lummi island wine tasting feb 14 ’20
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Friday Breads This Week
Levain w/ Dried Cherries and Pecans – Made with a levain that is made the night before using a sourdough starter. This allows the fermentation process to start and adds a lot of flavor to the bread. The final dough is mixed the next day with the levain, bread flour and fresh milled whole wheat and then loaded up with 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 that isn’t an enriched sweet pastry dough with lots of eggs, butter and sugar. Rather this bread is a rich chocolate 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.
…and pastry this week is something really special and I don’t make it often as it is a really loooong process.
Panettone – an Italian brioche-like sweet bread, generally made during the Christmas holidays. It has become quite popular and one company (Panetonne from Roy) sells a large size Panetonne for $50! These panettone are a smaller version but are every bit as good. Requires building a sweet Italian levain over several days before the final dough is mixed with lots of sugar, butter, eggs and honey and flavored with candied ginger, lemon peel, and chocolate before being topped with a chocolate glaze. Great as a pastry, sliced for toast or french toast, or for bread pudding – 2/$5
(breads must be pre-ordered by Wednesday for pickup here at the wine shop at our Friday wine tasting, 4-6pm. Planning a visit to the Island? Email us to get on the mailing list!)
Climageddon Outlook
Like most of you, we have been wondering more and more about how we as individuals can make a difference in the climate crisis we humans have created. Since the beginning of the “Industrial Revolution,” we have mined and burned coal, oil, and natural gas at exponentially increasing rates to heat our buildings, fuel our transportation systems, and power our electric grids and Global Twitter accounts. These hydrocarbon deposits are the organic remains of hundreds of millions of years of life on our planet. Those of us fortunate enough to have been born in the developed world have enjoyed luxuries and lifestyles Royalty of the past could not even have imagined. We found the Golden Goose, brought it home, and have had a good run cashing in those golden eggs.
Everyone has known at some level that these resources wouldn’t last forever, and someday we would have to come up with another way to power our exploding population and energy-intensive technologies. But we find ourselves in a collective Shock and Denial that this threat that was vaguely Out There Somewhere is now in 3D, standing on our doorstep like a Depression hobo for a handout or maybe The Devil with a Major Accounting. There’s a collective Uneasiness, so we all muse about how we might help. One thing we have mused about lately is whether there is any way we could store more carbon in our undeveloped five-acre woodland. If different species grow faster, last longer, or store more carbon for longer, there might be some net benefit to such efforts.
A recent article in the NY Times explores recent proposals to plant a Trillion Trees to combat global warming. And a series of tweets starting with Greta Thunberg discusses the merits. The upshot is that planting and maintaining millions of new trees would help a little, so the more the better! At the same time, the Sheer Scale of the Problem– so many people burning fossil fuels so often in so many places– is such that there is No Substitute for Not Burning the hydrocarbons in the first place. So yes, by all means plant more trees, cut fewer down, and build things with them that last for a long time.
As shown in the chart, since 1950 world population has tripled from 2 to over 7 billion people, and continues to increase by about 3 people per second, mostly in the less developed countries of Asia and Africa. At the same time the availability of food and water fluctuate dangerously in those same places. Thirst, hunger, and poverty are on the rise, driving both climate and politically induced migrations and resistance to them across the globe. (cont’d next week)
Mar a Lago Update: Taking Bearings
One of the classic characteristics of the Psychopathic character strategy is the Tough/Generous duality. It boils down to an exaggerated punishment/reward system: please me and you get Big Rewards; let me down and you will get Totally F#*ked. We have seen this so often with the Tweetster that it is now a cliché when he throws yet another government professional under the Bus for crossing his interests; the list grows almost daily. Today’s headlines feature the T’s bashing of the career DOJ attorneys who tried the case against the T’s friend and co-conspirator Roger Stone, causing them all to resign from the case.
That has led to a public outcry about yet another Twoverreach conspiracy with AG Barr to get Stone’s likely sentence reduced or eliminated. So there is a New Big Kerfuffle and political Over-reach just when Susan Collins had assured us that he “had learned his lesson” during the impeachment process. Well, it seems, not so much!
Meanwhile, Democratic challengers to contend this Fall are regrouping after their first public skirmishes in Iowa and NH, with a few big Surprises, with Sanders and Buttieg emerging as leaders, Klobuchar surging ahead of Warren, and Biden dropping to the rear…surprising results.
The really Bizarre thing about all of this is the sort of hysteria that is settling in around this year’s election. Somehow we have all been convinced that a majority of our countrymen have lost their minds and will lurch to the polls like a great Zombie Army and make the Tweetster a permanent Evil Dictator like Ming the Magnificent. Even as we write this in the wee hours of the night, and logically see it for the madness it is, we can feel the icy reality of our Fear. We see the continuing blind allegiance of so many of our countrymen to this coarse, ignorant, and self-aggrandizing imposter and find it so completely incomprehensible that it’s hard to find solid ground to stand on.
So here’s the key: he’s making us all Crazy with the endless tweets, the constant assault on Truth, and the incomprehensible ability to get away daily for years with words and actions that would have had any of his predecessors run out of town in Tar and Feathers. Like any Cult Leader, he has the entire Audience in a Trance with his little Magic Show.
Well, it’s time for everyone to wake up, grab an oar, and pull together. Fight for your favorite candidate without putting down any of the others. And be willing to support our collective candidate 100% without reservation. So say we all.
Washington Post Tweetster Lie Count to date : 16,241 as of 01/24/20
This week’s tastingit
Folie a Deux Russian River Chardonnay ’18 California $16
Exuberant white with vibrant acidity; clean, rich, and bright on the nose and palate of sweet melon, golden apple and bright perfumed pear. Flavors of ripe vanilla, mandarin, toasted marshmallow, butterscotch, banana and citrus blossom are accompanied by a creamy mid-palate.
La Quercia Montepulciano ’17 Italy $13
100% organic montepulciano d’abruzzo from low-yield vinification by winemaker Antonio Lamona for one of the best, most expressive, and balanced Montepulcianos around. Opens with aromas of sour cherry with a hint of new leather; ripe fruity palate exhibits juicy blackberry, raspberry and a hint of anise; easy drinking with soft tannins.
Sharecroppers Red Blend ’17 Washington $14
Merlot-syrah blend; bright garnet hues lead to aromas and flavors of fresh herbs, vanilla, sweet tobacco and candied berries with underlying nuances of wet stone, cedar and earth on the lasting finish.
Folie a Deux Dry Creek Zinfandel $15
Fermented 20% whole cluster and aged four months in neutral oak; the aromas are pure, bright and fruit filled, with notes of raspberry, ash, cherry and flower; light, elegant, smoky finish.
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2072 Granger Way