RIVER CITY JOURNAL: A DAY IN THE CAPITOL, OR, DINING ON POLITICS

Herewith is another detailed account of eating with the governor and his wife. Call it feeding at the public trough.

It is time once again, dear readers, for my annual report on spending a day in Jefferson City at your expense.

Some of you will recall my previous reports of having lunch with the governor at his house on the hill overlooking the Missouri River. These are pretty nice affairs. No hamburgers with fries. Nothing from a Campbell's soup can. These are what I would call a wing-ding. So they must cost something. And if I eat well at the governor's mansion at taxpayer expense, you are entitled to know everything, down to the tiniest detail.

What I'm about to tell you isn't bragging, just fact. I have had lunch with every governor since Joe Teasdale -- actually, since Warren Hearnes, but that was after Mel Carnahan was in office and the lunch was in Cape Girardeau, so I don't count that one.

I'm telling you about all these governors and all these lunches for a reason. I've been able to chronicle a trend in lunches at the Governor's Mansion. I have, by eating on your behalf in the ornate dining room of our state's chief executive, witnessed a decided shift from plain cooking to first-rate cuisine.

(The only real difference between your mother's cooking and cuisine, I'm convinced, is price.)

First the menu: This year's lunch, following Governor Carnahan's State of the State Address at the Capitol, started off with an artful arrangement of greens topped with three slender apple slices. The dressing was tart, which is about the most I can tell you, and there were walnuts swimming around the edges of the salad plate.

The main course was a filet of chicken breast wrapped in bacon, which had been grilled, I think, accompanied by a tasty rice mixture that included other tidbits that I couldn't readily identify. On the side of the fancy mansion china was a heap of julienned vegetables: carrots, zucchini and onion. This was served with a freshly baked biscuit, thick and doughy like I like them.

Dessert was another piece of art. It was a fruit plate consisting of five slices of star-shaped fruit which my wife told me when I got home was called star fruit. I thought it might have a fancier name than that. And there was a fan of strawberry slices along with about a dozen blueberries. A couple of kiwi slices (for color) and some flesh of a mango completed the fruit array. All of this plus a generous slice of sponge cake floated on an apricot puree.

The waiters: This elegant meal was served by four stout men in formal butler attire consisting of black waistcoats and white gloves. They performed with military precision and appeared to take great pride in their display of formal food service. I recognized at least one of the fellows from previous years, and I recall being told these men are inmates from the penitentiary down the street.

The dining room: The first floor of the Governor's Mansion has been carefully restored for public use by a succession of governors' wives starting with Kit Bond's wife. It is all beautiful and in the style of the mansion's history, which I suppose is mostly Victorian. The dining room is at the back of the first floor and goes most of the way across the house. A long table easily accommodated the 14 diners who were there Wednesday.

Even though I chose my own seat, I looked to see if I was below the salt. The governor and his gracious wife, Jean, had taken care of that by making sure each place setting had its own salt and pepper shakers. I selected a chair close to Mrs. Carnahan rather than the governor, because I had listened to his speech earlier that morning, but I hadn't heard her say a word.

Mrs. Carnahan makes a fine hostess. She is the first first lady that I recall who ever sat in on these meals with representatives of various newspapers around the state. In the course of light conversation, she talked about being at the presidential inauguration in Washington, D.C., on Monday, about the book she has written on the many interesting visitors to the mansion over its 125-year history, and about the new tabloid format of the Saturday edition of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (she doesn't really care for it).

What Mrs. Carnahan was wearing: This is where most men (all of the newspaper guests were men except for one woman who is an editorial writer for the Kansas City Star) fall down on the job. About all I can say for sure is that, like the rest of us, the governor and his wife had on their Sunday best and probably clean underwear. I can tell you that the governor wore a well-cut dark suit with a starched white shirt and appropriately dark tie. His shoes were shined. Mrs. Carnahan? She wore a dress, I told my wife. I received one of those looks that wives give their husbands by way of telling them they are totally inept when it comes to important details. I think it was a two-piece suit whose color, I would guess, came closest to the mango on the dessert plate. I don't know about her shoes, and I don't recall any jewelry.

After lunch, we all sat around the table in the dining room whose walls displayed art by Benton and Bingham. We asked the governor questions about his speech and about his future plans. Governor Carnahan conversed easily and knowingly about each topic and didn't appear to hesitate at any question, unlike some of his predecessors who have shown grave displeasure at being asked some tough questions.

All in all, it was the best lunch with a governor yet. I calculate the meal, served at a fancy restaurant, would run in the $35-to-$40 category, not including tip. But I don't think we were expected to tip the inmate waiters, although I did thank them profusely. The small gift given to each guest was a ballpoint pen with embossed with the words "Missouri Governor's Mansion." This, I'm quite sure, was provided by the not-for-profit foundation that pays for the restoration and upkeep of the mansion.

By the way, I got to see the new fountain outside the entrance to the mansion which is a legacy of the Carnahan administration. The beautiful bronze artwork features a young girl who, I was told, was the daughter of Gov. Thomas Crittenden. The young girl died of diphtheria. Below are two other children, a young boy and another young girl -- the granddaughter of the Carnahans.

The mansion is open for public tours, and it would be well worth a stop any time you are in Jefferson City. You might want to call first about times. I don't know if you'll get lunch.

~R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.