Aba Shelly

Ok, I see a trend in my learning experiences. Food. There's a lot to be learned from food...well there's a lot to be learned from every encounter if you're open to it. New learning experiences can actually be an extension of what you've already learned, like beginner, intermediate and advanced classes.

Anyhow, I've always known that abalone is expensive. The most common form in which I've had eaten it were originally from a can or dried. Not saying I ate a chewy dried abalone or stuck a fork in a can. That's just unpalatable and a waste of a delicacy. I'm open to being shown wrong on that one! Anyhow, as a result, I more or less knew the approximate price range of these buggers in their less than ideal form. Today I discovered just how expensive they are when fresh. I was at a good restaurant with stellar chefs but it's not exactly extravagent. It's affordable...ok, anything is affordable if you budget properly. Let me rephrase. It's affordable enough to be able to frequent fairly often. A new special dish was recently made available but only if they had fresh abalone on hand. Perfectly cooked in a high quality oyster sauce with vegetables, an order of one abalone (some abalone out there has lost its mate) dressed up in such fine gear cost....$45. Though it was a fair size (size of a small fist), it looked like a heavy snack...or perhaps an appetizer. A real eye opener. Now, if I had ordered a whole mess of them in its typical entree form...let's not think about that. At least it tasted like $40 but I'd rather have that abalone fresh and kicking (er...ok, filtering?) than sitting on a plate burning a whole in my wallet. Let him propagate so that there will be many,many more and it'll only cost $20 for one instead. Abalone farming anyone? And so, I've turned an abalone into a lesson of economics. I'm getting scary doing this now, eh? Alright!