Totally cheesy

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 05/10/2016 (3586 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I don’t know what you guys did on Tuesday, but I used my powers as a crusading newspaper columnist to make the world just a little bit safer for democracy.

As most of you have already deduced, I spent the afternoon judging a pizza-making competition.

Yes, while some journalists were frittering away their time toppling governments and freeing the wrongly convicted, I bravely stuffed my face with slices of free pizza.

You don’t have to thank me; I was just doing my job.

The big pizza challenge was a battle between seven departments at Manitoba Blue Cross headquarters in support of this year’s United Way campaign.

I was asked to judge the contest because my culinary skills have become renowned throughout the world. I am, of course, kidding. I was only there because my buddy Big Daddy Tazz, one of Canada’s hottest comedians, was asked to judge and he figured there would be way too much pizza for one person to handle.

Also putting her taste buds on the line was the United Way’s Alissa Smith, who brought a different style to the judging panel in the sense that she ate with a fork, whereas Tazz and myself opted for a more hands-on approach.

If you don’t think Tazz and I are qualified to judge pizza, then you obviously have never seen us wandering around the frozen-food aisle. If you had, the first thing out of your mouth would be something like: “I am willing to bet those guys have eaten a substantial amount of pizza in their time.”

Or as Tazz pointed out: “When I eat pizza, you need a strobe light to see my arms move.”

Before the contest began, I asked organizer La-Toya Gibbons whether we judges should purchase some Blue Cross coverage before sampling the pizzas prepared by the insurer’s employees.

“No! No!” Gibbons shrieked. “Honestly, it’s absolutely safe. I trust these people 100 per cent!”

The first thing we did was wander around and frown at the seven pizzas to give them marks for presentation and creativity. During the taste portion of the event, the contestants had to march over, hand us a slice and brag about their pizza.

“Our pizza has three kinds of bacon and four kinds of cheese,” said one competitor as he handed us slices of The Leaning Tower of Pizza.

“THREE kinds of bacon!” I replied, my eyes growing to the size of dinner plates. “I think I love you.”

As we judges consumed our own weight in pizza, the feisty competitors sat in the Blue Cross cafeteria and stared at us with laser-like intensity, in absolute silence, much the way my dogs do at home.

However, when Gibbons warned them I might write something cruel in today’s column if they weren’t polite to me, they gave me a lovely round of applause. So that was nice.

It was a seemingly never-ending onslaught of cheese-y goodness. At one point, someone from the product development and pricing department handed us slices and said: “It’s a Moosehead beer crust layered with barbecue sauce, sprinkled with chicken, a little bit of feta cheese, mushrooms and, of course, bacon!”

I think I speak for all the judges when I say how happy I was that, as a safety precaution, I wore stretchy pants to the event. Had I been clad in skinny jeans, I’m sure they would have exploded somewhere around the seventh slice.

Speaking of us judges, our hearts were warmed by one entry entitled the “Still Hungry” pizza prepared with ingredients purchased for what a person living in poverty would be allotted for food in a single day, namely $3.96.

In the end, the big winners were the employees in benefits services, who whipped up pizzas in the form of little fluffy cupcakes lovingly topped with bacon and pepperoni and filled with cheese.

“I love it,” declared judge Alissa. “It’s muffin-y and hot.”

Added Tazz: “I want you to tell me how to make these for my son’s birthday party.”

Benefit services representative Mimi Bautista was thrilled to win the $100 first prize and bragging rights. “I’m a baker. I bake cupcakes and cakes. It’s my passion. This is my first time to win first place,” Mimi gushed emotionally.

As we sat there, our bellies swollen and our hearts full, my buddy Tazz offered some lovely parting words. “The most wonderful thing you can give is not your money; it’s your time,” he told the audience. “If you have the chance to volunteer, do it. You have no idea how many lives you can change just by caring.”

Like I said earlier, we helped to make the world a little safer for democracy, one slice at a time.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca