The Adventures Of A Free Lunch Junkie

Earl Bronsteen is a financially well-off senior citizen and a straight-laced Yale grad. But in May of 2010, he turned to a life of “crime,” all because of an innocent enough piece of mail: an invitation to a free lunch-seminar at The Cheesecake Factory sponsored by a company promoting reverse mortgages to senior citizens. Having no idea what a reverse mortgage is but remembering how delicious the restaurant’s fried chicken and shortcake biscuits slathered with gravy are, he makes a reservation in the hopes he is not unmasked as a freeloader. Thoroughly enjoying the experience (and cheap by nature) he soon becomes addicted to the free food, the people he meets, and especially the spiels of the high-powered salesmen. Seeing the light, Bronsteen realizes he’s found his new life’s work and begins compiling his experiences so he can write a book about his adventures. During the almost ten months he spends “undercover” attending fifty seminars in and around Boca Raton and Palm Beach, Bronsteen’s quest takes him from the country’s finest mahogany-paneled steak houses to plain pipe-racked Chinese restaurants to “all you can eat for $10” buffet-style eateries, significantly lowering his grocery bill as he gains the material he needs. Insightful, charming, and laugh-out-loud funny, Bronsteen’s journey takes him through seemingly endless platters of free food and the trip epitomizes one man’s offbeat, but extremely entertaining, answer to the rising price of food. A free lunch seminar might seem like a very unlikely setting for a comedy, but these adventures prove that humor is where you find it, if you have the right guide.