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Friday, August 29, 2008
Pizza maker offers eating prize
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| JOHN E. USALIS/STAFF PHOTO Fabrizio Manganiello, owner/operator of Fabrizio’s Italian Restaurant and Pizza, Ashland, holds two eight-inch “baby” pizzas as his son looks on. |
BY JOHN E. USALIS
STAFF WRITER
ashland@newsitem.com
ASHLAND — How fast can you eat a whole pizza?If you’re the fastest, you can win a $100 gift certificate and help a local nonprofit organization this weekend.
The 2008 charity benefit pizza-eating contest, the first of its kind in Ashland, will be held at Fabrizio’s Italian Restaurant and Pizza, 1609 Centre St., at 2 p.m. on Saturday, the day of the 108th annual ABA/Mummers Parade. There will be adult and children’s categories.
The winners of the children’s (12 and under) and adult contests each will receive a $100 Fabrizio gift certificate and the recognition of being the best at eating a pizza.
To enter, contestants need to make a donation to a nonprofit organization. There is no set amount to enter. Fabrizio’s will supply the pizzas with the help of several co-sponsors, including the local Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola bottlers and two provisions companies — John Gross and Co. and Varano’s.
“Basically, I like to give back to the community,” said owner Fabrizio Manganiello.
A native of Italy, he has prepared Italian food since the 1960s in Rome and New York City before moving to Ashland a few years ago.
“It’s really simple in that if you do good things, they come back to you,” he said.
The idea of the contest seemed like a perfect way to help in some way and get other people involved.
“We decided to have a fundraiser for charity. It’s good in many ways, and it could become an annual event, which is good for the community and the charity that will benefit from it,” Manganiello said.
Being relatively new to the area, Manganiello wasn’t sure where the funds raised should go, so he left it up to the Catholic churches of Ashland after speaking to the pastor at the time, the Rev. Adam Sedar.
Manganiello said that if the contest takes off and becomes an annual event, future contests may have the proceeds go to a specific charity.
As of Tuesday, there were 32 contestants registered in the adult and children’s categories. Manganiello expects more entries before Saturday.
“I was only going to have one contest to see who can eat a pie the fastest, but then my daughter (Annina) told me that she and her friends couldn’t eat a whole pie, so we decided to have two contests. The kids will get to eat a ‘baby’ pie,” Manganiello said. The “baby” pizza is an 8-inch personal pie.
There was also a slight change in the adult contest to allow for people who could not eat a whole large pizza. The adult pizza will be the 14-inch size.
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