lummi island wine tasting aug 31- sep 2 ’18 labor day artists’ studio tour
(note: some photos will enlarge when clicked)
Bread Friday this week
Buckwheat Walnut & Honey – Fresh milled buckwheat and bread flour. Buckwheat is a seed not a grain, closer in the plant family to rhubarb and sorrel than to wheat and contains no gluten. Buckwheat has an earthy flavor that in this bread is balanced with a little honey. Some toasted walnuts add a nice crunch. This bread goes well with meats and cheeses – $5/loaf
Poolish Ale – The poolish here is made with bread flour, a bit of yeast and a nice ale beer for the liquid, instead of water, and fermented overnight. Mixed the next day with bread flour and fresh milled whole wheat. This makes a great all around bread with a nice crisp crust – $5/loaf
and pastry this week…
Chocolate Croissants – a traditional laminated french pastry made with a bit of sourdough flavor and another pre-ferment to help strengthen the dough to create the traditional honeycomb interior. Rolled out and shaped with delicious dark chocolate in the center. – 2/$5
Studio Tour Hours This Weekend
OPEN Friday 4-7
Bread pickup and wine tasting
OPEN Saturday (9/1) 1-6, and Sunday (9/2) 1-5
Artists‘ Tour and wine tasting
Our visiting artist is Kim Obbink, showing her latest series of finely detailed drawings and paintings of island botanical and marine life subjects.
She has created multimedia images using mostly watercolor and colored pencils to capture not only the visual details of each subject but also to project its feeling and energy. And as she pointed out while hanging the show, like Audobon’s birds, their beauty is of their husks, the bodies they leave behind. Ah, we organic beings are so fleeting…!
Colli Euganei
(click for larger photo)
Colli Euganei (Euganean Hills) were formed from volcanic activity (and they look it) some fifty million years ago. They are just visible from Venice to their South, and have long drawn visitors with their picturesque beauty, hot springs, and calming energy. The poet Petrarch moved there around 1370, late in his life, writing, “I have built me a house, small, but pleasant and decent, in the midst of slopes clothed with vines and olives,”—a house that may be seen there today in the village of Arquà Petrarca.
The Euganean hills also inspired Shelley’s Lines Written Among the Euganean Hills:
‘Mid the mountains Euganean I stood listening to the paean
With which the legion’d rooks did hail The sun’s uprise majestical…
The volcanic history also makes the soils here rich in minerals and trace elements not found in other Venetian subregions, making it attractive for growing Red Bordeaux varietals Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. Today’s Rosso from Vignalta is a smooth and powerful blend of merlot and cabernet sauvignon from the vineyards of Colli Euganei. Hopefully it will make us all wax poetic!
Vranec
Vranec (pronounced ‘Vran-etz’), is Macedonian for “Black Stallion;” wines made with it are deep red, almost black, and imagined to manifest a stallion-like strength and vigor. Vranec can also means “raven-colored,” which is why the wine is known also as “black wine” in Macedonia. An ancient Balkan varietal, it represents the warmth and strength of the Macedonian people.
Vranec wines have an intense, dark red color and rich aromas of dark ripe fruits. The palate is full and balanced. When young, it shows a light purple color and aromas of strawberry jam and wild berries. With age, vranec develops darker color and complex aromas of wild berries, dried fruits, and chocolate, with rich tannins. It is usually blended with merlot, cabernet sauvignon, or syrah to which it adds a bold intensity. This week we are pouring the Straight Stuff not blended with anything else. It’s easy to develop a fondness for these ancient varietals that have maintained their appeal over countless generations, literally a taste of the Past.
Mar a Lago Update: The Federalist Society and Class Warfare
For some reason over the last bunch of years, probably just not paying close enough attention, I have been laboring under the false assumption that the contemporary Federalist Society has something to do with the Federalist Papers of the 1780’s. So it is pretty surprising in one sense that closer examination suggests that they are to a large degree Philosophical Opposites. Doh!
The Federalist Papers were a series of eighty-five letters (essays, really) written to newspapers in the late 1780s to urge ratification of the U.S. Constitution by celebrated statesmen Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay. The essays were published as a book, The Federalist, in 1788. Collectively they tried to make the case that conflicting goals and interests among individuals and states could best be reconciled through the representative nature of the proposed Republic and the checks and balances built into the new Constitution, which was specifically designed to upgrade the failing Articles of Confederation. While their impact on the eventual adoption of the Constitution was probably minimal, the papers served to outline for future generations the concerns of the time.
The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy is something Entirely Different. It is essentially a Political Action Group that has distilled and bottled the legal philosophies of Antonin Scalia into a Code. Its guiding hand is Leonard Leo, a Conservative Catholic Deeply Opposed to a Woman’s Right to Choose, who has essentially dedicated his life to packing the Supreme Court with Justices supporting the paradoxically-named “Pro-Life” movement Dedicated to Bringing Every Conception, however destined for Pain and Suffering, into Whatever Precarious Existence. To a very large degree, this so-called “society” and its so-called “conservative views” are only the Latest Manifestation of the tendency of Human Societies to revert to its Default Organizational Setting: Feudalism.
By this we simply mean that whenever No One Is Looking, the latest group of Dominant Male(s) will Take Arms, Take Charge, enlist a bunch of Young Toughs by promising them Loot and Maybe Even Women, Kill everyone who resists, and dole out Subsistence Resources by whatever psychopathic rules seem appealing to the Leader. (see Venezuela). Think of it this way: Feudalism is the political-organization equivalent of the Theme Song from M*SH…or as Bob Dylan put it: when you got Nothin’ you got Nothin’ to lose.
Bottom Line: under the auspices of Freedom, the goal of the Federalist Society is to pave the way toward the New Corporate Feudalism, under the Tacit Pact of “YOU make abortion illegal and WE will be your Unquestioning Serfs Forever.” After all: Corporations ARE more important than People!
Washington Post Tweetster Lie Count to date: 4229 as of 8/1/18
This week’s wine tasting
Naia Naia ’16 Spain $12
100% Verdejo with 12% fermented in French oak. This fragrant, medium-bodied offering displays enticing aromatics of grapefruit, lime, and kiwi, a round, smooth-textured mouth-feel, and a crisp, refreshing acidity.
Saint Nabor Gris de Gris Rose ’16 France $10
Bouquet of red fruit and honeysuckle with linden-tree nuances; light, crisp and easy drinking, with palate of wild strawberries and blueberries with mineral nuances.
Domaine La Croix Belle Caringole ’14 France $11
Syrah, Carignan and Merlot blend from Languedoc’s Cotes de Thongue region; fresh and supple with flavors of cherry, and black olive, and herbs.
Jordanov Vranec ’15 Macedonia $11
Displays ripe berry fruit and an exotic stream of baking spices like clove, nutmeg and cardamom on the nose. In the mouth it is full bodied with ripe dark fruit and hints of herbs with a noticeable dark chocolate edge on the well-structured finish. Enjoy with cheese, beef or lamb dishes or grilled sausages
Vignalta Colli Euganei Rosso Riserva ’09 Italy $21
Merlot and cabernet sauvignon from volcanic hills north of Venice. Rosso Riserva is a true and delicious expression of its terroir, nice balancing of fruit and tannins, softened with two years of oak barrel aging.
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2072 Granger Way