Capitol Hill Feeding Frenzy

There's always a free lunch somewhere on Capitol Hill, and yesterday it could be found in Room 1302 at the Longworth House Office Building: Pete Pizza, Ricky Chicken, Heddi Spaghetti, Sally Salad and Rocco Taco.

Those are the five candidates for "top school lunch" -- a voting campaign, to promote healthy eating, will be held at schools across the country -- that the very earnest folks from the School Nutrition Association served up for a ravenous flock of Hill staffers, and a few stray members of Congress who dropped in.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski held forth on the importance of providing more nutritious choices in schools before getting dragged into the ever-polarizing debate over whether kids should still be allowed to bring birthday cupcakes to school, our colleague Jennifer Frey reports. The Alaska Republican boldly came out pro-cupcake.

But when confronted with the cafeteria options, she made for the door -- sorry, can't, got that GOP luncheon thing. Yeah, right. Tell that to the kids!

Look, there's Rep. Bob Etheridge -- could we pin him down on this? The North Carolina Dem swiped some nuggets and salad before sneaking back out. We'll call it a split vote for Ricky and Sally.

Can't figure out how Rep. James McGovern voted, except maybe in favor of school lunches, period. The Massachusetts Dem took a little of everything and cleaned his plate. "I've had some of the worst meals you can imagine traveling around," he said. "This was actually better."

Howard's Counting on Model Behavior at Homecoming

Howard University's annual homecoming has a rep as one of the best party weekends in the United States, and that's as much headache as pride for the school. Last year's shooting of rapperCam'ron got Howard in the headlines for all the wrong reasons -- even though the "homecoming" party he attended had no official connection to the university.

That's led to much musing on campus about whether the event has spun out of control, and this year's activities (Oct. 13-14) will be closely watched. Yet the VIP lineup for the parade that President Pat Swygert plans to announce today is no less glittering than ever: Rapper-actor Ice Cube will serve as grand marshal and handle coin-flip duties before the Morgan State game; supermodel-actor Tyson Beckford will host the music showcase; and actress Zoe Saldana will serve as a parade judge.

Off With the Ball Cap, On With the Yarmulke?

Rosh Hashanah begins tonight, but local filmmaker and Jewish baseball historian Aviva Kempner is already looking ahead with great concern to Yom Kippur. The somber holiday, when Jews are forbidden to work, begins a week from Sunday -- when the Mets play the Nats in D.C. in the last game of the season.

Kempner (producer of the award-winning documentary "The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg ") wants to know: What about New York outfielder Shawn Green ?

"He's the best Jewish player playing right now. If that game goes into extra innings, will he have to run off the field at sundown?" Well, Aviva, the game starts at 1:05; sundown's not until 6:52. That'd be a pretty long game. Still, she says, here he'll be stuck in a strange town -- does he have a way to get to synagogue? "I am calling his parents and offering to take him to services," she said.

A rep for the Mets told us that Green, 33, plans to spend the holiday with his family but did not elaborate.

SURREAL ESTATE

Sellers: Marvin Hamlisch and Terre Blair

Asking price: $2.2 million

Details: Even Oscar-winning composers can have a hard time selling their houses these days! But after a year on the market and a $100K price drop, the sunny three-bedroom Georgetown home of the National Symphony Pops conductor and his wife finally moved this week for an undisclosed price "below the true value," says agent Terri Robinson . "He's the nicest fellow I ever worked with. They're so generous they threw in the furniture." The couple, who also live in N.Y.C., bought in '03 for $1.495 million but decided they prefer to spend their D.C. time in luxury hotels. "If I owned a house," said Hamlisch, "I couldn't have room service."

Quote

"Like, I really . . . I don't remember. I'm not like that smart. I like forget stuff all the time."

-- Paris Hilton , everyone's favorite socialite alleged drunken driver and self-proclaimed iconic blonde of the decade, explaining to police in 2004 why she wouldn't make a useful witness in the investigation of a home-invasion robbery of "Girls Gone Wild" creator Joe Francis , in audiotapes to be aired, for God-knows-what reason, on "Dateline NBC" tomorrow.