On Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:09:48 -0400, "Steve Freides" >
wrote:

>Holy Toledo! We were in the local Whole Foods market today - vanilla
>beans are sold _one_ at a time, in glass or plastic jars, at a cost of
>between $6 and $12 - that's for one freakin' bean.
>
>I called a store not too far from here, a huge place we sometimes shop
>that has fabulous prices and usually sells in quantity - $4.49 for _one_
>bean.
>
>Yowser! I'd love both an explanation and a source for less expensive
>vanilla beans.

Maybe a bit late for you - but have you checked eBay? We bought a kilo
(I think?) of pods through eBay - it was by far the best deal we could
find anywhere on the web. For us in Australia at least.

Made an extract and it lasted months, despite my rampant abuse of said
extract

BTW: I took the leftover pulp (after making the second extract from
the pods) and put it through my juicer, which is of the worm drive
type, so it's pretty efficient. Got about two more cups of extract out
of the pulp - is a little grittier but tastes much the same.