Pizza Contest -- The First Round of Judging

When we announced our pizza contest in our recent newsletter, submissions started flooding in. Throw in email alerts, Facebook posts, tweets and press about the contest and those submissions began multiplying exponentially. Many people named their pizzas. Some spotlight the ingredinets, like The Potato Truffle or Blanco Primo with Fresh Arugula. Nathan’s Pineapple Express and Joe’s Screaming Jalapeno Popper immortalize the creator. Dante’s Inferno, Vegan Ninja, Weekend at Bernie’s, Popeye’s Revenge, Veggiepalooza and Dehydration Special pique interest. Several people had multiple submissions, including the students of Shorewood High School Culinary Arts Program who came up with four tantalizing combinations. We knew we wanted to make every pizza, after all taste is the driving factor. So how to tackle this tasting challenge? We divided entries up for our stores to make. With many people suggesting new toppings, we needed to assign certain ingredients to specific stores. For instance, Stone Way was given all of the shrimp recipes, like Falisha Bahr’s Shrimp Scampi Cambozola pizza. West Seattle volunteered for all of the egg recipes, including Sarie Bakker’s Tallin Pizza featuring eggs, sausage, gouda, fontina and mozzarella. Edmonds is bringing home the bacon with recipes like Sharon Jacobson’s Bacon Pom Pom which has bacon, caramelized onion, spinach, gorgonzola, mozzarella and pomegranate seeds on an olive oil garlic sauce. We are still accepting submissions through the 31st. Each store will pick their favorite out of their assigned recipes. Then our operations group will make the final 22 and pick the winner. We hope to announce the winner in the next few weeks. Stay tuned!