Feasting On History once again proved to be the best way to sabotage your bathing suit body with food from over 40 restaurants all in one (heavenly) place.

To be blunt: they should have just set up a treadmill for me right next to the Chalfonte Mac'n Cheese. The mushroom mystery pasta from JP Prime was like a gift from nature herself, tied up with little past bows. And the desserts... (author faints).

Photos by Rick Racela

What? Oh, yeah - Feasting on History. What food. When I die, I want to come back as a giant so I can eat more of all of it. I am not ashamed: I wasn't the only one with that thought by the looks of it. People were shamelessly piling plate upon plate so they could trudge back to a table and sink into the heaps of food before them in dazed ecstasy. Entire tables formed teams dedicated to hitting all sections of the horse-shoe-shaped buffet at once, then passed the plates back and forth so everyone could try everything. How nice that must be!

At the Herald table, it was every man for himself. I lost my seat every time I went off hunting and gathering; if you left your dessert (even to talk to a client! Not fair!) for more than 45 seconds, there was a flurry of hands akin to a scene in some zombie movies I've seen recently. In the blur, you couldn't even spot which co-worker got your bread pudding - and since they were all covered in icing and crumbs anyway (camouflage?) there's no use trying to find the culprit. I had to go all the way back to the buffet... Drat you, Herald scamps! Not that the exercise made a dent in the gluttonous bacchanal, but still - I thought you were my friends! You were just using me for ravioli!

You know what everyone was actually generous about? Wine. Generous to a fault. Everyone was getting wine for somebody, somewhere. One side of the NAS Wildwood Aviation Museum was dedicated to the twin vices of wine and dessert. (Author faints again.) There were so many kinds of wine opened and being practically thrown at you (albeit in small glassfuls) it seemed churlish not to sample all of them. Soon, it became impossible to remember what you were drinking. Which could only mean it's time to start over...

Imagine that as the beginning of the evening, and you have some idea why the Feasting event is probably the most Roman of all our local South Jersey cultural fund raisers. Mmmm, oh yeah - history's great. Love it... whose shortcake is this? Mine now. Oh sure, I love Cold Spring Village. They're the best! Is that the pinot? Which one? Oh, you need to try that one in the green bottle, too! I'll be right back! (Repeat as necessary.)

Actually, the Friends of Cold Spring Village are the best - at getting people to come out and support the cultural preservation of this community while having insane amounts of fun. Look at the crowd (see video): there's every age, every kind of income level, every type of business, and everyone there loves the Village. They may temporarily love the chocolate fondue more, but that's just for tonight...

I've wondered if I should be angry that they use my basest, most sugar-addicted impulses to trick me into a cultural endeavor. I've decided I'm totally okay with it. Keep right on with what you're doing, Village peeps!

And in the meantime, I think it's best if we at the Herald address our own sick food issues. I mean, really: are we *all* on diets? Because it seems to me that the lunch room is full of the smells of low-calorie instant meals, steady conversational insights on which gym classes cause the most productive pain, and the constant sound of rabbit-like salad chewing. We should be the healthiest newspaper staff on the planet! So why were we all ravenous locusts once we were off the leash within 20 feet of real food? I ask you. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. At this rate, we'll need more office space just so we can fit through the doors! (I keed, I keed. They're already double doors anyway...)

Personally, I blame the crab bites. They seemed to unleash something primal within. I saw elderly women in a rugby scrum for them.

But it all ended well, you'll be pleased to know. Rick Racela, Tina Giamo of Spirit Catcher Photography, and myself all scampered up to the highest catwalk behind Henry the Aviation Museum Guru for those exciting overhead shots. I did manage to make it back down the steps in my insanely impractical heels, Rick managed to not kill himself falling over me, and Tina did actually hurt herself laughing at us. She recovered, though. (Yay!) Then we all celebrated with more dessert (author faints). Everyone made it home safely, and slept like infants. Chubby, dimpled little babies still covered in icing. Awww...

Over 650 people attended, there was live music, some dancing, a lot of goodwill and the sounds of friends meeting up after a long absence all around. That really is the role of this event in the social season: it's the first time out after a long, cold winter. All of these relationships between people in the service industries pick up where they left off - and if they share a lamb chop or seven, they end up even better friends. Forty restaurants came out to strut their culinary stuff. And the Friends of Cold Spring Village were once again hailed as the reigning champs of cultural fundraisers. (I wonder if they get a kick-back from Weight Watchers? They should!)

Ahhh... Yes, it was a beautiful night. Warm, sunny, filled with friends and great conversation... and I think I consumed my own weight in sinfully contraband carbs. If only Feasting On History came more than once a year. But I don't think the second floor of the Herald building could take the weight. Many thanks to the staff of Rio Station, who not only babied us all throughout the night, they helped me find my keys when a series of unfortunate circumstances caused them to magically travel from person to person until the Rio staff put an end to it. So I even made it home OK. It's better than Christmas!