But let me back up. I was invited to participate in this challenge by my friend, Jessica Gottlieb, because, like most moms, I shop for the groceries and prepare most of the dinners in my house, and, like most moms, I like a bargain and can’t ignore a challenge. Anyway, the challenge was to spend $25 or less, shop the store for only 10 minutes, and prepare a meal for 4 in 25 minutes or less. No cooking allowed, but chopping and mixing, no prob. And we were encouraged to use Safeway brand products as well. Winner got a $1000 Vons gift card, plus a $1000 donation in her name to the Vons Foundation for breast cancer awareness. Not too shabby.

I called on my friend, Chef Amy Jurist, who helped me figure out the recipe for — da dahhh: BBQ Chicken Sliders with Cole Slaw, and for dessert, Chocolate Chunk Cookie Ice Cream Sandwiches with Dulce de Leche Ice Cream. Amy is a rock star when it comes to menu planning and recipes, so I took her advice and am really glad I did!

The plan was to check out the store and make the recipe the day before, to make sure I was under budget and that I could do it the time allowed. Amy even timed me running around the store to shop! Hi-larious.

(Minor panic when I showed up: no rotisserie chickens on hand. GULP. The store’s oven was broken. Can you imagine? How’s a mom supposed to make a no-cook chicken dinner without rotisserie chicken? Luckily, Carl, the assistant manager, completely understood the situation and promised me that even if the oven weren’t fixed he would buy chickens from another Vons and bring them in for us. And he followed through! Thank you, Carl! In fact the whole store was camera-ready, all decked out for us, and the staff were extremely helpful and friendly.)

Anyway, without further ado, here’s the recipe! Start with the bag of shredded cabbage (I like purple, myself),

and add the cole slaw dressing. (I started with this so it had time to let the flavor build.) Use as much dressing as you like, but enough to coat the cabbage. Then set it aside. Next, shred the chicken and put it in a bowl. (A whole chicken is really quite a lot of meat, by the way; you can probably use only half and save the rest for another meal. Budget-conscious!) Chop a little bit of red onion, probably about a tablespoon, just for crunch, and add that to the chicken. Next, add the BBQ sauce, about 1 cup. I really liked this Safeway brand Hickory Smoke flavor . I taste-tested it against my (old) favorite National brand, and it was actually better. Plus — it has a new low price: $1.99 — and with my club card $1.69. Gotta love it. OK, after the BBQ sauce — the secret ingredient: sweet pickle relish. (I know, I couldn’t believe it either, but it gives a great little extra something to the flavor, and none of the icky thing you might think would happen. Also a Safeway product.) Mix it all together and you have your chicken mixture. Assemble each slider by taking a dinner roll (another Safeway product) and slicing it in half. Then pour a little bit of BBQ sauce on the bottom (so it doesn’t get too dry), add a dollop of BBQ chicken mixture (probably about 1/3 of a cup), add about a tablespoon of the cole slaw, and top with the other half of the dinner roll. Voila!
The prices were so good, I had enough left over in my $25 budget for dessert: ice cream sandwiches. I used these Safeway products: 2 Chocolate chunk brownie cookies filled with Dulce de Leche ice cream. Over the top. Better if you can keep them in a freezer until serving, not like I had to do today: leave them sitting outside in Burbank at noon so they melted. Oh well.
The challenge was exciting and fun, and I’m grateful I got to participate. There were groovy prizes for all of us — even the losers. Almost to a woman, we were giddy when we heard we got to keep these mixing bowls we’d been using to make our dishes! And I liked finding out that some of the new prices were significantly lower on products I normally buy.

Vons/Pavilions has done this as a response to the economy, and I have to tell you it reminded me of something: Schooner Tuna. In the movie Mr. Mom, starring Michael Keaton and Teri Garr, when he loses his job and can’t find a new one right away, she goes back to work at an ad agency, and one of their accounts is Schooner tuna. The company wants the ad agency to try all sorts of gimmicks to get people to buy their product, but Teri Garr suggests instead that they just lower their price and appeal to consumers who are having money trouble and need a break. Of course, it turns out, the strategy works. And I like to think it’s because, in the movie, it was suggested by a mom who’s done her share of shopping within her budget.

How fitting, then, that Vons/Pavilions asked us Moms to demonstrate that their strategy can work, too.*My competitors were: Joann Neil (LA Motherhood Examiner), Carolyn Graham of LA Parent, Save At Home Mommy, Me, Yvonne Condes (Yvonne In LA),Erin Shachory (aka, the Winner!), Christy (CouponGal.net), Anna Vocino (Gluten Free Anna), Jessica Gottlieb, and Lolita Carrico (MyGloss).

Some photos by Katy Tafoya, used with permission. The rest by me.

Huh? was my response. This, I said, is not my problem as a customer. This is YOUR problem. Open the box and build another one, quick! And let me take this one and give you cash money for it right now. Because I am right here, in the flesh, buying this bike right now. Those other mythical 7 people that Might Come In? Mythical. Is this a business built on mythical sales or real sales?

As I said, my intention was Very Strong. I was going to leave the store (located in Culver City, btw) with a bike. Oh, and I was going to do it in the next 10 minutes, too — so I wouldn’t be late picking up my kids.

I spoke to 3 different levels of managers, all in the space of 7 minutes, very politely, and with strong, clear intention, told them I wanted to walk out of the store with the fully-assembled display model bike, for which I was ready to pay full price — not asking for a special price, here — just the bike.

I almost — but did not — mention the critical phrases, Do you know what a blog is? Have you heard of social media?

Finally, the glimmer in Manager Mike’s eye — the softening of the face, the relenting to my relentless desire. I paid, ran out the door pulling the bike, stuffed it in my trunk and made it back just in time for the bell to ring at school. Whew!

Thank you, Culver City Toys R Us!! Thank you Manager Mike! I got just what I wanted! And I just wanted to express my gratitude.

OK, take it from me, there's only one way to do Costco: you must pay for the Executive or Business membership, or else you can't shop until 11am — which is ridiculous and breaks up the day. The place doesn't open even for Business members until 10am, which is bad enough, but hey, it's the best you can do.