"I also have hot chocolate every day," she adds. "And a bag of popcorn. But I never think a meal is real unless there's some meat in it." She has come to the right place: that beef bastion of Brooklyn, Peter Luger. Zio Music, a charmingly insistent waiter, recognizes the new star - or is at least alerted to her by the stream of couples coming over to congratulate her - and persuades her to try not only the porterhouse for two but also split lamb chops as an appetizer, as well as some shrimp. She looks dazed at the excess. "Once during the show," she recalls, "when we were living on a quarter cup of rice a day and were practically starving and our bodies were craving flavor - just about any kind of flavor - we dug into our crate of food. Canned pears. I wouldn't touch them. Tomatoes, wouldn't touch them. Some processed meat and Spam, I had a little of that. I also had some peaches, but that was all. Nobody could believe it." As a result, she went from 118 pounds to 99 in six weeks, "biggest weight loss percentage of anybody." After the game was over, she got cramps from eating for two weeks: "They gave us whatever we wanted, so the first thing I had was a big party bag of Doritos, a pizza, ice cream, cheesecake, two candy bars, pudding, a glass of milk and a Dr. Pepper. I got really sick. It wasn't pretty." Now back to her usual weight, she looks trim and athletic.
      The table is suddenly covered with food. She eats one bulging shrimp, but leaves the rest. She eats one of the small lamb chops, but again, no-more. Her appetite, like her victorious strategy in the Outback, is ruled by her will. The Luger porterhouse is brilliant, as usual, and her eyes close with pleasure. "What do they put in that sauce?" she asks of the butter-juice-fat that has been spooned over. But she stops before half is gone. "I hate feeling overfull," she says. I do, too, but don't have her discipline and so gobble up the rest. A self-proclaimed tomboy, Tina didn't have a boyfriend till she was in college. She married him, but not until 13 years later, during which time both she and Dale, a building contractor, were married to other people.

      "After my divorce, Dale phoned, but I thought I would never marry again," she says. She determined to have lunch with him once a week for a year to see if they should be dating. After a year of lunches, the two began to date, and eventually they wed. Two years later, she is still very much in love.
      As she speaks, a 30-ish man exuberantly interrupts, forcing a cell phone on her: "Would you please talk to my friend in Canada? He doesn't believe I'm in the same restaurant with you." Wesson obliges cheerfully, then tells me: "In California, a man asked me to autograph his chest. Which I did!"       Zio comes by with dessert ideas. "I'll take the cheesecake," Tina says. "And do you have chocolate sauce?" Unruffled, he nods. "And do you have hot chocolate?" Zio finally does a double take. "Uh, no. ..."
     "That's all right - I'll get some back at the hotel," she says. A fourth couple rush over to congratulate her, and she signs something for them.
      I ask what she will do with the money. She has already said on television that she would pay off her own mortgage and that of her best friend, and that she wants to start a Survivor Foundation to help families in need. But she seems surprised when I suggest she'll get 50,000 requests annually. Concerned, I ask, "Do you have anyone advising you financially?"
      "No," she says, unworried but newly determined. An easy mark for a crooked business manager? I don't think so - not this woman who not only beat out 15 contenders on network TV and stuck to a yearlong, once-a-week lunch schedule for her romantic life but who also limited herself-to only one shrimp and refused the fat tomatoes Peter Luger seems to get out of season when nobody else can. We pour chocolate sauce over her cheesecake, take a bite... and damn, if it isn't pretty good.