Let's start the weekend out right with a new giveaway.

Five readers will win coupons for a free product from Stubb's Barbecue, a Texas-based company that makes all-natural sauces, rubs and marinades.

Stubb's, which has been around since 1968, wants to get the word out about its expanded product line, which includes a new sweet and spicy sauce, injectable marinades and a reformulated rub line.

Stubb's products are gluten free and don't contain high fructose corn syrup.

If you'd like to know more about Stubb's, check out the website at Stubbsbbq.com, which includes recipes for dishes like BBQ Cornbread Casserole and BBQ Mac & Cheeseburger.

I checked the Harris Teeter and Lowes Foods websites and these products range in price from $3.55 to $4.99.

To enter to win one of the free product coupons, just leave me a comment or question below.

I'll pick five winners at random at noon Tuesday, Oct. 23, and post the winners shortly afterward.

Stubb's also sent me bottles of its barbecue sauce, which I'll be giving away at my next coupon class on Saturday, Nov. 3, at the Ronald McDonald House in Durham.

You can find out more about that on the N&O ZONE.

Top Chef Texas finalist Lindsay Autry (pictured at right) is coming to Cary to cook a special dinner on Sept. 7.

Autry will cook with her former co-worker, Steven Devereaux Greene, the executive chef at An New World Cuisine in Cary.

Autry and Greene worked together in Charleston, S.C. and Greenville, S.C. Autry most recently worked as an executive chef at one of James Beard-award-winning chef Michelle Bernstein's restaurants in Florida. Autry, a Fayetteville native, was a contestant on Top Chef Texas.

The five-course meal with wine pairings will cost $125 per person, not including tax or gratuity. The menu includes:

• Amberjack crudo with celery salad, toasted soy, radish and ceviche vinaigrette.
• Butternut squash soup with lamb dumpling, pomegranate puree and curried crème fraiche.
• Grilled octopus with crispy bread, caper leaf remoulade and charred chickpeas.
• Berkshire pork loin and belly with Okinawan yam, romanesco sauce and cassia caramel.
• And for dessert, heirloom apple tart with wild huckleberry jam, sesame-walnuts and maple ice cream.

Dinner starts at 6:30 p.m. Reservations are required. Call 919-677-9229.

(photo credit: photographer Alissa Dragun)
 

Starting Monday, March 19, Blue Bell ice cream -- said to have nothing short of a cult following in its home state of Texas -- will be available right here in the Triangle.

So how would you like to be among the first to taste it? For FREE?

I've got coupons for five free half-gallons of Blue Bell to give away to five blog readers.

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Down 18 points to Texas in the second half, N.C. State needed a break Monday night in the TicketCity Legends Classic.

The Wolfpack got one when Texas' leading scorer J'Covan Brown fouled out with more than 8 minutes left in the game. From there, State out-played and out-hustled the Longhorns in an inspiring 77-74 comeback win.

With 16 points from a hobbling Scott Wood, including a key 3-pointer after Brown fouled out, and 17 from C.J. Leslie, the Wolfpack notched its first important nonconference win of the young season and for first-year coach Mark Gottfried.

Here we go again.

With the Big 12 possibly on the verge of dissolution, the ACC has emerged in published reports as a possible new destination for Texas, one of the nation’s most powerful athletic programs.

According to the Austin American Statesman, based on unnamed sources, Texas has three options:

For the second straight year, North Carolina has been ranked the second best state for business by Chief Executive Magazine.

The news is being touted by Gov. Bev Perdue and Keith Crisco, the state's commerce secretary, as further proof of North Carolina's business-friendly climate and quality workforce.

The rankings are based on surveys completed by 556 CEOs who were asked questions about each state's taxation and regulations, workforce and living environment.

"Not surprisingly, states with punitive tax and regulatory regimes are punished with lower rankings, and this can offset even positive scores on quality of living environment," the magazine notes in a write-up on this year's rankings.

"While state incentives are always welcome, what CEOs often seek are areas with consistent policies and regulations that allow them to plan, as well as intangible factors such as a state’s overall attitude toward business and the work ethic of its population."

Texas earned the top spot in this year's rankings. North Carolina was followed by Florida, Tennessee, Georgia, Indiana, Virginia and South Carolina.

So what to make of these rankings?

Well, it seems fair to note that CEOs as a group aren't exactly hurting right now.

Raleigh gymnast Sydney Snead placed seventh in the nation this past weekend and earned a chance to work with one of the legends of gymnastics.

Snead competed in the Junior A all-around competition at the Level 10 Junior Olympic National Championships in Long Beach, Calif.

Level 10 is the highest level before Elite (Olympic) competition in gymnastics.

It became something of a political football involving a basketball coach when Texas gave Rick Barnes a $200,000 raise recently.

According to the Associated Press, a few Texas state legislators objected strongly last week when the University of Texas increased a scheduled $75,000 raise to $200,000 for the veteran Longhorns coach.

updated: 8:13 p.m.

GREENSBORO -- Had Harrison Barnes gotten a chance to loft a last-second shot at Greensboro Coliseum on Saturday, the freshman wing is fairly certain that he – and his North Carolina teammates – would be celebrating a four-game winning streak.

Instead, after losing a late 7-point lead, and the game to No. 22 Texas 78-76 at Greensboro Coliseum, the Tar Heels (7-4) are left to dissect how so much went wrong, so quickly.

“I was supposed to get the shot on that last play – but I was a little too far [away], and they defended it well,’’ said Barnes, who finished with 16 points. “ I felt like all I needed on that one was a touch to knock it down … for us not to be able to get a good shot off on that last play, that’s frustrating.”

The Bouncing Bulldogs have done it again.

The internationally known rope-skipping team from the Triangle is
heading back to the USA Jump Rope National Championships to try to win
their seventh consecutive national championship.

Forty Bulldogs in 15 events qualified for nationals during a USA Jump
Rope Region 2 qualifying tournament against other teams from the
Carolinas on Saturday at Green Hope High School in Cary.