Parents try not to snap at the waiter. Many fail.

And that's how it was this Sunday. Lots of snapping and simmering rage, not from me I should add. I had one table, mum dad two kids, who said nothing to each other unless it was to snarl a threat. The kids were okay though. They had Nintendo box cube portable 360p's or whatever the hell they are called. They never lifted their noses out of them. Dad just sat there impassive for most of the meal occasionally eyeing up the attractive young woman two tables over. He did seem to spend an inordinate amount of time rubbing the sweat from his face with napkins. I had to furnish him with several more over the hour and a half that he was in. Hangover sweats, nice.

Mum, who was clearly unhappy with how her Sunday lunch with the family was panning out took to chastising the kids and the dad. This got her nowhere and in the end she gave up. I felt sorry for her. Kids more interested in the adventures of mario et al and a husband with a case of the hangover horn. Not what Sunday's are for. Their meal was for the most part was "enjoyed" in silence. I showed up a couple of times and was like a clown at a funeral. I backed away and left them to their unhappiness.

Then there was another couple, mid to late forties, affluent, no obvious sign of hangover who said more to me than they did to each other and they said nothing to me. They both arrived with bundles of newspapers under their respective arms. They ordered almost immediately and independently of each other if you know what I mean. Couples, normally, like to inform each other of their selections before they tell the waiter. But not these kids, hell no. It mattered not if they ended up with the same starter and double vegetables. That's what each of them wanted.

They opened their papers and that was that. Not a word was uttered. Not a column inch nor comment shared. There was not a, "Did you see this?" nor a "Did you see that?" between them. How frightfully odd I thought. I removed their plates and served their coffees. They were, individually, pleasant to me. The atmosphere at their tables wasn't heavy or filled with passive aggression it was just quiet.

I mean what is the point of going out for lunch if you aren't going to talk to each other? Surely the papers are best read on top of your own bed with a glass of wine and the radio on. Works for me. Why go out for lunch if you are going to spend the time letching at the attractive woman two tables over? And shouldn't kids be made to leave the games consoles at home? I wouldn't have got away with it as a child. That said their where no portable games consoles when I was a lad, unless a cup and ball on a string counts?

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe talking to each other is overrated because as they left, the paper reading couple, locked hands as they walked out the door. Maybe love is not having to talk to each other. Hell maybe love is a Nintendo box cube portable 360p and a kids sized roast beef with champ and no veg.