I do the vast majority of my shopping for meat at Costco, but the lamb at Costco is about $5.99/lb for a whole boneless leg, 7.99/lb for 8-9 loin chops, or 11.99/lb for a whole rack (8 bones, sometimes a ninth on the bigger ones). Occasionally one of those things will go on sale or be a bit higher, but those prices have been pretty stable for the last few years. Beef prices are a lot more variable in comparison, and there aren’t totally analogous cuts, but choice chuck is surprisingly close in price to choice NY strip at about 7.99/lb, and choice rib eye at about 10.99/lb. “Cheap” cuts of beef are hardly worth buying, with short ribs at 10.99/lb, flank steak at 7.99/lb, flap meat at 9.49/lb, etc., unless they’re on sale. Costco tends to only carry prime sirloin and not choice, but it’s usually at least 7.99/lb.
Bottom line, lamb doesn’t look that much more expensive that comparable beef cuts, and lamb leg is almost always a bargain. I think a lot of it has to do with familiarity, and difficulty of cooking. Expertly cooked beef and lamb are pretty similarly delicious (I might even give the edge to rack of lamb), but overcooked lamb is quite a bit worse than overcooked beef: tougher and gamier. Also, it’s a lot easier to overcook things like lamb chops or a rack, as they are thin and the bones can get in the way. So I suspect a lot of people are intimidated, or maybe they’ve just had bad lamb and then stay away.
It’s amazing to me how this works, and it seems like a free market failure. It seems the same everywhere… Cable Company A gives you a discount for 1-2 years, then when it expires they refuse to give it. Cable Company B offers a discount that gives you similar pricing if you switch, so you do, and that expires in 1-2 years at which point they will not continue it and you switch back to Cable Company A that is offering the same thing.
I suppose that they are profiting from this model because some people are more annoyed by switching than they are by paying extra, but you would think that if one of them would just allow the discount to continue, they’d just dominate until the other one changed to match… at which point there would be direct competition and rates would have to normalize near the minimum acceptable amount of profit.
Which is why I assume it’s all a big racket and there’s some collusion and price-fixing going on.
Last Week Tonight is definitely less funny but simultaneously more informative:
I’m essentially an immigrant at this point myself and have met far too many who work way harder than most locals. No doubt a country comprised mostly of immigrants (legal or otherwise) would be 1000x better than America.
I’ve been bouncing back and forth between Frontier FIOS and Spectrum cable like this for years. 2 years with each one.
Btw if you want cheap directv sunday ticket streaming - you just have to pretend to be a student. All you need to know is name, bday and the school they go to. Name on the credit card doesn’t matter.
I love lamb. My grocery has butterflied boneless lamb leg for $5/pound about every other month. I usually grab a few, cook one up, and toss the rest in the freezer. My wife and daughter won’t eat it, so I always have leftovers for lunches. I’ll also frequently order chops or a steak when dining out.
Some of my friends also raise a couple of head every year. So it’s not that unusual at all to eat it frequently around my circles.
This lamb discussion is interesting. It’s a regular staple in our diet because we wife is Indian so grew up without eating pork. On the issue of overcooking, we eat plenty of lamb meatballs and braises/stews, which more or less eliminate the risk of overcooking.
Interesting the different attitudes to lamb. I believe historically it was regarded as a bit of a luxury meat in the UK, not sure if that is still true. It’s commonplace here, lot of sheep farming. I prefer beef, personally, but a great roast lamb can be awesome.
While we’re on the subject of food and cultural differences, I read the other day that blackcurrant is an uncommon flavor in the US. Is this true? It was in the context of a quiz question asking us to name the flavours of Skittles. I swear the purple ones used to be blackcurrant here - and they still are in the UK and parts of Europe - but they’re grape in the US and I tasted some the other day and they are definitely grape here now. This led on to a discussion in our team where one team member claimed that Skittles don’t actually have distinguishable flavours, which led to a couple of us doing a blind taste test. I got 11/15 correct tasting blind. They are definitely distinguishable but it’s harder than you would think. The orange ones in particular just have a vague citrus flavor, not very orangey, and since they are all acidified with citric acid, “vague citrus flavor” is a tough thing to identify.
Anyway, to return from this tangent, blackcurrant is a commonplace candy flavor here and apple and blackcurrant juice is a fairly common blend, probably about as common as orange and mango. Is is less known over there?
Wild. It’s a very distinctive flavor, not something you can describe in terms of other flavors. It’s like having someone tell you they don’t really know what lime flavor is. Blackcurrant is frequently used as a description of wine flavor here and in the UK, especially for Cabernet. Well actually they normally say cassis because they’re snobs.
Most American mouths have never tasted the sweet yet tart tang of the blackcurrant berry. There’s a big reason for that: in the early 20th century, the growing of blackcurrants was banned on a federal level in the U.S. after legislators discovered that the plants, brought over from Europe, had become vectors for a wood-destroying disease known as white pine blister rust.
During the 1960s, the federal ban on the berry was relaxed in favor of state-by-state jurisdiction, and most states now allow it to be grown. But the damage had already been done—the blackcurrant jams, juices, pastries and cakes that are standard throughout Europe are nowhere to be found stateside.
They describe the taste as a “cross between blueberry and cranberry”, which is probably as good an approximation as is possible, but also totally fails to capture the experience. Blackcurrants are both sweet and tart, which is what that description does well at capturing, but the flavour itself, while recognisably berry-like, is not like either blueberry or cranberry.
I have YouTube TV and it’s pretty good. Has a very good DVR. I had Hulu TV for a few month before then and it was OK. The DVR on Hulu was worse (and you had to pay extra for it) but the on demand stuff was much better. I literally forget what drove me to switch from Hulu to Youtube TV. Maybe I wanted to watch something on Tennis channel and that came with the youtubes? Something like that. Anyway, that’s the main benefit for me, they both make switching/cancelling very very easy and the bills are transparent.
I subscribe to HBO and a rotating other premium channel, either showtime or starz depending on what’s on. You could get that through Hulu or youtube but I just get it through amazon prime channels.
Live sports on youtube tv is pretty good, totally adequate video quality, I’d say on par with cable but it’s hard to tell. Good enough for me anyway. I’d say picture quality on youtube tv is better than hulu tv. And avoid sling like the plague, it is horrendous. I got it to watch the NCAA tournament a few years ago and holy shit it was like watching a youtube video at 240 resolution. Terrible compression artifacts and froze frequently. I only paid 20 bucks a month but man it wasn’t worth it.
So I also watch a lot of TV and youtube tv is pretty good. Good for live sports and other cable stuff. Only thing is that on demand free library is notably worse than what you probably got for cable. I actually don’t know if I’m saving any money but at least my bill is transparent and predictable and if that changes I don’t have to speak to an actual person to cancel.
Lamb is still considered a luxury here in the UK and its very nice with a blackcurrent sauce
Everytime my mom cooks lamb its very fatty (Roast Lamb leg) when my brother cooks it its great as he cooks the chops As I can’t cook my Lamb Chops are usually coated in honey glaze (Imo The best sauce for Lamb)
My friends a top chef and he brought a lamb leg over from The Isle of Arran from his farm wrapped in a sheet over to mine (Journey was about 5/6 hours) then cooked it in my Kitchen (Not the best ovens ) and it was the most beautiful meat I’d ever tasted, when Lamb is done correct nothing beats It.
I just came across this for the first time yesterday, watching football at a friend’s house. Is legit impressive and is something I’m going to look into, because fuck cable companies.
Thanks for the input. Strange but in my experience there is no middle ground in Sling, people either love it or hate it. I’m seeing that Hulu has a ton of live sports which I assume does not include NFL
- mint sauce is where it’s at.