Introducing the Basmati Rice Man Bag- Fashion Excellence at a Bargain Price

The Italian Stallion remarked the other day that he had not been mentioned in a blog post for a while. This surprised me as the Italian Stallion is generally quite private and has embraced social media to a far smaller degree than I have. However now that the cat is out of the family bag, I really must oblige by featuring him in this post.

The Universe must also have been listening because today it presented me with classic Italian Stallion blog fodder.

It all started with a joint trip to the supermarket for the weekly shop. This is an activity that we have shared at various points during the course of our relationship. There have also been many times when circumstances meant I did the grocery run solo. The aforementioned circumstances being when my piece of mind required it.

Recently it has started to be joint again, and really if you want one of the secrets to a happy marriage, it is this: keep your man away from your shopping trolley. I can handle being advised of inventory control in my run through the aisles “Don’t need that, we already have five packets of it at home” and I can even handle trolley packing for the gifted and talented for the Italian Stallion would never come home with a cracked egg or squashed bread. The Italian Stallion would also never come home with melted anything for he takes the cold product from the fridge or freezer and places it immediately into the cold bag, even though it may be 10 degrees Celsius outside. Such fastidiousness is to be admired if it wasn’t so aggravating in a OCD kind of way. But I am in my zen period, so I choose to keep calm and carry on.

The Italian Stallion is also ever vigilant in the cost savings department. This is not a problem in and of itself, who doesn’t want to save money? But the favoured mechanism of the Italian Stallion is the bulk buy. Let me give you an example, not so long ago I sent the Italian Stallion out for a solo shopping trip which included some carrots that we would serve with dips for some guests. Twenty minutes later, the Italian Stallion proudly waltzes in with a 5 kilogram bag of juicing carrots.

Let me put this in context, we don’t have a juicer. Juicing carrots are usually fatter and less sweet than eating carrots. There is no way our guests could consume one kilo of carrots let alone five.

Nevertheless, the Italian Stallion was beaming.

Today’s incident involved rice. Basmati rice to be exact. Now once again, we are not big rice eaters (yet) and we have been quite content with the white long grain or short grain variety. A one kilo bag usually lasts for a month or two. Despite this a two kilo pack of Basmati rice appeared in the pantry last week. Last week we did not have one meal containing rice, whether of the Basmati variety or otherwise.

The Italian Stallion has cooking chicken korma in his sights. For this, he says, Basmati rice is best. One can only hope that the chicken gets korma’d in the next week or so, because we now have enough Basmati rice to feed a small nation.

Back to our supermarket sojourn. On entering the supermarket we saw it. Snuck into the fruit and veg department was a pallet of 5 kilo bags of Basmati rice. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice the Italian Stallion staring longingly at it. He goes over to the pile looks at the price and walks away. I inch the trolley towards the lettuce and mushrooms, thinking the Italian Stallion is behind me, following. Turning to my right, I notice the Italian Stallion once again looking the pile of Basmati rice. Trying the inventory control technique, I utter “we have a big pack at home, we don’t need it”. He agrees with me and reluctantly leaves the pile.

The latest in smart male fashion – the Basmati rice man bag

Making our way to the potatoes, I once again get the feeling the Italian Stallion is not with me. Sure enough he is back with the Basmati rice pile checking out the price and looking at it longingly. At this stage, I figure he needs to either buy that Basmati rice, never mind actual need, or move to Pakistan from where it originated. The later might be a bit tricky so…

I let him off the hook and say “If you want it, just buy it”.

No sooner do I utter the words, then he’s grabbing his bag of Basmati rice. He comes back triumphantly and deposits his prize in the trolley.

“What’s with all the Basmati rice?” I ask.

“Nothing, I just really liked the bag and its only $1.00 a kilo.”

Yes, dear readers, for the sake of a cloth printed bag with a zip up top, I will be eating Basmati rice for the next year. And the Italian Stallion will be sporting the latest in supermarket fashion. Lois Vuitton and Channel had better start worrying because the man bag has taken a whole new turn.

Have you ever bought something because you liked the packaging? Do you grocery shop with your spouse? if so, are you still talking to each other?

Costco Capers #NaBloPoMo

This past weekend saw us set out on our biannual Costco run. The Italian Stallion and I do not engage in this sport lightly. The visit is a culmination of weeks of precision planning, pantry reconnaissance and rigorous training. The training consists of pushing dollar bills in and pulling them out of wallets and speedy mathematical value assessment. Apart from this physical and mental preparation, there is always the the issue of what to wear to resolve. I mean who wants to end up on the hypothetical Costco equivalent of People of Walmart.

To us non-Americans the Wal-Mart phenomenon is curious indeed. We have no real Australian equivalent that has spurned a whole subculture. In fact, I was so curious that I asked a friend to take me to a Wal-Mart in Tennessee last time I was in the States to pop my Wal-Mart cherry. It must have been a slow day because it was nothing like what I expected to see having regard to the Wal-Mart mythology from the Internet. People shopped whilst fully clothed and there were no sprawling cash register lines. Talk about underwhelming. I didn’t buy anything.

But back to Costco. For us Costco is a pilgrimage and something not undertaken lightly as it is a least a half day event. There are a few reasons for this. Firstly there is only one Costco servicing Sydney. Sydney has a population of about two million, so our Costco sees plenty of action. Secondly, the store is about an hour’s drive away and that’s not counting the time it takes to find a parking spot. Thirdly, given there is only one store social encounters are unavoidable even for a city of this size. You will always meet someone you know at Costco, which of course then ties into the whole fashion thing. This weekend’s excursion didn’t disappoint as we bumped into two of the Italian Stallion’s colleagues and their spouses.

And everything about Costco is BIG.

Big quantities, big deals, big checkout lines, ginormous trolleys and big bucks. Costco have these great little dinner rolls that I have longingly wanted to try for the past year. I have picked up a pack every time I have been to Costco, but the thought of what to do with 36 of them has always led me to leave them on the shelf. This time though I bit the ~~bullet~~ bread and took the BIG small dinner roll plunge.

And the act of lovingly placing in my trolley the 3 kilos of chicken thighs that will grace our dinner plates for the next little while next to that piece of outdoor furniture that I had to have is worth the trip all on its own. I like an eclectic, variety filled shopping basket.

The fun continued with the post Costco run packathon. Getting the stuff in the car took the patience of the Dalai Lama and the precision of Tetris. Luckily for me the Italian Stallion is really good at Tetris which is positive news indeed because the whole Tetris thing had to be repeated in the pantry at home. As for finding the stuff three months down the track when we need to use it… yeah.. good luck with that.

Which leads me to divulge Fascinating Costco Fact No. 352: After buying cling wrap in bulk at Costco last year, we have figured out we use 300m of the stuff in a year. Costco therefore not only assists with inventory control but also gives good trivia.

So now we are back in training for next year’s biannual Costco run. Should be just in time for Easter.

Dinner roll anyone?