The Vegan captain of the Whole Foods grocery chain spent 8 years on the Yahoo message boards using a pseudonym to pump his stocks, depress the stocks of his competitors, and compliment himself on how good he looked in the company’s annual stock report.

 
Maybe Mackey should be posing with a giant bag of nuts.

When someone does this, its called using a “sock puppet.”  They create an online persona to make arguments they themselves can’t make, or agree to arguments made by his real self.  Its also a sign of an inflated ego or a deranged lunatic.

And because of this activity, plus because the merger with Wild Oats would create a natural-foods monopoly, the Federal Government is going to reject the merger.

From the WSJ here:

In January 2005, someone using the name “Rahodeb” went online to a Yahoo stock-market forum and posted this opinion: No company would want to buy Wild Oats Markets Inc., a natural-foods grocer, at its price then of about $8 a share.

The comments were typical of banter on Internet message boards for stocks, but the writer’s identity was anything but. Rahodeb was an online pseudonym of John Mackey, co-founder and chief executive of Whole Foods Market Inc. Earlier this year, his company agreed to buy Wild Oats for $565 million, or $18.50 a share.
 
For about eight years until last August, the company confirms, Mr. Mackey posted numerous messages on Yahoo Finance stock forums as Rahodeb. It’s an anagram of Deborah, Mr. Mackey’s wife’s name. Rahodeb cheered Whole Foods’ financial results, trumpeted his gains on the stock and bashed Wild Oats. Rahodeb even defended Mr. Mackey’s haircut when another user poked fun at a photo in the annual report. “I like Mackey’s haircut,” Rahodeb said. “I think he looks cute!”

Mr. Mackey’s online alter ego came to light in a document made public late Tuesday by the Federal Trade Commission in its lawsuit seeking to block the Wild Oats takeover on antitrust grounds.

Mr. Mackey posted on the company Web site, saying that the FTC was quoting Rahodeb “to embarrass both me and Whole Foods.” He also said: “I posted on Yahoo! under a pseudonym because I had fun doing it. Many people post on bulletin boards using pseudonyms.” He said that “I never intended any of those postings to be identified with me.”

Mr. Mackey’s post continued: “The views articulated by rahodeb sometimes represent what I actually believed and sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes I simply played ‘devil’s advocate’ for the sheer fun of arguing. Anyone who knows me realizes that I frequently do this in person, too.”

Like Whole Foods itself, Mr. Mackey, a 53-year-old vegan, is somewhat unconventional. He and his wife practice yoga and meditation and own a 720-acre ranch west of Austin. He once took a sabbatical to hike the Appalachian Trail.

There is a Whole Foods in my town, and I don’t shop there because the prices are way too expensive.  And I like eating produce that has been sanitized because e-coli infections like the two outbreaks this past year both came from “organic” farms.  But I like Whole Foods’ selection of spices.  If I ever make another batch of mead I might go there to get some fresh cinnamon or allspice.

But if this merger doesn’t go through and Whole Foods’ stocks continue to sink, will they fire their vegan nutjob of a CEO?  If you are interested, all of his posts are still on Yahoo here.

The New York Times printed an article on the decline of honeybee colonies across the country. I expected the article to blame the losses on Global Warming, but was surprised to learn that many of them are dying because of the cold. That, and the fact that bees are probably having to work longer seasons. They have to work almond groves in California in February, where many of the bee deaths due to cold are taking place.

From the Times here:

Bees have been disappearing inexplicably at an alarming rate, threatening not only the livelihoods of beekeepers, but also the production of numerous crops, including California almonds, one of the nation’s most profitable.

Bees are flying off in search of pollen and nectar and simply never returning to their colonies. And nobody knows why. Researchers say the bees are presumably dying in the fields, perhaps becoming exhausted or simply disoriented and eventually falling victim to the cold.

This bothers me mostly because I love to make mead. Less bees mean that there may be less honey, or more expensive honey in the future. Honey is running about 4 dollars per pound currently. I blame Al Gore for the deaths of the honey bees. As the prophet of eco-doom, he should have seen this coming and moved those bees somewhere warmer.

I whipped up another batch of mead tonight.  This batch is made from honey produced by apiaries that service butterbean fields, mixed with a spiced tea made from blackberry preserves, cinnamon, nutmeg, juniper berries, a dash of rosemary and some anise seed.

It should be ready in about a week, just in time for my Haloween Party.

My basic recipe is for homemade mead is located here.

Because of the high sugar content of the africanized honey I used for my last batch of mead, I stopped fermentation a little bit early. This stuff was fizzing almost all week like someone had dropped an alka-seltzer tab in it. I have learned from experience that the rapid fizzing is an over-clocked fermentation, so I had to do a tasting late Friday night. It tasted just right, even though it was a day or too early.

This mead didnt taste very much different from the other types of honey I have used, but it does have a richer aroma. The blackberry tea lended the mead a lingering tartness that nicely counteracted the off-dry sweetness. During fermentation the mead was a blonde color, but now that it has settled, it is a rich amber gold. And its so tasty over a little ice.

Im going back to the Maryland Renfest again tomorrow. Its pirate weekend, and I have a pirate costume that I mashed together from various sources, so it should be lots of fun. I think the best thing about the Renfest is the feasting. Im looking forward to the pickles that are the size of your fist and the bags of beef jerkey. And of course, the turkey leg is a must-get every time you go.

One of the best surprises about the Renfest is the store that sells specialized honey. There are about two dozen different types of honey, ranging from clover to Tupelo honey to blueberry flower honey. You can actually do a honey tasting at this store to find out what honey you like the best. Most people like honey with biscuits or other baked goods. I like it for mead.

I got four pounds of honey last time I was there to make my mead with. One type is honey made from Africanized Bees in Brazil. Out of all the honeys I tasted, the Africanized Honey seemed to be the thickest with the most sugar. So I mixed that into a batch of mead tonight, along with a spiced tea containing cinnamon, nutmeg, juniper berries, rosemary and fennel seeds. For the fruit flavor, I chose a rich blackberry preserves to steep into a deep purple tea that I mixed with the honey water.

It should be ready next Sunday. If you want my complete recipe for one gallon of easy mead, check here.

I have updated my original recipe for mead with a couple of changes. First, I urge the use of fruit preserves in place of fresh ground fruit. The reason for this is that the fruit may contain bacteria or other elements that could spoil the fermentation. The preserves have already been cooked and sterilized, and it is a cheaper and more economical way to add fruit flavorings to the mead rather than using fresh fruit.

You can still use fresh fruit, but I think the risk is higher that the mead fermentation could spoil.

Second, I recommend that you use a 1000 MG tablet of vitamin C ground into the herbs. The vitamin C tab will act as an anti-oxidant and will help keep the cloudiness down to a minimum.

My wife is a very huge fan of the Maryland Renaissance Festival. And that pretty much makes me one now by default, although I still shake my head in disbelief that people enjoy getting dressed up and pretending it still the time before hygiene, refrigeration and electricity.

The Maryland Renfest is probably one of the best in the country, and it will be open every weekend through October. They have beautiful wooded acres of land and very cool architecture like the “Rosie’s Posies” house below.

My wife is urging me to get my own costume too, and Im being a bit curmudgeony about it. No more jeans and sneakers for me, she keeps insisting. She was in full Renfest Garb (and she was really stunning too), and she wants me to play along and wear a costume too so she wont feel goofy being the only one of us dressed up.

I got the baggy pants on Sunday. They are forest green. Maybe I can blend into the Maryland woodlands. I need a shirt and boots and I’ll be set.

Don’t get me wrong, I have a blast when I go to Crownsville, MD, like I did this past Sunday. The food was great. Gnawing on a roasted turkey leg is one of my favorite things. The beer was really good. The mead? A little too dry and clear for my taste, but I drank that too and liked it! There were dozens of craftsmen and artists selling their artwork and pottery, and the actors and performers were outstanding entertainment.

But you know what I liked best about the Renfest? No, not all the well-defined cleavage protruding above tight bodices, although that was plentiful. The best part was the PEOPLE WATCHING! And not just watching visitors play “Drench the Wench” at the dunking booth or totally weak guys trying to hit the bell with the big sledge hammer and missing horribly. No, its the people that are either way too into playing dressup, or its the odd cliques of people who gather together at a picnic table.

The guy below was way into it, but he looked a little authentic. But he was obviously trying to be a “Mage.” I thought they burned people that practiced witchcraft at the stake during the Renaissance? Okay, Merlin was a mage, but that was just the legend of King Arthur, and that was supposed to happen in the Dark Ages. This type of mage has to figure out how many D6’s to roll to launch a fireball.

These two guys below struck me as odd too. One is a black knight and the other is some type of disfigured monk? They were blocking my path back to the Beer Stand.

And finally is the oddest collection of characters outside of World of Warcraft. We have a Goth Angel, a shirtless man and some sort of fox-tailed gent in a smoking section. All of the guys have hair that is really just way too long and no tans to speak of. The topic of conversation? “If hobbits really existed, what continent would they live on?”

The mead turned out quite good. Its an amber color with a crisp semi sweet taste. Its a bit hard to taste the rasberry. I may need to use more preserves next time, but its nice to have an excellent batch again.

Cheers!

I have been doing so much travelling that I havent had a chance to make a batch of mead. The last time I tried, I used fresh pitted cherries, and I think it fermented way too fast. A tip to myself is when you see it bubbling like an alka-seltzer, it means that the fermentation is in over drive. When I took the last batch off of the shelf, it tasted horrible, like vinegar.

I’m guessing that there may have been some type of contamination from the fresh fruit. Or maybe it just fermented way too quickly, and all of the sugars from the honey were converted to alcohol.

Now that I am staying put for a while, its time to run another batch. I whipped one up on Saturday. This time, I used ground spices of cinnamon, a few juniper berries, some rosemary and a little anise seed. I also used about two tablespoons of raspberry preserves for the fruit flavor. The honey was special too, since it was all from wildflowers. The honey was a deep, dark amber color, and the mead is a dark brownish red color like an ale.

It should be ready for drinking on Saturday. After a few glasses of it, I will provide an update.

I just started a batch of mead. It will have a rasberry flavor with a hint of mint.

I was asked by a pal to post the complete directions for making your own mead. So here goes. Note that this recipe is without any warranty, and mead making is not an exact science, as everyone does it differently.

What you will need:

• 1 Gallon of Spring or Distilled Water
• 2 Pounds of Filtered Honey
• Measuring Cups
• Sauce Pan with Lid
• Funnel, or a soda bottle and a knife
• Rubber Band and piece of muslin or high thread count cotton swatch
• Spices of your choice
• Fruit of your choice or preserves of fruit of your choice
• 500 MG tablet of vitamin C (optional, for clarity of liquid)
• Dry Champagne Yeast

The water is best if it comes in a plastic gallon jug with a screw top lid. The honey should be filtered and not raw, crystalized or with any honeycomb in it. The funnel should have a wide mouth since you have to pour thick honey through it, so if you don’t have one handy, a 16 oz soda bottle makes a great substitute. Just cut off the bottom of an empty one, and get it clean.

There is no single way to make mead, which is why you can choose the spices of your choice to create a spiced tea to influence the taste of the honey. Caraway, Fennel, Cinnamon, Anise, Mint, Vanilla, Rosemary and even pepper can be used. You can use just about any fruit you wish, such as rasberry, blueberry, strawberry or even citrus can be used. It can be dried fruit or fresh, but just a little to flavor the mead. There is a risk of fresh fruit containing some bacteria that may taint the fermentation process. I have had great success with fruit preserves, which has already been sterilized and you can keep any extra that you do not use.

Make sure that the honey and the water are both above 70 degrees before you begin.

Be sure to use Dry Champagne Yeast or a comparable wine yeast for making the mead. Beer yeast and baking yeast is a no-no. I had to buy my yeast online. It is cheap and comes with a great catalog for home brewers. If you like making mead, maybe its time to try your hand at brewing beer, and Grape and Granary is a great place to start for home kits.

Directions:

Pour 3 cups of water from the water jug into the saucepan. Pour out another 4 cups into the sink, as you need to make room in the water jug for the honey and the tea.

Grind your dry spices together into a powder. Remember that the spices are to flavor the mead, so do not use more than 2 tablepoons total. If you don’t have a mortar and pestle to grind the spices, you can use a bowl and the bottom of a coffee cup. Put the spices into the saucepan. Grind your fruit separately and add it to the saucepan. Again, this is to add flavor, not as a main ingredient. For instance, if you want strawberry flavor, use no more than 2 medium strawberries, or no more than 2 tablespoons. If you have a vitamin C tablet or any multivitamin that contains vitamin C in doses higher than 500 MG, you can crush this and add it to the mix. The vitamins will act as an antioxidant and keep the cloudiness down in the fermented mead.

Bring the mixture in the saucepan to a boil, with the lid in place. Once it begins to boil, stir and reduce heat to a simmer with lid on for about 15 minutes.

While the tea is simmering, its time to add the honey to the water. Pour the 2 lbs of honey into the water using the funnel. You will see the honey sink to the bottom of the water. Put the cap back on the water and start shaking until all of the honey dissolves into the water. This can take as long as five minutes.

When the tea has simmered for about 15 minutes, remove it from heat and let it cool for about ten minutes. Then pour it into the honey-water, and shake it once. This should raise the temperature of the mixture to about 100 degrees which is perfect for adding the yeast.

Add 1 tablespoon of Dry Champagne Yeast to the mixture, and it will spread across the top and float there. Do not shake it. Put the cloth over the top of the jug and secure it in place with a rubber band. The purpose of the cloth is to allow the CO2 to escape while it ferments.

Place the mead in a warm dark place, between 70 and mid 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Bubbling and fizzy sounds are a good sign that the honey is being turned into alcohol.

It should be ready for its first tasting after 5 days, but typically it will not reach a good balance between sweet and dry until 7 days. When the flavor is right, put it in the fridge to slow the fermentation. When its chilled, its ready to drink. Enjoy!

When pouring it, you may want to pour it through a strainer to make sure any floating spices are screened out. And pour it slowly as most of the spent yeast will be at the bottom of the container. When there is about one inch of mead left at the bottom of the jug atop the spent yeast, throw it away as the sludge at the bottom tastes bad.

The mead should taste good for up to two weeks. It tastes great over ice in the summer and is yummy when it is warm in the winter.

All about Mead types here.

The mead was finally ready today and I stuck it in the fridge for chilling. It still has a sweet taste, a hint of blueberry flavor, and a slight spice flavor. It has an apricot color, and is a bit cloudy.

I have to use a strainer to filter out floating spices, but the flavor is quite refreshing. I’m not too sure how much alcohol it contains, but an empty glass sure has that alcohol aroma. I think the next time I try this I will use a bit more water to keep it from being so cloudy and may experiment more with the spices.

Cheers!

My wife loves to play this little game where she makes the cat wear something cute. For whatever reason the cat allows her to do this, and even seems to enjoy it a little bit. Well, we have pictures of Princess Kitty From Planet Cuteness modelling jewelry my wife made.

Im off for a few days to a music festival, Soundquilt. It will be my first time camping since I was in the Scouts, and I’m looking forward to it, but I really don’t know what to expect. Its either going to be fun or torture, or maybe somewhere in between.

When I get home my Mead should be finished with the fermentation process. Right now it has a thick yeasty crust on the top and lots of congealed spices on the bottom. It smells strongly of blueberries, and a tiny taste tonight revealed that it is still on the sweet side. It should be drier as the fermentation continues, so I expect that by Sunday afternoon it will be ready for straining and bottling.

Virginia has its own renaissance festival located at the Lake Anna Winery. Its on the small side, but for a winery, this festival should be a major attraction. They have several food vendors, lots of games for the children and some nicely priced crafts and clothing.

It was so hot when we went, we skipped the wine tasting, so there is no review on the wines at the Lake Anna Winery.

But I bought a kit for making mead, along with 2 pounds of honey. The term “honeymoon” has been associated with drinking mead during the month long celebration following a wedding in pagan times.

I cooked the stuff up last night, and it takes about a week to complete its fermentation. I’m looking forward to finding out how this goes. I will be sure to update with the results.

The making of the mead seemed pretty simple. I took a gallon of distilled water, brewed a tea made from cinnamon, spice seeds and dried blueberries. I added 2 pounds of honey to the rest of the distilled water, and shook it hard for about 5 minutes until the honey was completely dissolved in the water. Once the tea cooled, I added that to the water jug and then added the yeast. I took a piece of filtering cloth and tied it around the top to allow the gas to escape, and set it in a dark place to ferment for a week. I am supposed to do a sample taste on Thursday or Friday to see if its at the right sweetness/dryness, and when its right, I am supposed to cap it and put it in the fridge.

If it turns out well, this can be a fun distraction for me and I will try to experiment with other recipes.