Alcoholism + Productivity

Er, so to speak. Over the course of the weekend, I put together the ingredients to make a 1-gallon batch of mead, based on these directions. This was somewhat harder than I anticipated. I went to four grocery stores in my neighborhood, and all had approximately the same set of baking supplies -- and no yeast. Bit of an obstacle. Today I took the subway down to Columbus Circle to find the Whole Foods, the closest thing to a real grocery store.

This is one of the maddening things about New York -- upper Manhattan anyway. The population density means it can support an immense number of businesses, but due to the limitations on space, each one of them is laughably small. Instead of the wide selection you see at a standard Chicago or (God help you) suburban supermarket, you get several copies of the same limited selection. Most businesses have an incentive to set themselves apart (restaurants, for example), but grocery stores don't seem to have that pressure on them.

Anyway, I went to the spacious, gleaming Whole Foods and contemplated the splendid nonsense of capitalism:
-On entry, I was nearly annihilated by the vast selection of smelly cheeses available from the deli. Potent indeed.
-There is less price variation between different qualities of food than there is between different qualities of cookware ($16 seems like a lot for a colander, even if it is square).
-Beer selection was good, more expensive than supermarket-price, but cheaper than bodega-price. Yuengling was an unexpected steal at $6 per 6-pack.

In the end, I walked out with both yeast and beer (Yuengling of course). Mead-making is successful so far: the yeast seems to have taken hold. This gives me three of four months to come up with terrible Viking-themed ideas for what to do with it. Skål!