Inflation on almost everything has gone nuts since Covid, from food to housing to you name it, but there have been some ups and downs. Eggs have returned to more sane levels, at least, since the bird flu went away, which had brought the mass cull of 30M chickens, but beef is particularly up because the U.S. cattle herd is at 70-year lows thanks to cyclical drought hitting with record demand, along with all-time high operating costs for ranchers. I just read an article where you can expect that to get worse, btw, since ranchers are keeping more breeding stock to rebuild their herds, which is temporarily removing even more available beef. The upside is once the herds are back and more favorable weather returns, the prices should come back down.
But, you can find bargains. For most of this year, a local grocer has been selling NY strip steaks for $15.99/lb individually in their case. But, they also sell entire beef short loins for $7.99/lb, and they'll cut them into NY strips of any thickness you like, and even trim the fat cap if you want. I have no idea why there's that much of a price disparity, but I've been regularly buying whole short loins and vac-sealing and freezing the individual steaks, which we eat a lot of.
But no, I don't like the overall high grocery prices, either. I'm making coq au vin tonight and looked at my grocery receipts from buying everything to make it, and see it cost north of 60 bucks. Granted, that includes the bottle of wine and a whole chicken that will provide a bunch of pretty bougie meals, and there will be plenty of vegetables and stock I'll get out of it for other things, but still... 60 bucks to make dinner. On the other hand, that's still much cheaper than eating out.
