Year Of The Pizza

Reese and Chris

A few days ago I met up with Reese Pepper and her boyfriend Chris for dinner.  Reese and I knew each other in middle and high school in Dallas, and we reconnected once we both ended up in Austin.  She’s getting her Ph.D. in nutrition, so if she loves Homeslice, I’ll assume that she condones my “pizza is actually healthy” philosophy.  My logic is bulletproof.

Reese is a huge Homeslice fan, and loves broccoli and ricotta on her pizzas.  I’m not a huge fan of either, but we tried her broccoli and it tasted pretty good, albeit a little too crunchy for my taste.  We got the onions for the first time in forever.  They weren’t as stringy as I remember, I enjoyed them more than usual.

On the way out, I saw eating champ Chris Floyd dining with friends.  We exchanged pleasantries.  It’s really too bad that I won’t be able to watch him during his title defense at the pizza eating contest, since I’ll be busy out front with my own repeat attempt.

The wait on this particular Monday night was 35 minutes, significantly more than the quoted wait time on Friday night.  Weird.

Best pizza in Austin. Suck it Sags!

My good friend Aaron Saginaw (aka Sags) came into town this past weekend with his gf Mandy.  First thing we did once they came in was head to Homeslice.

Since it was a Friday night, I knew I had to use my trick to get a table.  It’s not really a trick, but it’s sly like a trick.  I only live a block away, so if I want to eat at say, 8pm, and avoid the hour and a half wait, I just walk over at 6:30, put my name down, go back home and hang out until I head back over there at 7:55.  Works like a charm.

Friday night, I walked over there an hour before Sags was due to arrive in town, and they said the wait was 10-15 minutes.  WTF?????  I asked Clare if I had in fact come into Homeslice Pizza.  She verified that I was in the right place, but had no clue why the line was not the usual hour plus.  I have no idea what was going on Friday night that enticed people away from Homeslice.

Once I came back, the line had increased to around 20-30 minutes.  Mandy is hypoglycemic and needed to eat pronto, so we ordered some garlic knots while waiting for a table out back.  So awesome.

Sags loves Mangia, and has to eat there at least once every time he comes to Austin.  I thought I could wean him off his misguided addiction with some tasty Homeslice.  Sags and Mandy really loved the food and vibe of Homeslice, but it wasn’t quite enough.

On Sunday, he wanted to hit up Mangia and invited me to come along.  I had to think about it.  On the one hand, he’s been my friend since preschool and drove four hours to see me.  On the other, I felt like I’d be cheating on Homeslice. Truthfully, Homeslice would probably not miss me robbing from their coffers for a meal or two, so I agreed to go.  It was a really weird experience.  I felt like I needed to take off my ring or something, and I hoped no one would recognize me there.

At Homeslice, I’m used to giving the pizza topping menu only a cursory glance to remind myself of the offerings.  But here they had different toppings and sauces.  This threw off my game.  Also, this pizza wasn’t free, so I had to dramatically scale back my topping choices.  More choices plus ever rising cost of each topping led to flustering and bewilderment.  I settled on anchovies and bleu cheese for a nice subtle pizza (ha!).

Verdict: the pizza was pretty good.  Magnia’s sloppy yet tasty stuffed pizza is hardly comparable to Homeslice’s traditional offerings.  They really are two different styles of pizza.  But Mangia’s environment was so much more sterile and lame.  We went to the one across the street from Wheatsville on Guadalupe, and it felt like a mall.  A/C  set to frigid, music set to crappy and lots of big open space that didn’t give any sense of atmosphere.  I yearned for the homey, funky vibe of Homeslice.

Luckily, since I eat free pizza all the freaking time, I won’t have long to wait.  I enjoyed the temporal pleasure of Mangia’s pizza, but afterward I felt guilty, like I needed to shower and apologize to Homeslice.  I have since cleansed my body of Mangia’s homewrecking smell, but I have yet to apologize, so here goes:

I’m sorry, Homeslice.  I hope Slicey forgives me.

Good beer + good pizza + hanging with me = Happy Eric

One of my college roommates and great friends Eric Rynerson came to Austin over my birthday weekend.  I estimated that he, like most my visitors put the reasons for visiting at 70% visiting me, 20% free pizza at Homeslice, and 10% Austin.  He said that was about right.

Eric is nothing if not a huge lover of food.  Not in the Golden Corral, watch-me-rock-this-buffet style, but the order-three-appetizers-and-try-them-all style.  He’ll eat all of a dish if it’s delicious, but will just pick at it if it’s not, he’s less tolerant of mediocre food than most.

So I was both excited and nervous to take him to Homeslice.  I think Homeslice is great, and he usually has similar tastes.  Frankly, I felt like taking professional ballerina to my kid’s ballet recital.  Will my delicious little Homeslice measure up?  Can it please the master?

The answer was a wholehearted yes.  He loved it.  The beer, the pizza, the vibe, the freeness.

At the end of the meal, we found ourselves talking about Australians.  I estimated the population of Australia to be 30 million people, he figured around 15.  He asked, as he has a habit of doing these days, if I wanted to bet.  With the help of a pitcher or two of Fireman’s #4 I felt confident in my prediction so I said sure: the loser has to write a haiku about the winner.  He googled it and it turns out that he was right.  Australia has about 22 million people, closer to 15 than 30.  Dammit Australia, couldn’t you pop out 1.1 million people or take in more immigrants or something?  Arrrggggghhhh.

We had a great weekend full of delicious awesomeness.  We hit up many of my local faves besides Homeslice, played BYOB mini-golf, walked through parks and just kicked it.

His last night in town we were watching the Cowboys game at a local bar (I don’t own a TV), and decided to grab a slice or two of pizza at halftime.  We went to Homeslice and I did a strange, foreign thing: I paid money for pizza at Homeslice.

It was my first time at the slices window since I was told that my deal does not cover free slices.  The experience was so sad, handing over the money made me feel tawdry and dirty.  I felt like a guy who meets a lady out and about, shares a wonderful time with her, goes back to her place, “knows her”, and wakes up to find her rifling through his wallet.  I thought she wanted to give me her hot deliciousness for free, but honey, she’s got bills to pay just like everyone else, and nothing in life is free (except large pizzas for dine-in only).

Eric had an early flight back to San Francisco on my birthday, and he was eating the leftover pizza for breakfast in the car.  When I saw him off, I told him that I would recycle the pizza box, which I then threw in Erin’s trunk and left it for over a week.  I had forgotten to take it out, just as I had forgotten to pay up with my haiku to Eric.  So here goes:

Master of the ball
Eric loves food, life and fun
Screw you Australia

The two champs. Note the remaining pizza on each plate.

“it being impossible for two things of the same kind, to be or exist in the same instant, in the very same place” –John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Chapter XXVII

John Locke would flip his shit, as did half the Homeslice staff, if he would have seen me roll into Homeslice the other day with Homeslice pizza eating champion Chris Floyd.

For the last year, we’ve heard about each others presence and style from the waitstaff who serve us both.  Occasionally we’ve bumped into each other coming or going at Homeslice, and greeted each other socially when we’ve run into each other.  We saw each other at The Highball on Saturday night, and decided to actually go to Homeslice together one day.  So we did.

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@tastytouring touring the tasty pizza

After many months of trying, I finally had a pizza with Jodi Bart, otherwise known as Tasty Touring on KGSR, her blog and teh twitterverse.  Jodi originally wanted to schedule a lunch with the Homeslice owners and have me surprise them by sitting down and buying them pizza, since they have *ahem* been rather kind to me in the free pizza category.  But that never panned out, so we had lunch together instead.

She’s one of the local food blogger big shots, and is a huge fan of Homeslice.  We got there early, and were both amazed at the opening line.  Like the last time I came on a weekday morning, the line was intense.

We were seated out back so we could enjoy the beautiful day.  A beautiful pizza helped our enjoyment considerably.  Jodi is super busy, and she seemed to relish being outside for an hour. She was much more journalist-y than previous pizza guests.  She asked lots of questions about my background, how I pay my rent (answer: monthly), what my life is like now, etc.  It was hard to answer them all in my longwinded manner during our brief encounter, but I think I managed to give a good pizza-themed Rundown Of All Things Seth.

At the end of the meal, she asked to see the polaroid of me on the wall in the “employees only” lounge room.  We checked it out, it was small and tucked away in a corner of a photo collage of investors, friends, enemies, etc.  Jodi almost got hit by the door by a waitress flying in, who dutifully pointed out that Jodi was standing in an inopportune spot.  So we left a little shamefully, but with leftovers in our hands and pizza in our bellies.

Wanna support the troops but think bumper stickers are lame?  Buy troops a slice of pizza!  The good folks at GI Pizza have finagled a way to let you buy troops serving overseas a slice of pizza and a pepsi for $2.95 (five slice minimum order).  They work through Pizza Inns stationed on bases.  While pizza snobs like myself might look down on Pizza Inn, it sure as hell beats an MRE.

Thanks to Slice for the link and the troops and vets for sacrificing on our behalf.  I wish our elected leaders could show their appreciation by not entangling them in no-win quagmires.

Sabrina tearing into pizza. Don't know what's up with the dude behind her.

Today is election day.  I’m serious, it really is, google Texas constitutional amendments 2009 or something similar.  I’m the election judge at precinct 274, the 1st English Lutheran Church near Wheatsville, just north of UT.  Never knew I was so powerful, huh?

Sunday I had to pick up the voting machines, signs, etc. from the county elections department, and since Erin was working, I had no way to transport all the elections accessories to my apartment.  Enter Sabrina, one of my two election clerks (the other being the fabulous Indiana Adams).  She has a car and spare time, so I promised her pizza if she’s help me pick up the gear.  And by help, I mean meet me there, drive the gear back to my apartment, drop it off and then drive home.

The elections part went relatively smoothly, so we headed to Homeslice to seal the deal.  I realized that I was still wearing my Homeslice hat, which I can’t wear to Homeslice (I don’t want to be that guy), and I was going to run up and throw it in the apartment when Sabrina said that she’d wear it.  So she did.  We got there around 4:30 on Sunday, and it was packed.  Boom!  30 minute wait.  On a Sunday afternoon, in between meal times?  This place is crazy.

We put our name on the list, came back to the apartment, had a Lone Star and tried to figure out the cap puzzle (Off to the races).  Then we went back to Homeslice, got seated, and ordered a pizza.  Sabrina is one of the legions of folks who’ve never tried anchovies before coming to Homeslice with me.  Like most, she thought they were interesting, but not worth getting again.

She asked me if the waitstaff ever reads the blog, and I told her that I think some of them do.  Less than five minutes later, Shauna came up to say hi, and very embarrassingly said she had something to tell me.  Now, when people ask if they can tell you something, it’s usually big, otherwise they just tell you straight away.  I steeled myself for a lifetime ban from Homeslice or a limit on toppings.  To my pleasant surprise, she said been reading this blog (she seemed embarrassed for that as well) and had seen the post about my MacGyver-esque pizza candle trick to keep the pizza holder warm by placing the candle underneath.  Apparently, such actions have a tendency to melt the plastic between the pizza plate and holder, and can make the metal hot enough to burn the poor waitstaff.  So could I please not do it anymore?

Phew!  That ain’t no thang!  I mean, it’s a little disappointing, but I thought I was about to get in big trouble for something.  I can handle free, delicious pizza even if my second and third slices are room temperature.  I’m just that hardcore.

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By the magic of teh interwebs, I am setting this to post at 11am on election day, so you have plenty of time today to come say hi to Sabrina, Indiana and I at good ‘ole precinct 274.  It’s blocks away from UT, so I’m expecting lots of students in our precinct.  And since only 2% of registered voters in Travis County voted during the early voting period, I’m not expecting a very busy day.  So come by and bring us food vote, we’re excited to hang out with your food you.

And UT students, (yes you), if you’re going to stop me multiple times a block in my neighborhood asking me if I have a minute for the environment, you better take 15 minutes and vote a hell yes on Prop 9 for free public access to Texas beaches.  If you don’t, I won’t feel the lease bit guilty walking by you ever again.

@misohungry was truly, so hungry

Yesterday I went to Homeslice with Jennie, aka @misohungry.  She was the kind soul who let me borrow her photoshop-infused laptop a couple weeks ago when I needed it.  I told her I’d take her for pizza in exchange and yesterday was the day we finally met up.

On the way in, I saw Terri (the owner) again.  I felt just as awkward as the day before.  It was like I was transported back to 7th grade to find myself tongue-tied trying to talk to The Hot Girl.  I found myself saying random stuff in order to fill the vacuum.

Her: Hi Seth.

Me: Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…hey.

Her: So………back for more pizza, huh?

Me: Yep…*searching-for-something-to-say…..searching…searching…*…yeah…………this is what I do… (Really, Brain?  That was the best you could do?).

Her: Ok…..cool…..

I don’t know why I’m so awkward around her.  Unlike The Hot Girl, I take advantage of Terri (financially and epicurially) all the time.  Every day this week, in fact.  I know that she agreed to the prize, and I’m sure that Homeslice makes plenty of profit on the beers my friends buy, but I can’t shake the goofiness.

After the encounter I walked into Homeslice for my pizza with Jennie, who I know from the Austin food blogger world.  She’s a phenomenal baker, and she uses all kinds of beer and other sorts of booze very creatively, like the 512 pecan porter ale brownies that she brought me for taking her out to pizza.  She’s also a very generous cook as well.  Nearly every time I see her she’s given me a taste of her latest creation.  Apparently the word has gotten out in the craft beer movement, because lots of microbreweries send her cases of beer for her to use.  She’s making a briyani out of a gingerbread ale tomorrow, and also making gingerbread out of said gingergbread ale.  Yummay!

Jennie’s one of those people who’s always doing tons of interesting stuff.  She’s big in the show dog world, and judges dog shows (recently in Alabama).  She bakes, she’s a graduate student in something that sounds complicated involving the word endocrine, she’s a blood-drawer for the prison system (I think she’s called a phlebotomist), organizer of the famous cupcake smackdown, blogger, twitterer, etc.  I don’t know how she keeps everything under control.  I think the key is that for her, doing stuff like baking counts as relaxing.  For me, baking (unlike cooking or making beer) is an act that I need to relax after accomplishing, when such a rare event happens to occur.

Perhaps she does it by being very, very organized.  When we were talking about toppings, she busted out her iphone to write down a list of them.  When it came time to order, the waitress didn’t recognize me and launched into the schpiel about less is more, if you get too many toppings it will be soggy, costs more, blahblahblah.  After I explained that I got free pizza so I wasn’t concerned with the price, she sorta looked around for a pen and paper, realized she didn’t have one, and just asked for Jennie’s iphone list to take to the ordering station.  I thought it was funnier than Jennie did.

The pizza came, and Jennie thought it was really good.  I was a little nervous, Jennie likes good food but doesn’t have much tolerance for mediocrity.  I shouldn’t have been worried though, Homeslice doesn’t let me down.

Also, Nano Whitman is playing tonight at Lambert’s at 10:30 with a bunch of other folks.  He’s one of the managers and gets mentioned occasionally on this blog.  Free admission but expensive drinks, so sauce up beforehand.  He’s really good, you should come.  Go to his site and play Break It On Your Own Time and tell me you don’t want to see him play a free show.  Try.

You'd think they were giving away free pizza in there!

Greg and Marlo, who have been on this blog numerous times, flew to Austin yesterday for a whirlwind training trip.  We somehow arranged a lunch trip to Homeslice.  I had previously agreed to participate in a study at the UT psych department where I would get paid to drink (for science!) beginning at 4pm (email me if you wanna participate, it’s fun).  I had to stop eating by noon though, and since Greg and Marlo’s training started at 1, we had to be at Homeslice when they opened at 11:30 to fit our schedules.

I’ve been to Homeslice when they were closing, both the main restaurant and the slices window.  I had never seen them open though.  I was shocked.  Look at the line!  To open!  On a Wednesday!  This place is craaaazy popular.  Does any other place in town have this kind of line to open on a normal weekday?  The line was even longer than the 2:15am line of drunks who pile out of cabs to see if they can stand long enough to make it to the slice window.

We hoped to get our order in quickly so it would not get waylaid behind everyone else’s order.  We did a pretty good job, ours came relatively fast.  We talked weddings (since they’ve already had one) and anchovies.  Marlo had never tried anchovies, and she’s always eager to try new foods when she comes here.  Last visit she ate her first falafel.  She thought the anchovies were alright, but thought that they were a little too salty, and probably wouldn’t get them again.

As we were wrapping up, one of the owners came by.  Cue racing blood pressure.  This is one of the women I rob multiple times a week!  Now we’re meeting face to face.  Uh oh!

I said it was really nice to meet her, and she replied that we’d already met at the last year’s contest.  Whoops!  She was really nice, and just came by to ask if I happened to be competing in the next hands on an eggplant sub (HOES!) contest.  I told her (hell) yeah, I plan on competing, as does Erin.  I put in the request for rule clarification that I previously asked of Nano and Shauna, and thanked her for the graciousness of the prize.  Greg nicely chimed in that he only heard about Homeslice through me, and has now come in quite a few times.  He neglected to mention that he lives in Dallas and has yet to pay for pizza (although in his defense, he’s bought beer, salads and even hats).  As she was about to walk away, I asked, without directly apologizing per se, if I was hurting their bottom line too much.  She said they’re happy to provide the prize, and are just glad I’m taking advantage of it.  It would be a lot worse, she said, if they offered free pizza and the winner didn’t make use of the bounty.  Well, let no one accuse me of not making use of my free pizza deal!

So Mr. Artichoke Heart...think you could get away?

Two days ago I had lunch with Matt Glazer at Homeslice.  He’s one of my favorite pizza dates because he’s the only employed person I know who has no reservations about splitting a pitcher of beer in the middle of the day.  Matt is involved in tons of projects, including Burnt Orange Report, GNI Strategies, John Lipscombe’s judicial campaign and many more.  In many ways, I see him as a possible version of myself if I chose to pursue the political web worker career.  He’s craaaazy busy, the kinda guy who will check his email or twitter feed on his phone if you go to the bathroom.

It was raining cats and dogs during our lunch, but that made the hot pizza taste even better.  Matt put himself at my mercy in terms of toppings, and he seemed pleased at the combo, especially the artichoke hearts.

At the end of the meal, he wouldn’t accept the leftovers.  This was a first.  My guests (and I use that term loosely, as they usually pay for the beer and tip) always take the leftovers, and why shouldn’t they?  Pizza costs money for them.  Matt, however, had been to Homeslice multiple times in the last few days, and already had a fridge full of pizza.  I felt a little weird carrying out a box of leftovers, and hoped the waitstaff didn’t see me and think that I was crazy cheap.  He also drove me home!  Even though I live a block away, it was raining gangbusters, and when he offered, I accepted.  What a guy.

As we ordered, Shauna came up to chit chat.  I put in my request for a rules clarification about the next HOES contest, so we’ll see what comes back.  I also told her that if I happen to lose (heaven forbid), I’d be happy to help them with social media for the low price of free pizza.  Hopefully I won’t have to pursue those negotiations any further.

Matt and I don’t really hang out much but we should.  We splash around in similar circles (lefty politics, social media, nonprofits, beer, etc)  and we seem to challenge each other’s thinking as we try to figure out the life/meaning/time/money/work balance.  Neither of us have it nailed down yet, but when one of us do, we’ll let you know.  It will definitely involve free pizza.