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The next morning, McGovern rose at 5 a.m. -- it's usually 6:20 -- to soak and boil lentils. He also made bacon and eggs for Patrick, 9, and Molly, 5, and packed a banana for breakfast and a bowl of lentils for lunch.
That night he was off to speak at a National Immigration Forum dinner at the posh Mayflower hotel. "No, thank you," he said, as waiters offered trays of endive with goat cheese and asparagus wrapped in phyllo. At the open bar, he asked for tap water.
Dinner was difficult: The tables bore baskets of rolls and trays of petite pastries. He waved off a waiter and glumly unwrapped a cheese tortilla Lisa brought him: It was gone in four gulps.
Wednesday: McGovern attended a breakfast fund-raiser in his honor at Bistro Bis in the Hotel George. While others ate eggs, bacon, potatoes, and sweet rolls, and drink freshly squeezed orange juice and "great-smelling coffee," he had a banana and water. At lunch he traded his lentils for Jo Ann Emerson's chicken salad, a good deal for him. At dinner he attended a Hillary Clinton fund- raiser at the Georgetown home of Elizabeth and Smith Bagley. The guests, except for McGovern, nibbled on duck and spring rolls, and then dined on soup, ravioli, crab cakes, chicken, and various breads and desserts. He ate nothing until, back at his office, the chicken and rice he brought from home that morning. ("The chicken was OK. The rice was gross -- soggy and cold.")
Walking home from his office at 9:30, he ran into several colleagues sitting out at sidewalk cafes. Would he join them, several asked. He wanted to, but declined. One friend jokingly inquired whether he would be sleeping on a grate that night.
Thursday: It was a banana again for breakfast. He and Lisa talked about how in the scheme of life, this week's menu was just a minor inconvenience. "We know that on Tuesday we can go crazy and eat whatever we want," he said. "Doing this week after week after week must be just awful."
He prepared his lunch: lentils and "a tiny chicken wing." In the evening, he attended an Oxfam America reception, skipping the hors d'oeuvres, and gave a speech about world hunger. Later, Lisa and the children brought dinner to his office: spaghetti made with the hamburger and a jar of tomato sauce.
Yesterday: McGovern wolfed the last banana for breakfast, chasing it with water. He was hoarding his packet of coffee for the weekend, which he expected to be particularly hard: more free time, little food left.
Lunch was leftover pasta; dinner was scrambled eggs with potato and cheese. He had lost three pounds in four days.
But he felt his forced diet had done some good. "Our point in doing this was to get attention, to get people talking, and to raise awareness," he said. "It was also for us to learn. That's happening."
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