Day of Defeat, Part One

36" of pizza, one topping, one hour. Big Mama and Papa's Pizzeria in Hollywood, CA offers a hefty challenge to two brave souls up to the task. $200 on the line for the winners.

This was totally unplanned. Spur of the moment. Spontaneity in action. After watching the "Gang of Four" (Torres, Stonie, Gilbert, Excel) battle the Grand Sicilian 54" x 54" pizza for 75 minutes, Aaron Ybarra and I felt the urge to participate. Perhaps it stemmed from revenge for what had happened to the previous team.

[The next post will be dedicated to the effort they made against the 54" x 54" pizza. It's a longer story, I've got a few reflections to make, and I don't make to leave anything out simply because of space concerns]

In terms of surface area, a 36" pizza is equal to roughly two 25" pizzas. Weight is, of course, a whole other matter. This would not be a simple task. Then again, it's not often that you find a restaurant willing to shell out $200 on a challenge.

The pizza came out scalding. After appropriate cooling time, we dug in. Toppings were split down the middle, one-half with black olives and one-half with tomatoes. Olives appeared to be a terrible choice, because the cooks really piled them on. The sodium factor was appreciable too. I liked the parts with tomato much more.

Aaron shot out the gate, per his style. I ate in much more paced fashion, but faster than my regular rate. This was probably a mistake. Going faster usually causes me to feel full earlier, but it's an acceptable strategy if you can finish the challenge item under 20 minutes.


This thing was just too damn huge. I managed to take my half, but Aaron hit capacity several minutes early and our chances were basically written off. I knew there was no way I could take the 3-4 pieces my partner left behind in the remaining minutes. Aaron ran out of room, but I ran out of time.

The manager taunted us by throwing the prize money on the table during the challenge. He even doubled it in the last ten minutes, but I gave off my bluntest comment of the night: "You could put $20K on the table, this isn't gonna make us go any faster."

Well... back to the drawing board! It was incredible to team up with Aaron again, hopefully we get another chance to eat on the same side again one day.

All that salt!! My mouth felt burned afterward. I guess we were all a little burned that day.