lummi island wine tasting june 2, ’23
Hours this weekend: Friday, May 26, 4-6pm.
Ulee, our accountant, is keeping his eye on you…
Friday Bread Pickup This Week
Levain w/ Dried Cherries and Pecans – a levain is made the night before final mixing of the dough using a sourdough starter. This allows the fermentation process to start and the gluten to start developing. The final dough is made 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 – Also made with a levain, this bread is a delicious chocolate artisan bread not an enriched sweet pastry dough with lots of eggs, butter and sugar. Rather it 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…
Chocolate Babka Rolls – A sweet pastry dough full of eggs, butter and sugar, rolled and spread with a chocolate filling, rolled up and cut into individual rolls that are placed in baking forms for baking and then brushed with sugar syrup after baking. – 2/$5
To get on the bread order list, click the “Contact Us” link above and fill out the form. Each week’s bread menu is sent to the list each Sunday, for ordering by Tuesday, for pickup on Friday. Simple, right..? If you will be visiting the island and would like to order bread for your visit, at least a week’s notice is recommended for pickup the following Friday.
Wine of the Week: Daou Pessimist Red blend ’19 California (Paso Robles) $25
This 
is a wine that Judy brought by last year, you all liked it, so we still keep some around. It is from Paso Robles, but in a sense not from Paso. Just got around to doing some exploration of their website, and obviously someone has spent a lot of time and $$ on this place and the PR. It is all very Glossy, from the rugged terrain to the polish of the packaging of both the wine and the story. Rings some kind of alarms for some of us, but hey, the wine is pretty tasty!
The place has a unique story. It is owned by a couple of brothers who grew up in France, came to America as young men, and worked at some unspecified careers (successfully, apparently) until starting this venture over the last decade or two. Or, maybe as the old saying goes, the best way to make a small fortune in the wine business is to start with a Large fortune.
The choice of this 2200 ft. mountain to plant grapes was deliberate because of the setting, the altitude, the steepness, and the geology. In addition, the owners are Bordeaux aficionados who have painstakingly explored and developed a dozen or so unique clones of cabernet sauvignon particularly for specific spots on the mountain, and that suggests some wine knowledge plus some will, plus some $$.
That is not only a pretty creative approach, but it is also in an established wine region made most famous for Rhone varietals syrah and zinfandel, not Bordeaux varietals. On the other hand, California has made great cab for a long time in a lot of different settings from Santa Barbara to Mendocino. Come by and check it out!
Economics of the Heart: Of Mice and Mankind
courtesy www.victorpest.com
The 50’s TV series Dragnet usually began with a little philosophical narration about LA by the main character (Joe Friday) played by Jack Webb. Every week it was a little different, beginning with video footage of various parts of LA with Webb’s voice saying, “This is the City…Los Angeles, California,” a few narrative musings, and ” I work here. I’m a cop,” before fading into the current week’s story, occasionally a violent crime but everything from petty theft to domestic issues to fraud– all of the stuff an urban police department has to deal with. In a strange way, it painted a picture of American values of the era, when there was (to us kids anyway) general agreement about, well, social values of right and wrong that defined our national identity.
There had been radio for decades, but TV was new and creative, a merging of film and radio. The major networks (ABC, NBC, CBS) had generally been involved in both, so TV news sounded like radio news, and shows were westerns, family life, variety shows — the humble and comparatively peaceful beginnings of today’s global media empires.
Back in the late aughts, I spent a couple of years with a small group working toward the creation of an Institute of Sustainability at WWU. We designed and piloted a couple of courses with a format that brought in faculty perspectives from many different disciplines. It went pretty well, and a good friend from those beginnings is now in charge of a real entity, the Sustainability Engagement Institute. At one point we attended a conference at Skagit CC where one of the speakers had everyone send the same text message to their mailing lists. Several hours later, we got to see that the message had gone all over the US, with pockets in Canada, Spain, and elsewhere. The metaphor for communication was no longer one to one, but one to a global network; that’s what “going viral” means.
It was a revelation that even then (2010) mundane information traveled very far very fast, and that many companies like Starbucks had developed networks of millions of followers around the world, all interconnected online. I came away with the uneasy feeling that everyone was talking at once, and millions were connected to it, but no one was listening to any of it. Information was consumed in great gulps with no time to process of make meaning from any of it. Like a great baleen whale constantly straining vast quantities of plankton.
In the decade or more since then, social media has given voice to every insane, idiotic idea imaginable, some of it from real human beings, some from bots, hucksters, con artists, cyber warriors, political sabotage, hackers, and identity thieves. And all of this is going on in a world increasingly controlled by a very few extraordinarily wealthy individuals and organizations.
What does individuality mean in a world of 8 billion human beings? Where 22 million people have the same birthday as you? Where everyone needs space, food, water, energy, and stuff, lots and lots of stuff, the stuff to make that stuff, and a place to get rid of it and places to get more of it. And every one of them/us needs energy and produces waste, and we are killing the planet. And we talk earnestly about reducing our carbon footprints while having more and more children, and imagining that somehow “we” humans will get it together to all agree to get by with less of everything so we can save the planet and all its living things including us. But at least some have to be thinking it would be easier for us to survive if all of Those people would just, you know, disappear.
The next several decades will reveal whether our species is smart enough to make the changes necessary in our collective behavior to save our world. Or, more to our pattern will, like the rats in Calhoun’s rat utopias, find ourselves unequal to the task and blunder our hubris into destruction of the very ability of our planet to sustain life at all. Or, as my college roommate often observed, “well, there are only so many good deals in the world, so the more people you screw over, the more good deals are left for you…!”
This week’s wine tasting
Maryhill Viognier Washington $14
Carefully picked and slowly pressed to extract vibrant aromas of melon, pear, and apricot with traces of pineapple and grapefruit, continuing into a sensational and crisp fruit finish.
Quinta Do Vallado Douro Red ’14 Portugal $16
Blend of Touriga Franca, Touriga Nacional,Tinta Roriz, Sousão; lovely, floral black cherry and black currant fruit; supple yet structured with notes of pepper, meat, and a lovely herbal twist.
Daou Pessimist Red blend ’20 California (Paso Robles) $25
Full-bodied, rich and spicy, with balanced layers of elderberry and truffle with accents of cocoa, cardamom eucalyptus, leather, tobacco, and grilled meat, alluring texture, and leisurely finish.
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2072 Granger Way