Meet the ladies who lunch — a lot.
Don’t let their slim physiques and pretty summer frocks deceive: These women aim to break the crass ceiling Monday, stuffing their faces in the first-ever gals-only round of the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest.
In preparation for the internationally televised pigout, The Post took four of the top female competitors to high tea at the Plaza. It wasn’t quite their scene.
“I could eat all of this in two minutes,” Sonya “The Black Widow” Thomas, said surveying the platters of scones, cucumber sandwiches, and pastries. “Maybe one minute.”
In fairness, this is a lady who’s swallowed 46 dozen oysters and 11 pounds of cheesecake, regularly beating the best male eaters, and is the odds-on favorite to win the $10,000 prize Monday.
“Yeah, I much prefer buffets to regular restaurants,” Larell Marie Mele, 47, who’ll be at the table for the first time Monday. “I never get full at a sit-down place.”
“Me, too,” agreed veteran Juliet Lee, 45, who holds the world record for cranberry-sauce eating. “Normally, I go to Chinese buffets.”
Over tea and scones, the ladies talked slop and even exchanged a few secrets.
Thomas, who hopes to beat her record of 41 hot dogs and buns, revealed she swigs nearly half a bottle of Pepto-Bismol before competition.
“Really, you drink it before?” Lee, her closest competitor, asked. “I just save it for after.”
The separate round is great because even the best women cannot match the men in hot-dog eating, Lee said, due to men’s increased jaw strength.
“[Reigning champ] Joey Chestnut can swallow a whole hot dog at once,” she said. “I can’t do that — I’m scared.”
But unlike the men’s main event, only highlights of the women’s round will be shown on the ESPN telecast. However, it will be broadcast online at espn3.com.
First-timer Laura Leu, 33, of Brooklyn, who qualified by swallowing a mere seven hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes, said she was thrilled to be sitting at the same table.
But the contest did have one drawback: Like the other seasoned eaters, she never wants to look at a hot dog the other 364 days of the year.
“I don’t like them as much anymore,” she said. “I went to a baseball game a few weeks ago, and desperately wanted one, but chose to have a corn dog as a compromise.”