A plethora of cheap seafood

Now that we are getting close to this Summer's boon of seafood, the stuff that's been in the freezer since last year is on deep discount at the supermarket. Half-price king crab legs, salmon, and halibut! It's wonderful.

Food here is expensive in general (although, being California-raised, I tend to be less affected by sticker shock on food or housing prices), especially produce. But the shipping times up here are so long that often produce arrives at the peak of ripeness, and so it must be sold immediately and so goes on sale at deep discount. I've gotten grapefruit at 3 for a dollar, avocados at $1.50 each, oranges for $.70 a pound, pineapples for $3 each, and giant globe artichokes for $2 a piece. The result is that I go shopping for produce quite frequently (since I seldom get anything underripe), and never know what I'm going to get when I go. It's like the Fairbanks supermarket equivalent of the CSA box.

Another funny result of this is that when I eat lunch with friends, we all find that we have similar things. Does your sandwich have spinach instead of lettuce in it? Oh, mine too! Got that cheap spinach, eh? So you have Granny Smith apples this week? Oh yeah, me too!