lummi island wine tasting july 15 ’16
(note: some photos will enlarge when clicked)
Friday Breads (email us to get on the preorder mailing list! )
This week’s breads all feature pre-fermented dough (PFD), in which some of the dough is fermented slowly overnight then added to the final dough mix to kickstart enzymatic activity.
Whole Wheat – similar to last weeks whole wheat sourdough, but this bread has close to 50% of fresh milled whole wheat as well as bread flour. When using whole grains I add a little honey to help balance the flavor. A good all around bread – $5/loaf.
Rosemary Olive Oil – mostly bread flour with about 15% white whole wheat, which is naturally a bit sweeter than red w.w. and it keeps the crumb a bit lighter. This bread has a crisp crust and tender crumb from the olive oil. A little fresh rosemary from the garden gives it a really nice flavor. – $5/loaf.
Oh, and did we mention– pastry this week is…Ooh la la, pastry Provencal:
Gibassier – –starts with a rich dough full of eggs, butter and sugar. Then incorporates the flavors of Provence, olive oil, orange flower water and fresh squeezed orange juice, fresh and candied orange peel and anise seed. After baking each one is brushed with melted butter and rolled in sugar. My oh my!- 2/$5
Tough Week
Our experiences this past week bring us to wonder yet again what is it about human beings that allows us to kill all kinds of living things just because they are a little, how shall we put it…Inconvenient. And even more disturbing, when we decide to Kill Something, Our Dear Species can get Disturbingly creative. In the case of Rat Poison, the currently favored chemical concoctions are designed to rob the pesky rodents’ blood of the ability to coagulate. So when you put out that little box of D-Con, you are inviting your cousins of a common ancestor to a tasty meal which will destroy the clotting ability of their blood supply so it oozes right through their veins and arteries, through their tissue and organs, bleeding them to death right inside their own bodies. Essentially they suffocate from lack of oxygen. Yes, folks, this chemical cocktail is brought to you by the same folks that invented Drawing and Quartering, Garroting, and the rest of it. WTF is Wrong with us???
We mention all of this because last Monday morning our generally feisty and cheerful dog Cooper was suddenly disoriented, listless, and nearly limp. A subsequent afternoon at the vet’s followed by a night at the Animal Emergency Center in Bellingham led to a diagnosis of Rat Poison ingestion. The bad news is that we very nearly lost him. The good news is that the caring professionalism and accurate diagnoses of a number of veterinarians, especially that first night, identified the likely cause, hastened to apply the appropriate treatments, and brought him Back from the Brink so that after a pretty Scary week we could bring him home this afternoon, mostly out of the woods, but with lots of healing to go. Whew!
We are deeply Grateful for the help, skill, and kindness of all of the docs who played a role in Coopie’s rescue. We are also, of course, scratching our heads and Worried about the source of the Poison. One Great Big Takeaway from this experience is that Rat Poison is like a Nuke that Blows Up inside the animals that ingest it. The Newer Generation poisons can stay in an animal’s system for up to a month, so they can also linger in the environment for an extended period putting all nearby creatures at risk. Bottom Line: If you Must Kill mice and rats, PLEASE find another way that is precisely targeted, quick, and safe for untargeted animals. PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE!
Soave
For some reason soave is one of those wines we have seen from the corners of our eyes in wine shops and grocery stores throughout our lives. Though it is a “mainstay” Italian white wine, most of us seldom run into it. Unless by accident. Which is what happened last week, when I got a phone call from a distributor who was delivering two cases of wine that I didn’t remember ordering. My guess was that they were the remaining few cases missing from our Italian order which had come in the week before. So I signed and wrote the check, only later discovering that I had never even heard of the wine, and as I write tonight I still have no idea how this wine got here. Karma, maybe…? Anyway, we opened one bottle last weekend and poured it for a few people, who liked it and bought some. So we kept it, and are offering it as part of our regular tasting this weekend. It has engaging aromas and flavors with subtle yet refreshing acidity.
It turns out that Soave is a Poster Child for the battle between small, family producers and gigantic mega-producers. The reason we all remember seeing it on shelves all these years is because some producers made millions of cases a year, deeply compromising the quality of the vineyards, the fruit, and the wine. At the same time, however, many small, family wineries made only a few thousand bottles a year, focusing on traditional methods of farming and winemaking. Soave is made from the Garnega grape, which generally produces nicely balanced wines with a fresh, naturally rich consistency, dry minerality, and flavors of stone fruits, honey, and dried sage.
Friction
Basically, everything that exists can move relative to everything else that exists. When that happens, surfaces in contact resist relative lateral motion with each other. This resistance is called “friction.” Between non-moving surfaces, friction is a measure of resistance to the initiation of relative movement and kinetic friction measures the resistance to movement between moving surfaces. I vaguely remember all of this from my freshman (i.e., “Plebe Year) course in structural engineering.
Such considerations have increasing Relevance lately because we have recently returned our boat Dreamtime to the Island for Mooring. There have ensued a number of Complicated Miscalculations, ranging from “our anchor line is not ready to deploy, let’s use this ’empty mooring’ just for tonight” (guy came back about 10pm, yes it was Ugly and Very Mea Culpa), to “that anchor line looked perfectly fine, why is our boat Adrift again???!!”
Presently we are camped out on our Friend Ray’s mooring while his boat is undergoing Some Kind of Surgery, and will soon move to our Friend Hal’s mooring, which has just today been Repaired and Renewed. The important observation of the moment, however, is that after only a Few Days of Friction between our Two Bowlines and the Steel Ring atop the Mooring Ball, there are already Disturbing Signs of Unsustainable Wear where bowline meets mooring ring. In the Larger Picture, all of this reinforces the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which, roughly speaking, says that No One has been Winding the Universal Watch since the Big Bang, and probably won’t anytime soon. Bottom Line: any kind of Sustainability requires continually taking steps to Reduce Friction ever further.
This week’s wine tasting
San Rocco Soave ’15 Italy $10
Beautiful aromas lemon, green apple and fresh apricots. The palate is fresh and clean with beautiful citrus and apple flavors with hints of almond. A great summer wine! Summer wine.
Palama Arcangelo Rosato ’11 Italy $11
100% Negroamaro from Puglia at the hot dry heel of the Italian Boot; big for a rosato– bright, lush, and succulent, with aromas of wild strawberries, crisp acidity, and loads of flavor.
Marchetti Rosso Conero ’13 Italy $10
Rich and inviting aromas of blue florals, plums, brown spices, and hillside brush. On the palate, dry and round textured with red and black cherries, ripe blackberries, cocoa and spice. Culminates in a satisfying, lengthy finish.
Poderi Elia, Dolcetto d’Alba ’11 Italy $12
Clean, stinging rhubarb, pleasant toastiness, and bright red fruits with a nice touch of sweet cigar smokiness. Very smooth, with “cashmere” tannins; a perfect example of classic Piemonte style for an everyday wine.
Perazzeta Erio Supertuscan ’13 Italy $16
An established favorite around here, this sangiovese-cab-syrah blend from Tuscany (we also carry their olive oil!) is rich and concentrated but also balanced, fruity, and delicious–a classic Italian food wine!
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