North Iowa Blogger’s Try a Piece of Pizza Pie…or Several Pieces

8 months ago I attended my first North Iowa Blogger get-together. It was a chip tasting party for Lay’s Do Us A Flavor challenge and met this amazing group of woman. (Read about that experience HERE)  Last week we got together for a Pizza Taste Off party!  It all started with Beth Ann of It’s Just Life mentioning that she had never had Casey’s General Store’s pizza.  Between Twitter and our thoughts…well, the rest is now history!

Last Wednesday with pizzas given to us from Godfather’s (Mason City location), Casey’s General Store, & Kum & Go, along with a pizza from Pasta Bella and a gluten-free Udi frozen pizza, the bloggers gathered at Beth Ann’s house once again to taste these Italian pies!  I’m not going to lie, it was so hard to judge each individual pizza!  This was because of two main factors:

* the bloggers, while we are writers, love to talk!  We love to talk to each other and we always seem to have something to talk about, catch up on, and debate or discuss.  We love to be together and there is never a lull in the discussion, so it makes focusing on the task at hand a challenge

* the variety of pizzas.  While we were lucky enough to have a large variety of pizzas, that was also the curse.  Every pizza was different in toppings, etc so it made it very difficult to compare one to another.

So, because of reason #2, instead of explaining the pros and cons of each pizza, I’m going to give you just a few highlights from the tasting!

1.  Godfather’s Pizza (Mason City location) – Chicken Bacon Ranch – I’ve never tried chicken on a pizza and have honestly been fighting this fad for quite some time!  Why oh why did I wait so long?  This pizza surprised me and was incredibly delicious.  It was one of my favorites of the night!  After all, chicken bacon ranch is a classic American combo, right?

2.  Kum & Go – Breakfast Pizza – I love breakfast pizza!  It’s one of my favorite kinds of pizzas under any circumstances.  Traditionally I tend to favor Casey’s breakfast pizza, but…I’m in love with Kum & Go’s now!  Not only was the crust good, the cheese sauce base, small amounts of eggs, bacon, and a good blend of cheese on top, but probably my favorite thing was the shredded hash browns on it!  Why had I never thought of that before??  Genius and delicious all at the same time!

3.  Pasta Bella – Margherita Pizza – Pasta Bella is a small locally owned Italian restaurant in Mason City and I’ve eaten their several times, but have never tried the pizza.  I enjoyed this pizza for several reasons:   the crust was thin (I’m not a thick crust fan), the sauce was fresh tasting…not a heavy tomato flavor, but fresh tomato flavor along with what tasted like fresh herbs!  There was a nice layer of cheese without being too much and not too little.  It was one of the “lightest” tasting pizza I’ve ever tried.

We also had cheese and beef pizzas from Casey’s, Taco and a combo of sorts from Kum & Go as well as a combo from Godfather’s.  I did try a little bit of cheese from Casey’s, which is a great classes.  The rest I did not because they contained items I do not like (onions, mushrooms, olives, etc).

Perhaps our taste test wasn’t 100% official, but the most important part was the time we all spent together!  And, I got to try pizzas that I probably wouldn’t have otherwise tried.  Special thanks to Beth Ann of It’s Just Life for being our hostess with the mostess (as always) as well as special thanks to Godfather’s Pizza in Mason City as well as Casey’s General Store and Kum & Go for their donation of pizzas for the purpose of testing!

Now…stay tuned for part 2!  What part 2 you ask?  Well, while I was sitting tasting pizzas with my fellow bloggers, I received a text from T who stated that he and the boys had decided we were having our own pizza taste test on Sunday.  So, test more pizza we did!  Stay tuned for that installment!

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