Year Of The Pizza

Pedicabbers like pizza. Who knew?

Welcome back! Erin and I spent some time visiting our families and eating lots of non-pizza, and we just got back in town on Tuesday. Homeslice had the nerve to be closed that day (as they are every Tuesday) and we got a little distracted by the 99 cent sandwiches at Which Wich yesterday, but today I ate my first pizza of 2010 in Slicey’s warm embrace.

Pedicabber and general adventurer Russell boldly asked via twitter if he could trade pedicab rides for pizza. Well, that part wasn’t terribly bold. But then, in his next tweet, he asked if he could have the blog after he beats me next year! Such verve, pluck and cojones. I figured I had to take him out to pizza to see what he was like (and to earn a free pedicab ride).

Russell is from Houston, and has been all over the world thanks to the Navy and western Alaska thanks to the fishing industry’s unbelievable thirst for oil.  He worked on a tanker tug that would top off fishing trawlers to the tune of 100,000 gallons of oil.  He made some sweet coin but had to be in freezing, skewed-gender-ratio’d western Alaska, so he eventually settled in Austin.  Now instead of tugging fuel tankers, he tugs drunks on his pedicab. It’s not quite as well-paying, but it does have its perks.  He gets to live in one place with friends nearby, and communicate frequently and predictably with said friends.

In my life I’ve vacillated between having too much money and not enough time and vice versa.  Russell seems to have found a nice balance right now.   When I asked him if he likes his domestic life, he said “I have a dog now.  I mean, how cool is that?”

He ordered pepperoni, sausage, onions, garlic and roasted red peppers.  I ordered the same but instead of the meat, fried eggplant and anchovies.  After a while, our waiter* came by and said that they had made it without the roasted reds, so they were making it again and we could take home the insufficient pie, which was boxed away in a corner until we were ready to leave.  Russell and I looked at each other and said that we’d be happy to eat the pie anyway, but he proclaimed that it was already in motion.  So that was really nice of them.  It’s one of those times I wonder if I get special treatment because ‘Sliceys are scared that I might blog their misdeeds or whether they’re just always as cool as they seem.  My money’s on the latter, but who knows.

On a related note, Terri (an owner) came by my chair and said it was nice to see me, she hadn’t seen me in a while.  Maybe Homeslice had an especially profitable couple of weeks that gave away my absence 😉

The pizza came out steaming hot, literally.  I’d never see so much steam from a pizza.  I excused Russell from the “beer on you” part of my mantra because it’s freezing in Austin today and cold beer didn’t sound good, but I encouraged him to grab the tip.  When the bill came ($0), he laid down a $20 bill for a tip.  No change needed.  I told him that it was a mighty generous tip.  He said that he doesn’t mind tipping great for great service, and he felt like he should leave the value of what he received.  The waiter* didn’t mind.  I hope the waitstaff don’t always expect $20 tips when I walk through the door.  Then again, maybe he makes up for others I’ve taken who have not been nearly generous enough.

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Russell regaled me with stories from the Navy, Alaska and the pedicab world.  I was especially intrigued by the pedicab bits.

Erin and I used to live in India, and rickshaws were a horrible annoyance, right up there with mosquitoes and giardia.  People who made their living pedaling/motoring people around in three wheeled contraptions tried every avenue to cheat us.  It didn’t matter how much of the language we spoke or how long we’d been there, they would insist on some ridiculous price quintuple what the locals pay, and then bitch and moan if we wheedled them down to a reasonable rate, and by reasonable I mean 100-200% of the true cost.

Generally, the pedal-rickshaw wallahs were kinder than their motorized brethren.  Pedicabs are essentially pedal-rickshaws, so an insight into his world was fascinating.  It seems like it costs more to ride across downtown in a pedicab than in a taxi, but folks do it all the time.  Do they think it’s ironic/hip, or actually faster than a taxi?  Is it environmentally minded?  Probably not, my hunch is that pedicab patrons don’t have second thoughts about drinking imported beer/liquor rather than local options.  I don’t know why they do it, but I have to admit, it looks fun.  Maybe not on nights like tonight though.

Russell makes okay money most nights, but he banks whenever anything big is going on, like SXSW, ACL, Halloween, etc.  If UT wins tonight, he’ll do great.  So root for UT, Russell could use a big night.  And if you see him (he’s really tall), tip him well to reward him for his good tipping karma.  Hook ’em!  And tip ’em!

Cost: $25.25
Total this year: $79.50

* Sadly, I don’t know the names of everyone at Homeslice, even though most seem to know mine.  Sara(h?) called me out on this one time after I referred to her in the blog by her nickname many times over.  She’s totally right, I only know the names of about a dozen employees although I should know more.  You know those people you meet at a party and then see around town a whole bunch but you guiltily never remember their name even though they know yours?  And you’re too embarrassed to ask?  That’s me with 2/3 of the Homeslice staff.  My usual trick of introducing the person I’m with and awkwardly waiting for the unnamed person to break the silence with “and I’m so-and-so” doesn’t really work because they all know Erin by now.  So if any staff are reading this, feel free to oh-so-naturally drop your name into conversation next time we’re chatting and I’ll try reeeeeally hard to remember.  Tell Erin too, she’s smarter.  And I won’t blog anything that will get you in trouble (I think) unless you’re Mark and you deliberately mislead me with false info about HOES competitors in an all-too-successful attempt to freak me out.  Every time he pours a pitcher of beer on someone or snap-kicks a child will be duly noted.

More Mohrs

Erin’s youngest brother Jeff and his girlfriend Kelly came to visit us/Homeslice in Austin this past weekend.  They loooooove to eat and were dying to try Homeslice, so we introduced them to ‘Homey on Saturday night.

The line was horrendous and I really wanted to watch as much of the Cowboys game as I could, so we put our name on the list as the game started, watched the first half at Doc’s and went to Homeslice at halftime.  Kelly (the waitress) asked us what we wanted, but we had a hard time deciding.  So we each picked a topping or two, finally settling on basil, garlic, fried eggplant, fresh mozzarella, green peppers, black olives and artichoke hearts.

They absolutely loved it.  Jeff worked in Phoenix for the last year and a half and had been to the legendary Pizzeria Bianco and said that Homeslice was easily at the same level.  That’s big.

Kelly had a hard time deciphering the bathroom signs, so the waiter asked if she “had a slice or was missing a slice”.  She figured it out.

There were no leftovers, only happy bellies.  Throughout the weekend we hit most of our favorite eating places in or around Austin: Taqueria Star, Snow’s, Gordough’s, Kerbey Lane, Torchy’s and more, but Homeslice definitely stood out.  Maybe because it was free.

After leaving Homeslice we caught the end of the Cowboys game and got to see them hand the Saints their first loss.  Man, I was pumped!  What a great night.

Cost: $30 (I think)
Total this year: $54.25

Snoopy is as happy as Erin

Erin and I needed a nice little break after winning the 2009 Hands on an Eggplant Sub contest before coming back to Homeslice.  Standing near where the pizza oven heat/smell escaped out of the slices window bathed us in pizza aura, and we needed to wait a full week before venturing back.

Once we did, it felt like we never left.  Erin said Homeslice felt like home.  I wish I could just order what I wanted at home and someone would magically make it and then clean up after me.

Erin felt like ordering a simple pizza, so we went easy on the toppings and only chose roasted red peppers, garlic, fried eggplant, anchovies on my half and fried mozzarella on her half.  It was more cheesy than what I’m used to, but maybe there was the same amount of cheese and a heightened cheese-to-toppings ratio.

One of the waiters who was friends with one of the other HOES competitors came by to wish us well and say no hard feelings.  None taken.  While I think the owners are happy that I won because this blog gives them good Google juice, some of the waitstaff probably wanted others to win.  I don’t take it personally.

Erin asked if the pizza tasted like victory, and while I can’t say that it tasted quite so grandiose, it tasted like something I plan on eating quite a lot of this upcoming year.

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I’m looking to make some changes to the blog, so if there’s any new or improved feature or idea that you’d like to see, lemme know in the comments.  It’ll be a fun, pizzatacular year, this year two of the pizza.

Cost: $24.25.
Total this year: $24.25

Moment of victory. After 31 hours, my hand is on the sub and Erin's is on my face.

We won.  Not I, we.  I semi-jokingly told Erin throughout the Year of the Pizza that she should compete alongside me in the 2009 Hands on an Eggplants Sub contest to increase our household’s chances of winning.  I did my part to keep our bellies full and fat, she should do hers as well.  She thought it would be fun in our twisted sense of the word, and so she stood by my side for 30.5 hours (which I’ll round up to 31 because it sounds cooler) as we watched the eight other HOES fall one by one.  When she took her hand off to let me win, it was an act of love.  While some media outlets are understandably characterizing this as my victory, I really feel that it should be our victory.  Erin and I both know that she could have outlasted me, but that would not have been healthy for our bodies or our relationship.  So after 31 hours, we won.

The field of ten was pretty intense.  Last year I only faced three other competitors, and won in 7.5 hours after Sonia accidentally took her hand off the sub.  This year there were ten of us, and I knew that even if a couple folks dropped off, there would still be a substantial crowd for many hours.

Erin and I were more prepared than most.  We had layers of warm clothes, logo’d stress mats to stand on, sleeping bags to huddle in and had dehydrated bodies.  As time dragged on these all paid off big.

To pump up myself and my friends, I made t-shirts based on the Rocky theme, and I came to the contest in Rocky-esque grey sweats, a black wool cap, and my logo emblazoned on the stress mats.  My posse and I rolled up to Homeslice playing the Rocky theme song, but some technical difficulties made the show seem unimpressive.  I don’t think people got the whole Rocky thing because I had a jacket and/or sleeping bag over the hoodie most of the time and my friends covered up their shirts with their jackets.

I had been very nervous about lasting ten hours without peeing.  All week I had practiced and never made it beyond nine hours.  At around six hours the urge came on strong, and I could only hold it in for two or three hours.  I even went to an acupuncturist a few days before to help strengthen my kidneys, since not drinking much over a week and eating lots of salty pizzas could not possibly have been good for my health.  For whatever reason, game day was a different story.  I didn’t drink anything before the competition started, and I found that I could go nine hours easily, and began drinking at that point just to give my body some hydration before the ten hour break.

Once everyone got to know each other, hanging out on the sub was actually fun.  It’s hard to believe considering the lack of bathroom breaks, temperatures in the 30’s-40’s and general body deprivation, but a peculiar goofiness took over at times.

The first day was fun because of the carnival zaniness which we were a part of, but the night was more cold and lonely.  People waiting for a table did so inside, so we had fewer people to talk with to alleviate the boredom.

One thing that wasn’t so boring was the drunk driver that almost hit us.  We were standing on the sidewalk, cordoned off by velvet ropes and wooden signs, but some drunk jerk in a white SUV (license plate TWF439) zoomed up on the sidewalk and only stopped after knocking over the ropes and signs, coming within a foot or two of hitting Giselle, one of the coolest competitors.  None of us took our hands off the sub though!  Someone’s boyfriend went up to the guy to tell him off, but he drove away while yelling that we were “Nazi assholes”.  We called the cops.

Once Homeslice closed, the staff came outside to nominally judge us, but they mostly chilled with themselves, only coming over to pseudo heckle us or chit chat for a couple of minutes here and there.  It was hard watching them drink wine, sit down and dance around while we were stuck shivering on a sub.

Once they left, things got cold, lonely and tiring.  The hours between 4-8am were particularly bleak.  Terri, one of Homeslice’s owners, pulled the 6-9am graveyard shift and hung out with us.  Another example of the awesomeness of Homeslice.  Once the Homeslice staff started dragging themselves into work around 10 or 11am, we perked up.  Sunday was oddly relaxed.  Our muscles and joints had become somewhat numb to the pain and the cold, and all of us had friends come by to support us with food, drinks and encouragement.

My posse was particularly awesome.  Michelle Engels drove down from Dallas to support me.  Anneliese and Colin kept the tip jar enticing, brought me ipods and such, and with Michelle, sat in solidarity with me.  Ryan, Jessie and Sabrina came by and brought friends to keep us company.  Billy brought energy drinks at 7am and his laptop so I could keep on with my Godfather trilogy.  Johann kept me pumped up with his Karate Kid theme song-and-dance routine.  Lots of my food blogger friends came by to chat, bring cookies and encourage us.  My phone nearly melted with the constant torrent of supportive texts and tweets.

The daytime crowd kept asking the same incredulous questions.  You’ve been here for how long?  Bathroom breaks every ten hours?  Only five minutes each?  Aren’t you cold/tired/crazy?  While it was a little repetitive, the more we amazed people the more $$$ they tipped us, with all tips going to the next person out as a bribe/consolation.

Erin thought there was some sexism in the air.  People asked me and another guy who was going to win, but didn’t ask the girls.  Most questions overall were directed at the males, which is too bad.  I don’t know why people assumed a guy would win, I think females have a higher threshold of pain and putting-up-with-crap-itude.

Around 5pm, one of the brashest talkers accidentally took his hand off while futzing with his shoe.  That left Erin and I with one other competitor who had an exam the next day at 12:30pm.  After the third bathroom break at 7:45pm, Erin and I decided to try to end it.  We had outlasted seven of eight competitors. and Tiffany had little chance of getting any sleep or quality studying done if she stayed there until her exam, which she seemed poised to do.  While we were all liable to take our hand off accidentally, there were two of us and one of her, and victory seemed within reach.  We had many friends we wanted to celebrate with, and she had her exam to study for, so we offered her $100 and the tip jar contents.  Erin told her that it was a win-win, we’d win the contest and spend a warm evening with friends, and she’d walk away with some dough and be able to prepare for her exam.  She countered with $130 plus the tip jar, and after some mutual hemming and hawing, we agreed.  Her hand came off, and Erin and I remained.

Erin and I had previously discussed that if it came down to us, she would take her hand off.  She values her privacy, and while she totally wanted free delicious pizza, she did not want to have reporters contacting her and friends/acquaintances bugging her for pizza.

As an extrovert, I don’t mind the glamour, fame and paparazzi people inviting themselves to Homeslice with me.  This blog has turned into a fun way to practice my writing, photography and social media chops.

So she took her hand off, giving both of us exactly what we want.  Some have suggested that I should have let her win or she shoulda outlasted me.  But we didn’t feel the need to defeat each other.

We kissed as she took her hand off, which she then proceeded to rub all over my face.  I did the same five seconds later.  Pizza is love.

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Media coverage:

• Austin American-Statesman
• Austin American-Statesman again ( I like Pop-n-Fresh’s comment)
• Relish Austin – The Statesman’s Addie Brolyes’ foodie blog – she brought me cookies!
• Tasting Buds (good photos!)
• KEYE CBS 5:30 news
• KEYE CBS 10:00 news – Thanks to Ryan and Jessie for recording these.

See the widget below for real-time twitter updates from the HOES contest.  I have one of those old school flip phones, so while I can send out tweets, I can’t respond to DMs (I don’t think).  Big day today.  Hands on the sub, eye of the tiger.

I took Erin to Homeslice for the last pizza before the HOES competition tomorrow.  It was an odd way to go.  We chose a salty pizza with both black and green olives, and no watery toppings to throw us off our game tomorrow.  Lots of the experienced waitstaff had already gone home, and with the music being a surprisingly lame collection of Brittany Spears and 90’s hip hop, it didn’t feel quite like home.

We savored each bite, knowing that it could be our last free pizza at Homeslice.  I won’t go on and on with this post, because we have a big day tomorrow.  I’m gonna try as hard as I can to win again.  Come by tomorrow and say hi, I’ll be the guy standing with my hand on the sub.

Tonight’s pizza, like this entire year of the pizza, was completely and utterly amazing.  I’m not done yet.  I will go the distance!

Anna and Doc are out of focus, the pizza is in focus. Oy.

Today I had lunch with Anneliese Vogel and Dr. Teresa Lenoir aka “Doc”, my boss and colleague from my days in Rep. Alma Allen‘s capitol office.  I brought the whole staff including Dr. Allen to Homeslice during the legislative session (I was a session-only employee) and while they loved it, they chided me for dawdling too long.  So for months I’ve been trying to arrange another pizza visit, and after innumerable bouts of rescheduling, it finally happened today.

I don’t think I’d seen Anneliese since my last day at work.  I had a little bar-hopping party with my friends that evening, and the night ended by me serenading her with Johnny Paycheck’s “Take This Job And Shove It”.  In good humor, of course.  For you bosses out there, you know your underlings like you when they say/sing stuff like that in front of you, instead of behind your back.

Doc and I worked side by side on environmental legislation, trying to keep the bad guys from putting yet another industrial polluter in District 131.  I helped her with her computer, and she told me how to live my life.  It worked.

Doc and Anneliese’s taste in pizza toppings differed, so we ordered a comparatively complex pizza.  Basil, onions, roasted red peppers and garlic on the whole pizza, green and black olives on Anneliese’s half and fried eggplant and anchovies on Doc’s half.  Both were quite nice.

Anneliese voiced her concern that my tendency to gesture while I speak might hurt me in tomorrow’s competition, so while we waited for the pizza I placed the oregano shaker on my hand.  Doc even inadvertantly fumbled with the plate / pizza holder, sending stuff tumbling in my direction, but the hand stayed strong.

We talked about the latest political gossip, Dr. Allen (best rep ever!), gender differences and pizza.  I almost got in trouble at one point when I mentioned that my 29th birthday had made me feel old.  Anneliese is definitely might be older than me, and didn’t take too kindly to that one.  Doc just laughed.  I really miss her laugh, she’s got this great cackle that is very recognizable and charming.

The only downside of the meal was missing the two seconds of snow Austin supposedly had while we ate.  When we came out, it was sunny and nice, without a snowflake in sight.  At least the pizza was hot and delicious.

A Pizza Girl, With A Pizza

I didn’t have a pizza date tonight, and was feeling adventurous, so I tweeted that I’d take the first person who responded to Homeslice.  The first person was @apizzagirl, an Austin-area pizza delivery girl who anonymously blogs about her job at A Pizza Girl.  I was surprised that she was interested, since she’s one of the few followers I have who already eats lots of pizza for free (actually, half off).  But I was eager to hear about her life and compare our pizzaventures, so we met up an hour later.

I’m not allowed to tell you which chain she works for or which neighborhood she works in lest her identity be revealed, but if you order a pizza from a major chain, you might find her delivering it to you.  Tip well.

As her blog suggests, the life of pizza-chaindom is full of characters and not full of riches.  But if nothing else, it’s interesting.  Here are some of the tidbits I found particularly amusing:

• You can tell the stoners by the plethora of sides the order along with the pizza (ranch, buffalo wings, etc).
• There are two types of stoners: those who smoke when mommy’s away and use her credit card to buy pizza, and those who hand over a heaping handful of bills.  The latter tip generously, the former hardly at all.
• She doesn’t want your change.  No one does except the homeless.  Give it to them.
• Coming in the storefront the next day and claiming your pizza wasn’t what you ordered last night will not get you a free pizza.  Pizza’s not free (ha!).
• Half of her store’s business comes from online orders.  It’s funny, it would never occur to me to order pizza online, but it would also never occur to me to buy a plane ticket over the phone.

Her blog has much more of the ins and outs of pizza deliveryship.  It’s a fascinating if underpaid little world.  She has another job too, but she seems to like this one more.

We talked about the relative pros and cons of blogging anonymously vs. not.  I definitely censor myself because I am aware that people know who I am.  Sometimes I don’t want to get someone in trouble, and I leave out negative experiences with folks because it can create awkwardness the next time I see them.  For @apizzagirl, she can shoot from the hip because no one knows her identity, but she doesn’t get any offline feedback.  To each their own.

It was her first time at Homeslice, and she really liked it.  She seemed a little thrown off by a topping list that was different from what she was used to.  After much deliberating, she decided on mushrooms, onions, green peppers, green olives and basil, with anchovies and garlic on half to sample.  While she was ordering I told our waitress that my guest was a pizza professional, which seemed to embarrass her a little.  She tried the anchovies like a champ, and while she didn’t love them, she didn’t hate them either.  The crust really impressed her though, she liked the crunchy/spongy dichotomy.

A career of getting crappy tips has made her an excellent tipper.  She left a $10 bill to cover the free pizza and her beer, which seemed pretty good for someone who probably earns very little money.

Her beer filled her up, so she only had one piece, and gave the leftovers to a homeless guy on her drive back.  She’s a really nice person, and while she seemed a little nervous at first, she seemed to really enjoy her evening at Homeslice.

Johann giving Trevor the evil eye

Today I had lunch with Johann Wagner and Trevor Reichman.  I met Johann when I sold him Kat’s car, and it turns out that he’s good friends with Trevor, another folk musician who had responded to my Craigslist rideshare ad and driven me to Dallas.  I’ve seen them play a few times and we’ve kept up whenever they’re touring schedules eased up a bit and put them in Austin for any chunk of time.  Trevor is also close friends with Aviva Perlo, who first talked up her friend and recent pizza date The Soup Peddler to me.

Johann had a children’s show at 1, so he couldn’t make it until 2:30, and they both have a show in Fredricksburg  tonight, so timing was a little tight.  On the bright side, Homeslice was pretty empty at 2:30 on a weekday.

Johann is lactose intolerant and eats meat but not dairy, and Trevor is vegetarian and eats dairy but not meat.  So we ordered a whole mess of toppings, with cheese on only one half.  I’d never had cheese-less slices at Homeslice, it was interesting.  I tasted each of the toppings much more.  The kalamata olives, for example, were much more pungent without the cheese to mellow them out.

We talked about healthcare and the life of musicians, beards, and the artists who’ve been screwed by signing with or being kicked off big labels.  I think my budding and quasi unintentional beard will help protect me from the cold on Saturday.  Johann and Trevor both have beards, so they definitely agree.

Neglecting pizza for HOES application

Erin and I had dawdled far too long, and had yet to turn in our HOES applications.  So last night we took them to Homeslice and dutifully filled them out while waiting for our pizza.

For the first time that I can recall, we chose a repeat of the famous green pizza: green peppers, green olives, basil, spinach, extra cheese, artichoke hearts, garlic and half anchovies.  We usually avoid green peppers, but they added a juicy crunch to the otherwise rich but somewhat soggy pizza.  The whole thing tasted amazing.

The applications sorta stumped us.  We had a hard time deciding between answering honestly or humorously.  For instance, should Erin put that she graduated Cum Laude from college or that she won a hula hoop contest when she was 12?  She wisely chose the latter.

It was a nice way to pass the time, and we got so engrossed that we ignored the hot pizza for a few minutes while we finished up.  That was a shame, it was a damn good pizza.

This pizza also felt different.  I stepped back and realized how awesome this pizza deal is, and how I better not lose the competition.  It’s become just a part of my life, but now that there’s a (slim) chance it might not be, I have come to appreciate it more.  I will stand strong.