Thursday, December 15, 2011
The Big Pizza Turd
Fresh off a successful canned food eating challenge, someone saw a Pizza Hut advertisement for their "Big Dinner Box", which is 2 medium 1-topping pan pizzas, 5 breadsticks, and 8 wings. Fortunately, we decided not to make this into an eating challenge. If we had, it would have been a miserable experience, where we all showed up at Rob's place and waited for our twelve cold boxes to arrive with their crappy toppings and extra cold marinara, and then we sort of tried to eat all of it, but not a single person could do it, because it was over five thousand calories of awful. Good thing that never happened, then.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Results of the Epic Canned Food Drive Challenge
This event was everything we had hoped for. The highs were high, and the lows were so very low. To the surprise of many, the winner finished seven cans, and in total it took several hours of cunning, fortitude, and sweetened condensed milk to decide the champion.
We had nine entrants, each bringing their $10 and ten cans. Most people had the maximum of 5 sponsors, and therefore a budget of $15. Of the seven items revealed in the first round only one, tomato paste, was not from the safe list.
I pulled off a coup (and reached my high point of the evening) by going into the mystery can pile for what I knew were 100 calorie peaches, which no one placed a bid on. I thought I had made a similar move to get my canned pineapple in round three, only to open the bag and to my horror see whole serrano peppers, which knocked me out.
In the meantime, a large (and frankly, illegal) "can" of peanuts took out Rob, and sweetened condensed milk eliminated Dan. Amelia proved that sweetened condensed milk could be beaten, however.
Trexler powered through some canned salmon, using his heat option. This was particularly surprising since couldn't stand the smell of tuna wafting across the conference room in round one, but apparently he's just very specific about his canned fish. All this work only to walk away after he opened a mystery can to find queso blanco.
Abhi, going for low-volume, high-disgust food, drew some sort of squid in the first round. His strategy held until VJ stuck him with the largest can in the pile, which turned out to be a fatal loaf of bread.
There are no pictures of what happened next. Amelia had powered through tomato paste, sweetened condensed milk, mixed vegetables, black beans (strained), and beets. She drew a mystery bag for round 6, and got mandarin oranges. These were the mandarin oranges that broke the camel's back. She downed them quickly enough, but while waiting for the other competitors to join her in round 7, she had the first in-competition reversal in our history.
This left VJ versus Garrett for the win. VJ had all the advantages: he had money left in his budget, and was acting last. Garrett chose a mystery item, which VJ bought. Then VJ went for an item, which Garrett would have to eat. He went for the size, shape, and weight of sweetened condensed milk. In a delicious (?) twist, it was a concentrated caramel sauce.
Garrett chipped away at the caramel, just in case VJ couldn't eat any of his item (a can of jalapenos). Instead, VJ finished both the jalapenos and Garrett.
We'll pretend that he is wiping his face in this picture. In all, we ate about half the cans, and donated over a hundred, in addition to $100, to the Connecticut Food Bank. I'm not sure they'll appreciated the quail eggs or four cans of mackarel that went uneaten, but we did our best.
We had nine entrants, each bringing their $10 and ten cans. Most people had the maximum of 5 sponsors, and therefore a budget of $15. Of the seven items revealed in the first round only one, tomato paste, was not from the safe list.
I pulled off a coup (and reached my high point of the evening) by going into the mystery can pile for what I knew were 100 calorie peaches, which no one placed a bid on. I thought I had made a similar move to get my canned pineapple in round three, only to open the bag and to my horror see whole serrano peppers, which knocked me out.
In the meantime, a large (and frankly, illegal) "can" of peanuts took out Rob, and sweetened condensed milk eliminated Dan. Amelia proved that sweetened condensed milk could be beaten, however.
Trexler powered through some canned salmon, using his heat option. This was particularly surprising since couldn't stand the smell of tuna wafting across the conference room in round one, but apparently he's just very specific about his canned fish. All this work only to walk away after he opened a mystery can to find queso blanco.
Abhi, going for low-volume, high-disgust food, drew some sort of squid in the first round. His strategy held until VJ stuck him with the largest can in the pile, which turned out to be a fatal loaf of bread.
There are no pictures of what happened next. Amelia had powered through tomato paste, sweetened condensed milk, mixed vegetables, black beans (strained), and beets. She drew a mystery bag for round 6, and got mandarin oranges. These were the mandarin oranges that broke the camel's back. She downed them quickly enough, but while waiting for the other competitors to join her in round 7, she had the first in-competition reversal in our history.
This left VJ versus Garrett for the win. VJ had all the advantages: he had money left in his budget, and was acting last. Garrett chose a mystery item, which VJ bought. Then VJ went for an item, which Garrett would have to eat. He went for the size, shape, and weight of sweetened condensed milk. In a delicious (?) twist, it was a concentrated caramel sauce.
Garrett chipped away at the caramel, just in case VJ couldn't eat any of his item (a can of jalapenos). Instead, VJ finished both the jalapenos and Garrett.
We'll pretend that he is wiping his face in this picture. In all, we ate about half the cans, and donated over a hundred, in addition to $100, to the Connecticut Food Bank. I'm not sure they'll appreciated the quail eggs or four cans of mackarel that went uneaten, but we did our best.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Canned Food Drive Challenge
I'm way behind on posts, but I wanted to add a note about today's very special challenge. We are using our considerable talents for good, and have designed an eating challenge to benefit a local food pantry. Each contestant will provide 10 cans of food, and bring $10. The cans will be entered into a general pool, and one-by-one they will be put up for auction. Each round, each contestant must purchase and eat one item, using their $10 budget. We will go through as many rounds as necessary until only one person finishes the can they just purchased.
Of course there's a twist. Although five cans must be purchased off a list of approved items, the other five can be any safe-to-eat canned food 1 lb or less. Nine of the cans must be purchased at a major grocery chain, but one may be purchased at the ethnic food store of your choice. And of course, only a small fraction of items will be unveiled each round, so some items will be bid on knowing only their size and shape and not their contents.
At the end of the challenge, all the auction money ($10/person) and leftover cans will be donated to a food pantry. Now you might say, "Wait, that means that every can you eat you are taking away from charity?" This would be true, if not for your help. Non-participants can sponsor a contestant by promising that for every can the contestant completes, they will donate one to the cause. For every sponsor, the contestant is awarded an extra dollar for the auction process. So get in the holiday spirit, and give someone every reason to choke down that last can of pickled artichokes.
Of course there's a twist. Although five cans must be purchased off a list of approved items, the other five can be any safe-to-eat canned food 1 lb or less. Nine of the cans must be purchased at a major grocery chain, but one may be purchased at the ethnic food store of your choice. And of course, only a small fraction of items will be unveiled each round, so some items will be bid on knowing only their size and shape and not their contents.
At the end of the challenge, all the auction money ($10/person) and leftover cans will be donated to a food pantry. Now you might say, "Wait, that means that every can you eat you are taking away from charity?" This would be true, if not for your help. Non-participants can sponsor a contestant by promising that for every can the contestant completes, they will donate one to the cause. For every sponsor, the contestant is awarded an extra dollar for the auction process. So get in the holiday spirit, and give someone every reason to choke down that last can of pickled artichokes.
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