The Weekend Trifecta 1/31/10

A trifecta is generally described as a type of bet where, in order to win, the bettor must pick the top three finishers in the correct order. Here, on yet another cold but beautiful winter day, are the weekend’s top three:

Filling the tank for 89 cents. Yep, that’s not a typo, we got 15 gallons of gas for 89 cents, because we shop at PriceChopper, use our rewards card, cut coupons, and earn money towards gas every time we shop. This is the best we’ve ever done; we’ve saved as much as $2.40 a gallon before, but this time we saved $2.80 per gallon. 

Now, I know we probably spend too much money on groceries and I know our pantry is full, and I know it takes a while to save this much at 10 cents for every $50 spent. But I wonder, now that Tops has finalized their purchase of Penn Traffic and the local P&C stores, what kind of benefits they offer on their rewards card? Had the Golub Corporation, parent company of PriceChopper, been allowed to purchase the 22 stores they wanted out of the bankrupt Penn Traffic empire, others in Central New York would likely have had a convenient PriceChopper and would be able to do what My Sweet Baboo and I have been doing for the past couple years – saving on groceries and saving on gas.

Syracuse scratching out a win at DePaul. Holy three-pointer, Batman! How SU managed to pull this one from the jaws of defeat is almost unbelievable. Scoop Jardine and Kris Joseph both managed to drill baskets from downtown, after not having done that practically since the exhibition season. And the Orange come away with another win, this time after being down 18 to the Big East’s last place team. After having to bounce back from 14 down against Georgetown, they’re at least proving they can play together and do well against long odds. Whew!

Culinary adventures. I’m fortunate that MSB encourages me to cook with abandon. He’s always maintained that I’m the cooker and he’s the eater, so pretty much whatever I want to cook is fine with him. OK, there was that one time with the flaming macaroni salad, but since then everything’s been fine…So after our ‘fun food Friday’ where I throw together a host of different finger foods, mix up some dipping sauce, pour a nice glass of red for me and white for him and call it dinner, on Saturday we moved way up the gourmet scale to ginger-mango marinated ahi, tri-color couscous with yellow and orange peppers, diced mango and pineapple, and chopped green onions, and rounded it out with some lightly sautéed zucchini. Today, we scaled back down to the comfort food range, with a turkey, mushroom and cavatappi casserole – the height of one-pot cooking. The fun of all this is that for me there are no limits in the kitchen – and on those days that I feel like stretching my wings, I’m welcome to, but on days like today there’s no pressure and the best food in the world is the simplest thing I can think of.