CHEK Upside: Island friends ship favourite pizza from Ontario

CHEK
WatchJohn Palmer and Nigel Couch ponied up over $600 to ship ten king-sized pizzas from Windsor Ontario to Colwood.

Growing up in Windsor, Ont., John Palmer loved the taste of the city’s signature pizza.

“We would gather with our friends at Franco’s Pizzeria after a movie or a sports event and they would bring out a king pizza…and we would just inhale it,” says Palmer.

Just like a Chicago deep dish or New York-style pizza, a Windsor pizza is its own culinary experience. Pizzeria’s utilize shredded pepperoni, locally made cheese, and a sweet tomato sauce.

But the most unique ingredient is the mushrooms.

They use canned mushrooms to keep everything moist,” says Palmer.

“When you add all those ingredients together it really gives you a very unique flavour.”

While Palmer hasn’t lived in Windsor since 1977, the hankering for a slice of home has never diminished. So when he met fellow Windsor transplant Nigel Couch, the pair started reminiscing and scheming about how to get the pizza to Vancouver Island.

“We discussed it straight away and we both agreed we wanted to do it, but the timing has just never been right,” says Couch.

That was until Palmer came across J.P. Arsenault, a Parksville man and fellow Windsor pizza fanatic who has his sister send several pizzas from back home last February.

“She got it, froze it in her freezer and then she got some boxes and we just made the arrangements to ship it,” says Arsenault.

“We shipped it FedEx overnight, so it was frozen and packed in well … by the time it got here it was just starting to thaw.”

“That’s what did it for me, so from that I started calling around to pizzerias in Windsor,” says Palmer.

“Then I fell in with Antonino’s and an old high school chum, he acted as our currier and Abdul at the UPS store, they all went above and beyond.”

The ten pizzas arrived at Palmer’s door without incident, with the total cost of the unique delivery totalling over $600. For both Couch and Palmer, the reward far outweighed the cost.

“Yeah it’s probably ridiculous to spend that money, but so what?” smiles Palmer.

“Life is short, live for now and go ahead and do it if you can.”

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Cole SorensonCole Sorenson

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