I wanted to provide a few updates . . .

1) Thanks, for all the positive feedback. It was an enjoyable thing to document and we had a lot of fun with it in our office. For me, a lot of that fun was posting updates here and reading comments from LTH'ers.

2) Last night for dinner our boy did not eat pizza. He told me that he happily would have but he had a lot of leftovers from tailgating. As a few wise folks posited upthread, he had a rough time with some of this non-pizza food. He told me that digestively-speaking, his system was shocked by it all. Irony!

3) LTH contributor Leah A. Zeldes has posted a very nice report -- complete with a hyperlinked index -- on the entire month, over at Dining Chicago.com: Could you eat nothing but pizza for a month?.

As for payment, I am delighted to reveal that late last week our boy mentioned to me that he felt silly taking (my) money for this. We chatted about it for a while and both thought about it over the weekend. This morning, we donated the entire $2,000.00 (yes, that was the original amount) to the Northern Illinois Food Bank. They are a worth charity, with an exceptional 96% donation rate. I'm sure the money will be of great use to them -- far more than it would have been to either of us.

What our boy really wanted, he told me, was a treadmill. I just happen to have a nice, relatively un-used one that's been in my basement collecting dust for a couple years (I can no longer use it because of my arthritic hips). So, in exchange for Pizza Man's kindess, I am giving him that old treadmill. It seemed like the least I could do in exchange for his generosity.

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:IAs for payment, I am delighted to reveal that...we donated the entire $2,000.00 (yes, that was the original amount) to the Northern Illinois Food Bank. ... In exchange for Pizza Man's kindess, I am giving him that old treadmill. It seemed like the least I could do in exchange for his generosity.

=R=

That is super cool of you both. What a good idea for a semi-annual event, with new pots, foods and challengers each time for charity.
What a fun thread this was to read!

ronnie_suburban wrote:
As for payment, I am delighted to reveal that late last week our boy mentioned to me that he felt silly taking (my) money for this. We chatted about it for a while and both thought about it over the weekend. This morning, we donated the entire $2,000.00 (yes, that was the original amount) to the Northern Illinois Food Bank. They are a worth charity, with an exceptional 96% donation rate. I'm sure the money will be of great use to them -- far more than it would have been to either of us.
=R=

kudos to you and pizza boy for making this donation.

Very Cool idea. Bravo to the both of you ! ! ! !

A very classy and admirable gesture to donate the money to a food bank!!

Let me propose that those of us who have enjoyed this thread consider donating to the Northern Illinois Food Bank as well. (The link is above). Ronnie, you might let them know, so they can establish a "pizzaboy" fund.

Or even - at the right moment - have a gathering - at Burt's? - to raise a toast and a slice to both of you.

Very cool way to settle. Kudos to both of you.

Wait..... and he lost six pounds?

Well done Pizzaboy.

Great end to an enjoyable journey! Thanks for sharing! What's next?

Mary

As they say, the check's in the mail . . .


No headset, no (visible) Bears gear



You're a better man than I, Pizza Man

=R=

Wow - that's pretty awesome of him!

A very classy act from two classy gentleman. Bravo!

Awesome job guys!

Pizzaman gets some media love from City Pages, the Twin Cities version of the Reader.

Congrats to pizzaboy and kudos to the both of you.

I wish PizzaMan had been a sausage pizza for Halloween.

Jayz wrote:I wish PizzaMan had been a sausage pizza for Halloween.

If you are what you eat, that would have been redundant.

Impressive on both counts, the eats and the donation, Pizza Man.

An entertaining thread, Gents. Thanks for the play-by-play to both of you.

Cheers!

I know I'm just piling on here, but thanks to ronnie and pizzaman for an entertaining month! Three cheers for your generous donation and your mutually beneficial settlement.

Quick but serious question regarding the contest: was any record kept of the total cost of the pizza purchases? I'm thinking it has to be $500 worth of pie.

Everyone has to eat, and Ronnie and his coworkers seem like the type to eat out quite often, pizza contest or not; so even if all the pizza added up to 500 bucks, I'd imagine a large portion of that bill can be attributed to a sunk cost anyways.

Kudos to both ronnie and Pizza Boy. Proud of you both.

However, I have one grave concern: this thread became a daily fix. What are you going to do to fill the void? I'm sure no bets are in your future, Ron, but you do realize, of course, that you have now shouldered an obligation to provide a new and unique form of entertaining thread to your legions of admiring readers....

Very, very classy and appropriate at this time of year. The food bank will be one of my holiday donations in honor of both of you.

This was one of the most fun threads ever. Good job and great outcome.

teatpuller wrote:If Orange County pizza doesn't stop him, nothing will.

For what it's worth, Orange County happens to have some pretty darn good pizza places, although there are a boatload of mediocre ones to get through to find them!

2 of note to mention are Tony's Little Italy in Placentia which does an outstanding job with a stuffed crust pizza and Sabatino's in Newport Beach, which tops their thin crust pizzas with the finest sausage I have ever had!

And I thought this thread couldn't get any better. Kudos to Ronnie and PizzaMan for a very appropriate and timely donation!

Talk about a "happy ending".

Class act.

Gotta add my props...this has been an enjoyable read although I picked up on it late. In case it wasn't mentioned, there was a segment about this on the WGN News a couple of nights ago.

As a native Chicago 'burbs guy who is living 1800 miles from "home", I'm still on the bandwagon that italian sausage is the ONLY topping for a pizza. My #1 favorite food as well, although I doubt I could do it for an entire month! Of course, if I DID, it would be pure...nothing else...just sausage as the topping.

Thanks for keeping us informed and entertained. The absolute great kicker to the thing was the donation of the "winnings" to the food bank.

Any Chance the Pizza King will share some of the experience from his end with us?

BaconButt wrote:Any Chance the Pizza King will share some of the experience from his end with us?

I really doubt it.

This just isn't something he's comfortable with. That said, I do have one minor update, though: I was out of the office most of last week but I understand that he did have pizza for lunch on at least 2 of the days.

Ironically, when we had Pita Inn for lunch last Monday (also the last lunch we had before the bet began), he ate so much that he felt worse than he had during the entire month of the challenge. But it warmed my heart to see him fill a pita with rice, douse it with hot sauce and snarf it down. Good times, good times.

I saw Octarine over the weekend and I'm pretty sure he's bringing the bottle of Gentleman Jack (the one he bet way back upthread) to our office this Friday. I'll be sure to provide details and documentation.

=R=