Free Food-A-Thon Finals: Part One

I said it before, I’ll say it again:

I thought the lesson of this free-food-a-thon would be that there is indeed such a thing as a free lunch if you're an intern in D.C. and that if you were into saving money, you could eat a free lunch every day. The real lesson is that regardless of your budget, you should eat a free lunch every day.

Really. You should.

After scoring sirloin steak in Round One of the Free-Food-A-Thon last Thursday, I thought my luck would have run out. Was I really going to stumble upon some gratuitous gastronomy that could trump roasted red snapper with artichoke remoulade?   

In a word: yes.

In three words: shrimp, calamari, and veal.

The judges of today’s Free Food-A-Thon Finale gave us a tight three-hour window to gobble down as much as we could without opening our wallets, so I had to devise a strategery to hit as many luncheons as possible. That meant no time for a Metro ride to the Marriott for the 11th Annual 340B Coalition Conference on improving access to pharmaceutical care or to hit up the Hyatt Regency for the World Research Group’s Optimizing Cancer Center Management Conference (although maybe it’s best that I stay away from the Hyatt Regency for a few weeks after posing as an African-American woman there and getting caught with someone else’s bak lava. But most importantly, it meant no time for silly sandwiches and pastry platters. If I wanted to leave my legacy as the meanest moocher out there, I’d have to step my game up, double-knot my wingtips and leave it all on the buffet line.

I headed out of my crammed cubicle at the Center for American Progress towards my first stop: the historic University Club, where Philip D. Moeller, Commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, was to speak at the National Gas Roundtable luncheon.

“This will be perfect,” I thought. “I’ll get my eat on, listen to a Bush appointee, and maybe even meet a Late Night Shots regular or two.”

Turned out the only young blogger I’d run into would be Campus Progress’ Ben Regenspan, dubbed the “Quiet Storm” by the judges after his voracious performance at the American Enterprise Institute last week. When I spotted Regenspan stealing a comb from the University Club bathroom, I kicked the automatic shoe shiner in anger and decided to let him enjoy the talk on cross-subsidization restricts on his own.

“You’ve won this meal, Quiet Storm,” I muttered. “But the Food-A-Thon has just begun.”