Three Men, Two Pizzas

An interesting situation arises when two different friends want to complete the same team pizza challenge with you. From my standpoint, I came to the only reasonable conclusion: complete the challenge separately with both guys. And do it on the same day.

Rosati's in La Quinta, CA offers a 16" stuffed crust pizza challenge for two. You gotta pick six toppings, and as usual I recommend going all vegetable. Veggies lose more water weight when they cook, and they are less salty than meat toppings so you'll probably take in less water as you eat.

If I had to judge, the pizza weighs in around 8-9 lbs. It takes almost an hour to cook, so I'd say to call it in if you're interested. Winners get their pictures on the wall and a gift certificate refund of $30.

The day of decision was a Saturday in October. I met Matt Cohen at the pizza place with one goal in mind: we were going to destroy the time record, which stood around 24 minutes. Matt's always had great success in speed and sprinting competitions whereas I do better in long distance challenges.

 

We would need to split the difference today. I pressed hard to finish my half around 11 minutes. Matt started off like a rocket but had still one piece left at the 12-13 minute mark. We divided the last piece (4.5/8 for me) and took the new record in 15m30s. To Matt's credit, the pizza was dense as hell and his volume skill is definitely improving.

Four hours later, it was time for supper. I met up with John Rivera and prepared to face another 16" stuffed crust challenge. Most competitive eaters don't know John yet, but he knows quite a few of you. He lives in Joshua Tree and found out about me after we traded Hogzilla burger records at the Route 62 Diner in Yucca Valley. Most recently, he set a pancake record at the IHOP in Rancho Mirage after nearly doubling the house best.

But this time we were going after pizza, not burgers. The 30 minute time limit didn't seem intimidating even though with food in my stomach this second go would be considerably harder. We ended up splitting this challenge right down the middle, with a win in 27 minutes. John finished his last bite a few moments before mine. 

Two wins over the same challenge in one day.. the owner of the place couldn't believe it, but he was happy to add two more sets of winners to his Wall of Fame.

At the end, my total was 8.5 pieces or just over one entire 16" deep dish. It's not clear to me that I could have finished the entire pie solo in 30 minutes, but it might be something to do one day. There's also a solo 12" deep dish challenge (no winners yet), but I don't think that will give me much trouble.

At least pizza always tastes good. This one tasted great, probably the most buttery and flavorful deep dish I've yet to sample. Rest assured the gift certificates won't sit around unused.