Like the ingredients in hot dogs, what stirs the human heart sometimes defies easy description.
Luncheon explorer Brian Pienta sat inside the Greene Turtle restaurant in Laurel and offered this rationale for his bold attempt to push the eating envelope.
"Basically, it started because ... just because," he stammered.
Sound familiar? When British mountaineer George Mallory was asked back in the 1920s why anyone would dare climb Mount Everest, he famously replied, "Because it's there" - then promptly died trying.
Fortunately, Pienta had luck and lower altitude on his side.
A 31-year-old mechanical engineer for Eaton Aerospace, a Beltsville company that makes aircraft parts, he led a group of co-workers on an impossible-dream quest: to eat lunch at 200 different locations. All in a continuous, uninterrupted string.
Only two guidelines applied. First, Pienta had to be in attendance. A constantly churning support crew of a half-dozen regulars and about 15 occasional curiosity seekers tagged along, but he was Da Lunch Man.
In truth, nobody else could really stomach the thought of so much inevitably borderline food. Your idea; your indigestion.
Secondly, no repetition allowed, no matter how powerful the urge to revisit Marathon Deli in College Park for another gyro combination platter.
Against seemingly all eating odds, the brave souls of Eaton Aerospace reached their mountaintop.
Beginning Dec. 7, 2005, at Hunan Hamlet in Beltsville, they munched on till Jan. 5, 2007, at Jasper's in Greenbelt, making all those requisite pit stops in between. Pasta Nostra ... Cluck-U Chicken ... Samurai Sam's ... Generous Joe's ... Five Guys Famous Burgers and Fries ... Tiny Rhino Diner.
On and on they chewed. Panda West ... Pepper Pot Cafe ... Ratsies ... and The Jerk Pit, which we're guessing has a limited wine list.
Ten members of the "What's For Lunch?" expedition, as it came to be known, gathered last week for a minireunion at the Greene Turtle, stop No. 44 (March 17, 2006). They convened, appropriately, at high noon, with Pienta diving into a bleu burger and side order of chips.
Between bites, a table of bright, young engineering minds pondered the significance of their streak. What, exactly, does "What's For Lunch?" mean in the long run? Conclusion: Nothing. Well, maybe a little something.
"The good news is you try out some places you never knew," said Mark Giron (bleu burger and fries). "The bad news is ... you try out some places you never knew."
Hmm. A veiled slap at The Jerk Pit? At Kabob Bazar?
"It makes you look forward to lunch," added Jon Cohen (Buffalo chicken sandwich, grilled). "You have to take a one-hour vacation sometimes."
Those who doubt the rejuvenating potential of Bobby's Beltsville Eatery probably aren't lunch streak material. Never will be. You need to be simpatico with the likes of Andy Palich, an Eaton engineer who has since migrated to another company but retained his interest in food.
"I'm the kind of person, I go out to lunch every day," says Palich, reached by phone at home just before dinner (chicken with Parmesan sauce, string beans, sourdough bread). "For some reason, I can't see myself packing a lunch. If I do, I eat it, and I'm hungry again, and I go out to lunch."
Palich decorated his Eaton office cubicle with photos of his wife, children - and beloved home-cooked meals. He got so caught up in the spirit of making history that every workday morning he'd corner Pienta and ask, "What's for lunch?" A motto was born.
Yet even Palich concedes not everybody feels the streak magic: "People on the outside think it's a bit odd. My wife thinks it's kind of stupid."
He still loves her.
How it began
Actually, there have been two streaks. In March 2004 Pienta and a few work pals were lunching off campus, as usual. Suddenly, he realized it had been several weeks since they'd gone anywhere a second time. Everything was literally nouvelle cuisine.
"It kind of took off and gained steam," he says. "I started tracking it."
Someone suggested trying to reach 100 lunches without doubling back. Piece of cake. They blew through that barrier by mid-August.
A little more than a year later, Pienta had digested that achievement and was ready to tackle a double century. In style.
"I'm a stickler for documentation," he admits.
Remember, these guys are mechanical engineers: right brainers. This time around Pienta took detailed notes, which eventually became a 58-page "What's For Lunch?" commemorative booklet. Why? Because. No surprise, it's got statistics: His average cost per meal: $7.08; best turnout: 19 hungry engineers descending upon Famous Dave's in Laurel.
The booklet has maps showing every lunch destination: Time constraints limited their search to about a 15-minute drive from Beltsville. It's got a qualitative analysis of all 200 venues, which included 27 deli-sandwich shops, 19 Chinese restaurants, seven diners and one department store.
There are nutshell reviews. Super Chicken in Bladensburg drew high praise: "I think I have a little more room ... like a quarter chicken more room." It was a tough day for El Taco Rico: "We should have gotten something edible instead."
Pienta also preserved snippets of mealtime conversation. This is where "What's For Lunch" takes wing and soars. This is that rare peek at the heartfelt intimacies real people share during one-hour vacations.
"My deaf dog is the only dog that's not afraid of the vacuum, but instead she's scared of the broom." Bagel Place, College Park, May 4, 2006.
"I should eat a vegetable one of these days," Taco Bell, Beltsville, March 1, 2006.
"I kept thinking I gotta get some work done before it catches up to me. ... It never did." Marathon Deli, College Park, May 31, 2006.
Of course, it wasn't all peaches and cream - and Auntie Anne's pretzel dogs. Interest periodically sagged. Pienta soldiered on, eating out by himself 31 times.
As group leader, he generally picked the lunch spots. To rekindle enthusiasm he added an element of serendipity: tinkering with a software program so it spit out a computer-generated lunch possibility one day a week. He called it "Randomizer Thursday."
Still, deep devotion to the cause was required as the group worked its way toward the bottom of the eating-options barrel. Here's Pienta's written account of dining alone at an IKEA store: "I do believe the dark days of the streak are upon me."
And there were 49 more meals to go.
Some lean times
He survived those lows, as well as the constant harping about his idiosyncratic 1-to-10 restaurant ratings scale. He still gets ragged for handing out too many wishy-washy 7s.
"Not much of a grading system," sniffed Mark Giron before anyone had placed an order at the Greene Turtle.
But the center held, even on the afternoon they showed up at A&W; root beer restaurant in Capitol Heights and found all the employees milling about outside. Robbers had just knocked off the joint.
"We were saving 7-Eleven for an audible," explained Dan Solomon (Rockefeller club sandwich with fries). "And it saved us."
Perhaps more impressive, nobody bolted from now-defunct Danny's in Beltsville when they discovered the chef was sweating profusely over the grill - and also everything he happened to be cooking. The hiss of evaporating perspiration gave him away.
"I heard it first," said Brian Bosley (provolone barbecue chicken sandwich), "then I saw it dripping off his head."
Pienta had no choice but to give Danny's a harsh 4, which on his ratings scale translates to "fear for personal safety is present."
The pickings got dangerously thin down to the wire, so much so that the University of Maryland golf course clubhouse was under consideration. Thus, there were no speeches at the streak-ending luncheon in January.
"There's nothing left to be said," as Pienta noted, "after you've ate a lot of crappy food."
He did present a "What's For Lunch?" T-shirt to Dan Solomon for attending the second-most lunches: 80. A few awards were announced. Baja Fresh won for "Best Soundtrack" - for daring to play "The Heat Is On" theme song from Beverly Hills Cop in public. Wings to Go won for "Best Proprietor with 11 Fingers" (two thumbs, right hand).
"It snowballed. It was a morale builder," says Mark Higgins, Pienta's boss at Eaton Aerospace, who had to put up with a lot of extended lunch hours. "I didn't think they'd ever get to that number."
Higgins is a connoisseur of the Streak. But, then, he has a good-luck Washington Redskins jersey that he has refused to wash for many, many years. He understands that some things in life make perfectly impractical sense.
The lunch bunch huddled at the Greene Turtle knows that - and knows their historic streak wouldn't have gotten very far without Brian Pienta, questionable ratings system and all.
"He's diplomatic," said Giron.
"Brian was perfect to lead this because of his stick-to-it-tiveness," crowed Richard Michael (fan club sandwich and chips).
And what about the Greene Turtle? Pienta scanned the room.
"Service was pretty good. Dining was pretty good," he declared. "Seven!"
tom.dunkel@baltsun.com.
Brian Pienta
Raised:
Frewsburg, N.Y.
Resides:
Baltimore
Education:
B.S., mechanical engineering. University of Maryland, 1998.
Typical day's work:
Analyzing data from production of metal-ring seals used to connect ducts and flanges on aircraft systems, then "verify the manufacturing process for automated equipment."
Best diversion from typical day's work:
Bought a Slush Puppie frozen drink machine and installed it a few feet from his desk.
Fave "What's For Lunch?" spots:
94th Aero Squadron and Marathon Deli. Both in College Park. Both 9.5 ratings. Why nothing high end? "Just worked out that way," says Pienta. No fancy restaurants within one-hour lunchtime window.
Culinary expertise:
"I make a pretty good jambalaya and Buffalo chicken salad." Also made a 30-pound Turducken (combination roast turkey, duck and chicken) last Thanksgiving and documented the process with step-by-step photos.
Excerpts
from the "What's For Lunch?" commemorative booklet - including minireviews of all 200 lunches, location maps, etc - are available upon request by emailing Pienta at whats.for.lunch@hotmail.com.
Merchandise:You can be the first to order a WFL T-shirt, mouse pad or refrigerator magnet. Visit www.cafepress.com/bpienta.