lummi island wine tasting April 10 ’26
Open Friday 4-6 pm
ahhh… a touch of early morning sun!
Friday Bread This Week
Spelt Levain – Spelt is an ancient wheat w/ a nutty, slightly sweet flavor and is made with a levain before blending with bread flour, spelt flour, fresh milled whole spelt and whole rye. – $5/loaf
Semolina w/ Fennel & Raisins – A levain bread made with bread flour, semolina and some fresh milled whole wheat. A little butter for a tender crumb and fennel seeds and golden raisins round out the flavors that go really well with meats and cheese – $5/loaf
Morning Buns – Made popular by Tartine Bakery in San Francisco…mine are made with the same laminated dough as croissants. The dough is rolled out, spread with a filling of brown sugar, orange zest, butter and cinnamon, rolled up and sliced before baking. 2/$5
This week’s wine tasting
Laurenz V Kremstal Sophie Singing Gruner Veltliner $15 Austria
Sustainably produced; youthful nose of orange blossoms, straw, and apples; spritzy on the medium-bodied palate, with notes of yellow grapefruit and a refreshing crisp acidity for a sunny afternoon.
Bodega Garzon Tannat Reserve ’18 Uruguay $16
Opaque deep, dark red; opens with enticing, delicious aromas of very ripe, dark fruit and berries stewed in their own liqueur, with lingering notes of spice, herb, and licorice on the seamless finish.
Pollard Cab Franc ’20 Washington $35
Big wine with expressive nose of hibiscus and gooseberry; palate of dried strawberry and garrigue, well balanced tannic structure, and and long smooth finish.
Economics of the Heart: Religion + Politics = Powder Keg + Flame
Let’s just step back for a brief reflection on the toxic cruelty and idiocy of our government’s ongoing, undeclared War on the Iranian people. We have none of our traditional allies at our side except Israel, which under the guise of “defending its people,” continues to bomb Lebanon’s people and infrastructure mercilessly.
Those bombs, which deliver heartbreaking, widespread, and cruel destruction and death are justified “because they could possibly hit some Hezbollah bad guys hiding there.” At the same time Israel continues its genocidal decimation of now- homeless Palestinians in Gaza and within Israel.
Meanwhile our own United States continues to play a prominent role in Israel’s assertion of power by attacking Iran’s leadership, economic infrastructure, and trade with overwhelming force (Iran’s GDP is about 2% of ours).
Our destructive aggression against Iran marks the unveiling of Hawkish Christian Nationalism as the replacement for Constitutional government in our country. There will be no individual rights, no elections, no accountability, just the ongoing threat of brutality. In numerous Islamic autocracies, like Iran, Brunei, Somalia, Pakistan, Yemen, Sudan, and the Maldives, politics and power would involve rigid application of Rules.
Well, as they say, fook dat! Authoritarianism and religion are a toxic combination in any proportions. Every religion has its teachings, rules, and rationales, and practices. Across the thousands of years of human existence, humans have come up with countless beliefs about life, death, meaning, and purpose, and religions to go with them.
Beginning sometime in the 1st or 2nd century AD, numerous and diverse Gnostic groups generally emphasized personal spiritual knowledge (gnosis) above the authority, traditions, and proto-orthodox teachings of organized religious institutions. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism).
The picture that emerges from the Gnostic writings and musings from the Apostles to more recent historians is that Gnosticism was not a religion, but rather a reflective, meditative, inward-looking path to transcendence, which they believed “represented the inner truth revealed by Jesus.”
Buddhologist Edward Conze (1966) proposed that similarities existed between Buddhism and Gnosticism, a term deriving from the name Gnostics, which was given to a number of Christian sects. To the extent that Buddha taught the existence of evil inclinations that remain unconquered, or that require special spiritual knowledge to conquer, Buddhism has also qualified as Gnostic.
All of this points to the fundamental conclusion that religions are belief systems about existence itself. Those beliefs follow from stories or teachings, including rules and behaviors to be followed, rituals to be practiced, and so forth.
But gnosticism sounds less like a religion and more like a search for transcendence. If there is a takeaway here, it is that kindness, compassion, love, patience, clarity, and wisdom are better for the world than, you know, dropping bombs.
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2072 Granger Way