Lunch

BETHLEHEM, Pa. - The afternoon heat and a full stomach are a bad combination for someone who needs to run around on the field for more than two hours. Just ask Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson, who could be seen vomiting during Friday's practice. "We ran a lot. The heat," Jackson said after practice. "Gave it up a little bit, but it's part of training camp. " The new collective bargaining agreement ended two-a-days, so the Eagles conduct one walk-through and one full practice.

What's cooking? A classic sandwich selection — from turkey and cheese on white bread to a hearty Philly cheesesteak. A line can be found at Gus's for breakfast, too. They're family: Gus Katseftis and his wife, Joan, along with various family members, fed employees of the Daily News, Inquirer and philly.com for 21 years from Gus' spot next to the company's former headquarters at Broad and Callowhill streets. Convenient, yes, but what kept people coming back was the menu. Satisfied customers: "It's old-school," said Craig LaBan, Inquirer food critic and frequent Gus' customer.

OMAHA, Neb. - The cost to have lunch with investor Warren Buffett has apparently spiked in value, with one deep-pocketed bidder forking over nearly $3.5 million during a charity auction. The annual auction for a private lunch with the Nebraska billionaire ended after a flurry of activity in the final hours Friday night. In the end, the highest bid was a record-breaking $3,456,789. The auction benefits the Glide Foundation, which helps the homeless in San Francisco. Buffett has raised more than $11.5 million for the group in 13 previous auctions.

Culinary Institute of America grad Gregory Vernick, who spent most of his career in the Jean-Georges Vongerichten orbit opening his restaurants around the world, has come home to do the same for himself. With his wife, Julie, the Cherry Hill native opened Vernick Food & Drink (2031 Walnut St., 267-639-6644), in a bi-level brownstone. Food is simple and easy to understand. "If there are three ingredients listed on the menu, that's what's in it," he says. It's dinner only for now; see menu at www.philly.com/vernick . The atmosphere is one of unfussy comfort, as it is modeled on Euro cafes.

Restaurants want to be where the action is, and 18th Street from Market Street to Rittenhouse Square is one of the busiest restaurant corridors in Center City. Like the proverbial birds of a feather, a growing clutch of eateries, approaching two dozen, is catering to the lunch crowd. In the last week, a soup/salad/sandwich place called Brodo took a spot in the United Plaza building, just south of Market. Across the street, a Japanese soup restaurant called Nom Nom Ramen opened in March, and the vegan takeout HipCityVeg opened two weeks ago just north of the square, next to what may become a Crumbs Bake Shop . The week-old Rittenhouse Tavern , in the Art Alliance at the southeastern corner of the square, expects to join the lunch fray.

LOS ANGELES — The crowd is shoulder to shoulder at Joan's on Third. Power couples buy their toddlers "babyccinos" (steamed milk sprinkled with cocoa), and lithe women with "it" bags poise their forks over Chinese chicken salads. A voice from a loudspeaker interrupts the thrum: "If you are driving a white Jaguar parked in the back behind another car, please move your vehicle. " Just another morning at Joan's. What started as a tiny catering kitchen on Third Street, is, 14 years later, an L.A. institution.

Hello there! In summer 2009, Michelle was living in Indiana, but traveling with her Cajun-themed food-service business and friends' similar businesses to festivals and fairs around the country. Working a music festival in West Virginia, she befriended Zack, a Philadelphian who was in charge of ensuring that the musicians ate. Michelle came here to visit Zack a month later; he asked if he could bring a friend along to lunch at P.F. Chang's. That friend was David. And by the end of lunch, David was smitten.

More than 10,000 people around the region will take a fitness-inducing midday stroll Wednesday to mark National Walk @ Lunch Day. Half of them will be walking laps around Rittenhouse Square. Will it make much of a difference? Not if the walkers are looking to lose weight fast. An average person walking at an average pace for 30 minutes a day, five days a week, would need about seven weeks to expend the 3,500 calories that equals one pound. But there is a bigger point, said Gary D. Foster, director of Temple University's Center for Obesity Research and Education, who reluctantly did the math because there is a broader message in this: "Walking is a fantastic thing to do. Because it improves your health.

Here we go again. At the beginning of his presidency, Barack Obama argued that the country's spiraling debt was largely the result of exploding health-care costs. That was true. He then said the cure for these exploding costs would be his health-care reform. That was not true. It was obvious at the time that it could never be true. If government gives health insurance to 33 million uninsured, that costs. Costs a lot. There's no free lunch. Now we know. The Congressional Budget Office's latest estimate is that Obamacare will add $1.76 trillion in federal expenditures through 2022.

When it comes to keeping employees happy, a pat on the back may be worth more than a raise in pay. At least that's what the 28,383 men and women who responded to our Top Workplaces 2012 survey say. Feeling appreciated at work and believing that their work has meaning tops the list of conditions that matter to Philadelphia-area workers. And although workers want to be paid what's fair, how much they make matters less than how they feel about their work and the people for whom they work.