The co-chairs of the Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction announced today that the panel’s next public hearing will be Sept. 22 and will feature testimony from a top tax code expert in a session that could set the table for what likely will be the group’s most challenging hurdle: revenues.

Tom Barthold, chief of staff for the Joint Committee on Taxation, is slated to appear next week at the super committee’s third public hearing.

The announcement from Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) came on a day when the panel held its first full private, closed-door session. In an early morning breakfast, the bipartisan, bicameral group of 12 lawmakers got to know each other over eggs and discussed the basics of their task: to find $1.2 trillion to $1.5 trillion in savings over the next 10 years, and do it by Thanksgiving.

Lawmakers emerged from the meal mum on details. Murray and Hensarling spoke with the media only to say that they were ready to “seize the moment.”

Later in the afternoon, the Democratic members of the panel huddled on the Senate side of the Capitol, aides confirmed. Both parties’ contingents have met privately among themselves since returning from the August recess.