lummi island wine tasting july 30 ’26
This week open Friday only, closed Saturday
reefnetters ready to start fishing this year’s runs!
Friday Bread This Week
Dried Cherry and Pecan – a levain is made the night before final mixing of the dough, starting fermenation and gluten development. The final dough includes bread flour, fresh milled whole wheat, dried cherries and toasted pecans. A nice rustic loaf that goes well with meats and cheese – $5/loaf
Pan de Cioccolate – A delicious chocolate artisan bread made with a levain, bread flour and fresh milled rye flour, honey for sweetness, vanilla and plenty of dark chocolate. Makes fabulous toast, even better french toast – $5/loaf.
Remember pastry sells out fast. I can only make so much – and all pastry is a popular! if you wait to order I’ll probably be sold out and you’ll be sad.
Rum Raisin Brioche: A delicious brioche dough full of eggs, butter and sugar. Filled with golden raisins and chunks of almond paste and topped with a chocolate glaze before baking. Ooh la la, what’s not to like?! – 2/$5.
This week’s wine tasting flight
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.
Matchbook Red Gravel Cab ’22 California $17
Medium-bodied white wine with dense texture, rich, elegant aromas, and succulent flavors of pineapple, lemon zest, chamomile, sea salt, stone fruits, and a bright, tangy acidity, pleasing creamy texture, and deep flavors!
Edi Simcic Duet ’21 Slovenia $27
Balanced blend of merlot, cab sauv, cab franc; bold and compelling, with notes of chocolate, cherries, cheesecake, and coffee on silky tannins, a lush, ripe, fruit-full body, and a finish that goes on and on.
A Brief Lament (wah!) on Personal Identity
Last Saturday morning we went to the weekly Saturday Market next to the Islander, shopping and schmoozing with vendors and neighbors, then took the dog for a quiet walk at Curry Preserve, then home, and learned that somewhere in those activities I had lost my wallet! That began a fruitless search of tracing steps at home, cars, market vendors, but all coming up short.
I know that many of you have gone through this, and while I felt some sympathy hearing about each one, one doesn’t really “Get It” about the intensity of the intrusion it imposes until you experience it. When it happens to you it is like being hit by some kind of locomotive. Every aspect of our social identities is tied up in those credit cards, driver’s license, ID’s, cash, ferry punch cards, health insurance, library, and more. Without them we are suddenly ghost-like, not quite fully materialized, with, literally, no purchase on Reality!
All of these bits of identity have to be replaced with new ones, and each one involves its own strange trip over its own particular hurdles, rules, idiosyncrasies, websites, robotic phone menus, and occasional helpful, knowledgeable agents that walk you down from that particular ID ledge toward solid social ground of actual existence!
We also know, of course, that anyone who finds the cards will have the opportunity to try to use them to buy things, sell them, or use them in various scams. It’s a really creepy experience, one that qualifies for the comment of an old sailor in his book on Heavy Weather Sailing: “experiencing a hurricane at sea in a small sailboat is “something most devoutly to be eschewed.” Well, maybe it will turn up.
Fingers crossed…!
Economics of the Heart: The Brutality of Republikan Avarice
The goals for the New Republikan America are now becoming fully visible in all their sadistic cruelty, selfish entitlements, environmental disdain, misogyny, and self-importance, making them a pretty good manifestation of the Seven Deadly Sins defined not in the Bible, but in the teachings of the early Catholic Church. Over the centuries the teachings of the Church let everyone know that, yes, these are the things you must reveal in confession and do penance for if you sincerely desire not to spend Eternity in Hell (for a mortal sin) or a big chunk of Eternity in Purgatory (for too many of those pesky venial sins) before an eventual (how long is half an eternity…?!) transfer to Heaven. This is what I learned from the nuns in their complicated black robes.
It was certainly enough to generate some seriously terrifying nightmares when I was just 6 or 7 years old. Nowadays our government uses fear and coercion to control our behavior by “disappearing” people off the street, never to be seen alive again, like American Ice does every day. It is to get us to shut up and toe the line or expect trouble ahead.
So on the one hand spreading the concepts of Deadly Sins- confession- penance on a social level– made for a peaceful, kind society where the Church played a dominant role. But at the same time it opened the door to all kinds of abuse as well. So it promises to be if the Republikan billionaires-turned-Christian Nationalist succeed in doing away with all vestiges of democracy, Constitutional rights, or civic action.
On the current Republikan trajectory we see the mobilization of a very different kind of so-called Christianity where mercy, kindness, moderation, responsibility, and service to others have been replaced by a sociopathic structure more akin to a Russian Gulag, a sadist’s tools of torture, and a disdain for individual rights. Postponed indefinitely are attending to essential survival needs to reverse global warming, to value and nurture each human being, and to pool global knowledge and intention toward building a sustainable, interdependent world where every family has the resources for comfort and safety.
In various ways Republicans are trying to Own the emerging subservient Christianity, control media where people get information, and get the masses to keep settling for less and less. Every day it becomes more and more clear that they are to a person a cruel, heartless lot who seem hell-bent on the destruction of all life on Earth.
What are we talking about here…. ” a better World for fewer trillionaires…?”
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2072 Granger Way