Thanks for the responses here. Prior to posting my question, I had an online chat with an Intuit Turbotax tax expert, with 20 years experience. Her advice was that the travel expenses for builder meets were deductible (or adding to basis). I posted the question here hoping to get comments confirming this. I think this is another example of how convoluted the tax code is, easily subject to multiple interpretations of the same issue.
I think I'll try another professional source or two to see if I can get some more opinions in one direction or another.
