supper at the best table: refueling is deadly-serious
The players can all do some very serious eating, some of them still in sweaty sweats with salt-stiff hair, too hungry after three-set P.M.s to shower before refueling.
Context
Supper at E.T.A. is a maintenance operation, not a meal. The bodies come to the table "still in sweaty sweats with salt-stiff hair," so depleted by "three-set P.M.s" they won't spare the minutes to shower "before refueling." "Supper is deadly-serious." The first minutes are all forkwork and gasping because a competitively drilled body treats food as fuel to be reloaded on schedule, the way you top off a machine you're going to run hard again tomorrow.