BASEBALL, BRUSSELS LACE, AND HONEY TANG

Well, I'm back from Spring Training in Florida and it looks like I can't bring the fastball like I used to, so it's back to advertising for now. Beau and I ate a lot of fast food during our road trip. Drank a lot of beers too. I weighed myself when I left and again when I got back (in the morning both times) and was simultaneously disappointed and relieved to learn that I only gained one pound. That's right, my body is Whopper-and-Corona-processing machine.


This is me a few hours into our road trip. My meatless Lent ended 15 minutes before this photo was taken and I was ready to celebrate.


We grabbed some beers and lunch at some crab shack down south on our way back home. I got a shrimp po' boy and some local brew. I've always been fascinated by the shapes the beer suds make when they cling to the sides of the glass. The funny thing is, the more you drink, the more fascinating they get. Beau said those suds are called Brussels Lace.


We spotted this road side sign at a crossroads in central Florida on our way to Port St. Lucie for the Mets game. I'm not sure what honey tang is, but it sounds really good. So does gator jerky. Why I didn't pay a visit to this man's stand just down the road is beyond me. UPDATE: Googling "honey tang" reveals very little, but there is such a thing as "honey tangerines." That's probably what he was selling (the subtle period at the end of "tang" confirms this abbreviated theory). Bummer. I was envisioning some sort of awesome honey flavored candy or drink.

More pics from our trip can be seen here.

GOODBYE LENT...I WISH I COULD SAY IT WAS FUN

A few minutes after 8 p.m. last night in a Burger King just south of Baltimore, I tasted beef for the first time in more than 40 days. It came courtesy of a Triple Whopper with Cheese (and bacon) and it was, for lack of a better word(s), fucking incredible.

It didn't sit well in my stomach after we got back on the road, but that didn't stop me from ordering two double cheeseburgers from McDonalds when we stopped for gas two hours later. Those also caused my stomach to twist and turn a bit, but that still didn't deter me from ordering the "Three Meat Breakfast" from a Georgia Denny's at 6 a.m. the next morning. Breakfast meat was one of the things I missed the most during my Lent adventure.

Now we're in Florida. Our plans to hit a Yankees game tonight were dashed (sold out), so we've scored some tickets to a Rusted Root concert in Tampa. Tomorrow it's a Phillies game in Clearwater. Sunday it's the Mets in Port St. Lucie. Monday's schedule has yet to be determined, but when it's near 80 degrees and sunny, it really doesn't matter.

28 MORE HOURS

Roman Catholic Lent ends at sundown on Holy Thursday (that would be tomorrow), which means that at 7:21 pm (according to this site), I'll have the green light to dig into a Triple Whopper with Cheese, followed by a Tendercrisp Chicken Sandwich.

The moment of delicious truth comes about two hours into Beau and my 16 hour road trip enroute to Tampa, Florida for a long weekend of Spring Training baseball, hotdogs, beer and more baseball (and more hotdogs and beer). That means we'll be stopping at a Burger King somewhere just north of Washington, DC. Maybe Frederick, Maryland. Or perhaps Gaithersburg. Who knows. Who cares. I just want to eat until I get the meat sweats and then take a nap until Richmond.

UPDATE: I'll be getting on the road soon and I'm not sure when I'll have internet access. If I find some free WiFi, I'll be sure to let you all know how my weekend of baseball and meat is going. There's a slight chance that I won't have internet access until I return on Tuesday night or that I will find access down south but I'll be in too much of a meat coma to function properly.

SIX MORE WHOPPERLESS DAYS

Only six more days and three more hours until Lent is official over for me. (I'm observing Roman Catholic Lent rules, which end at sundown on the Thursday before Easter.) The nagging Whopper cravings have, for the most part, subsided. Now the hardest part about going meatless for Lent has been seeking out the one edible meatless option on lunch menus. Today we went to a downtown dive for a burgers and pitchers.

Our regular lunch stop (Kokomos - of which I am the wing eating champion) mysteriously lost its liquor license (temporarily). We didn't learn that critical fact until we sat down and ordered our drinks. When we learned the news, we promptly departed for a place about a block away and better known as a late night karoke stop, but with a decent lunch menu of burgers and cheesesteaks. Today's special was corned beef and cabbage. I ordered some sort of vegetable pita and hated every bite of it.

MY CHOCOLATE EATING ADVENTURE

In seven minutes on Monday evening, I probably ate more chocolate than I did in most entire years. Well, probably not when you consider how much chocolate I eat in ice cream and other desserts, but it sure as hell felt like a lot of chocolate.

The challenge, levied upon me by a sadistic co-worker, was to see how much of the "World's Largest Hershey's Kiss" I could eat in a seven minute period. Pat Bertoletti holds the seven minute chocolate eating record with one pound, 15.5 ounces eaten. My total was one pound, one ounce and I washed it down with a tall mug of hot coffee. The coffee (thanks to Pat for the suggestion), really helped keep things clear during the challenge. In retrospect, I should have gone with decaf, but I didn't.



The giant Kiss came in two halves and was thicker than I thought it would be. Some parts were really thick and required a lot of biting and chewing to break it apart. I'm reasonably sure I could have eaten the other half if given 15 or 20 more minutes (and I seriously thought about it), but wisely didn't.

With a little over one pound of chocolate in my belly (the equivalent of 11 standard 1.5 ounce Hershey's chocolate bars) and another 16 ounces of coffee behind it, I was definitely feeling a good buzz. And it didn't take long for the jitters to set in. Fifteen minutes later I was shaky, talking fast and felt a little bit like Tweek from South Park. After half an hour, my resting pulse rate was 104 (my normal is around 70). Three hours later I started getting some painful intestinal cramping, but thankfully no other digestive abnormalities. By midnight, my sugar and caffeine high had subsided and I was able to sleep peacefully.

More pics can be seen here.

BURGER'S REVENGE

Someone with entry level Photoshop skills took the iconic Badlands Booker Denny's Beer Barrel Pub burger photo and had a little fun with it (below). I think it's a statement about man's dominance over the food chain and how someday, when we least expect it, the tables will turn.

UPDATE: CHOCOLATE CHALLENGE

My attempt to eat the World's Largest Hershey's Kiss (two and three-quarter pounds of chocolate) was tentatively scheduled for today but I postponed it due to not being "100 percent mentally ready for the challenge." In other words, I was scared.

Carey offered some sage advice on my first post about the chocolate challenge. In a comment, he said "I wouldn't attempt to eat more of anything than what Pat can do in a competition." It was a reference to Pat Bertoletti's world record of one pound, 15.5 ounces of chocolate eaten in 7 minutes back in 2006.

Based on that, my plan is not to eat the entire 2.75 pound Kiss, but to eat as much as I can in 7 minutes. After seven minutes, I'll assess how my body is feeling and continue chowing down if I feel up to the challenge. The attempt is scheduled for Monday at 5 pm in the conference room.

CRABBY

I feel like I should confess this here in the hopes that it will somehow clear my conscience. Last night at dinner I cheated on my meatless Lent pledge, but it wasn't my fault.

I ordered a meatless quesadilla at the Appalachian Brewing Company (I'm a Mug Club member and they're right next door to where I work, so I'm there a lot), but they brought me a crab quesadilla instead. It wasn't until my first bite that I realized what had happened.

I thought about sending it back, but I didn't. It's seafood (and crab at that). Probably the least meat-like of all the meats. I guess there's even a chance that it wasn't real crab meat. Sure tasted good though.

PIZZA EATING CONTEST

The first annual Pavone Pizza Eating Contest is in the books (finally, after four reschedulings) and my three contest winning streak is over. Beau took the title by finishing his large pizza with sliced tomatoes before anyone else. I was half a slice behind (I chose mushrooms), followed by John (mushrooms) and Billy (onions - WTF?).


Beau checks out the goods.


Billy, Beau, me and John digging in. Yes, that's me using ranch dressing to give the crusts a little extra flavor. Overall, the first three slices didn't taste too bad. The last three slices tasted like crap. I don't remember the middle two.


Beau shows off his winning technique. We all got our pizzas cut traditionally (eight slices), while Beau asked for his cut in four slices. He then folded each quarter slice. I guess it worked.


Me considering my next move. I think it was "continue eating."


Taking a nap during the home stretch while John soldiers on.


Beau basks in victory while I will myself to finish my pie.

Amazingly enough, I thought I wouldn't want to eat pizza again for at least two weeks, but my very next meal (lunch the next day) was two slices of cheese pizza. A full set of pictures can be seen here.