All of Garden: Man eating only Olive Garden for 49 days

Alex Malone may be the bravest man in America.

By day, the 26-year-old is a scientist in Fargo, N.D.

By night, he eats pasta. All of the pasta.

Malone is one of the few to score the coveted $100 Never Ending Pasta Bowl promotion from Olive Garden. With the help of an egg-cellent pun — All of Garden — he's begun blogging his 49-day, unlimited pasta-eating experience.

"I knew someone was going to blog it, and I think I can do it best. I'm a pretty decent writer and I eat a lot of pasta," Malone, who blogs under the alias Vino, says.

Blog posts evocatively titled "Stouffer's," "Pizza Hut Special," "Mortality" and, in a burst of inspiration, a string of Shakespeare-themed names, house flowery odes to the Italian-American chain restaurant.

"Today's dinner marked the end of my first of seven weeks of eating nothing but Olive Garden's food, and I couldn't be happier with my life as it stands in this very moment. Life seems full of color, the future seems full of possibility, and I seem full of pasta," he writes.

Then he adds: "I admit that when I started the journey, I had my misgivings. To paraphrase the Bible: Man shall not live by bread sticks alone. Yet here I stand, a testament to the raw power and conviction of a man with a dream."

Creative titles will expand as Vino continues to eat the 180 permutations of pasta, sauce and toppings available at the restaurant (and for the sake of this article, we'll be calling him Vino, because the wondrous 7-year-old nickname comes from a video game club in which all players had Olive Garden-themed aliases, including Al Forno, Grissini and Auntie Pasta).

As he begins Day 11, Vino has received news attention, the requisite Internet followers and has just gotten a call from a producer at Jimmy Kimmel Live. Olive Garden followed him on Twitter and, possibly most excitingly, employees at the local Fargo establishment already know him by name.

Because really, 49 days of Olive Garden is what folk heroes are made of. Carbohydrates.

Along with waxing philosophical about pasta and taking photos of his food, Vino also has a five-star ranking system for his food ventures.

"It's about how I feel about the dish overall in terms of presentation and taste. Presentation is very important," he says.

The worst meal thus far? "The Italian sausage. It was the worst I've ever seen, really nauseating."

And the best? "Anything that is a shrimp and marinara combination. It's delicious."

Vino says he expects to gain five to 10 pounds in the 49 days, but is not tracking any other health metric.

The pasta-Internet journey may also end Grand Forks Herald columnist Marilyn Hagerty's reign as viral Olive Garden-themed Internet champion.

Vino, from all of us at USA TODAY, in bocca al lupo! We hope you make it out olive.

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