lummi island wine tasting june 9 ’23
Hours through June : Fridays from 4-6pm.
Can you find the wild rose Dipper…?
Friday Bread Pickup This Week
Buckwheat Rye – –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
Whole Grain Spelt Sweet Levain – – Similar to a bread I sampled in Latvia it is made with a levain, also known as sourdough, freshly milled whole wheat and whole spelt before mixing with bread flour as well as a nice combination of dried apricots, golden raisins, slivered almonds and both sunflower and flax seeds. Chock full of flavor!– $5/loaf.
and pastry this week…
Kouign Aman with Cream Cheese filling – Made with the same traditional laminated french pastry used for croissants. Has both a little levain for the sourdough flavor as well as some pre-fermented dough to help build strength. When rolling out however, instead of using flour to prevent sticking, sugar is used. The dough is cut into squares, placed in cupcake tins then filled with a cream cheese filling…sort of “ a cheese Danish and a Croissant walk into a bar…”– 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: la Roque Pic St. Loup Rouge ’18 France $19
The “Pic” in the small French wine region of Pic St. Loup is a 640-meter (2000 ft.) “Tooth” of granite that dominates the view for miles in every direction– powerful, beautiful, vaguely remote, and iconic. It looms over a collection of very special, well-drained, limestone-rich vineyards. About an hour north of Montpellier on the Mediterranean coast to the south, it features hot days, but is also far enough north to have Atlantic-influenced cool nights that induce slow, full ripening.
The wines from Pic St. Loup must be predominantly syrah, grenache, and mourvedre (as in nearby Southern Rhone) and fairly consistently have a certain gravitas. The vines must be at least six years old (not the usual three) before considered mature enough for making red wines, but are perfect for making excellent rosé! Vineyards are scattered among rugged terrain that slopes up from the Mediterranean. Atlantic influences make the local climate cooler and wetter than elsewhere in Languedoc.
Wines from this little region typically share an earthy complexity accented by spicy, herbal aromas and flavors of the wild aromatic herbs that flourish in the area, commonly known as “garrigue.” Pic St. Loup reds typically show bold, spicy, and earthy complexity, deeper color and depth of flavor, and more elegance and refinement than wines from the hotter Languedoc plains to the south.
Economics of the Heart: Showdown at the Ferry Corral
Six months ago our November meeting of the Lummi Island Ferry Advisory Committee (LIFAC) was the annual end of year budget meeting held at the Public Works building in Bellingham. At that time we were presented with a bunch of tables and a graph that purported to show that fare revenue had fallen precipitously during COVID and that fares needed to be raised significantly and Immediately to avoid a fiscal catastrophe. Their actual proposal became available in December, and was being fast-tracked to be voted on, with little discussion, by the County Council at their January meeting, barely a month away.
Over the next several months a group of concerned islanders discovered numerous key errors in the County’s calculations and interpretations of guiding statutes. One by one the assertions made by PW have been debunked by demonstrating clearly that:
- A big chunk of the “deficit” was because PW chose not to charge any fares at all during the first several months of Covid;
- For many years PW failed to allocate correctly the two annual State subsidies provided by WSDOT to the four County ferry systems (Pierce, Skagit, Whatcom, Wahkiakum), erroneously allocating them to the County Road Fund for other uses, and illegally increasing the annual fare box burden for over a decade.
- PW recently charged the ferry fund $400.000 to replace the many rotten pilings in failing landing dolphins (the piling assemblies at foot of blue structures in photo), violating the requirement in the County statute that only “regular and ordinary repairs” could be charged to fare box proceeds. At present, with these corrections in place, the fare box has a surplus of around $2 million.
One result of this public pressure and fact-checking was the withdrawal of the proposed fare increase. For now, anyway.
However, PW has also thrown together a proposal for drastic changes to that carefully written 2011 County ordinance governing ferry operations and accounting. Suffice it to say that in the interests of “clarifying ambiguity,” the proposal seeks to remove all the guardrails that were carefully built into the statute in 2011 specifically to minimize operating cost variation from year to year.
Some have suggested that all of this turmoil about fares can be traced directly to the growing financial burden on the County of keeping our 60 yr-old Whatcom Chief plying the short mile between Lummi Island and Gooseberry Pt. thirty-some round trips a day. On that point the example of the dolphin repairs is instructive. Since the County has obtained funding for a new vessel, the only reason to “repair” it under these circumstances is to extend its life a few more years, and that could get very expensive, as the dolphin case shows.
The whole point of the existing split of ferry costs between fare revenues and general County taxation is that the ferry is an integral part of the County Road system. People travel to Lummi Island just as they travel to and from rural communities all over the State, to work, deliver, tour, and spend and earn money in our overlapping regional economy. Islanders do almost all their shopping on the mainland, and pay all the same taxes as mainland residents in addition to our fares. We pay our fair share for County-wide infrastructure. This entire controversy is about fairness.
You can look over several versions of the ordinance (links below) to get a sense of the differences, especially with regard to setting boundaries and responsibilities. If you can, plan to attend the next LIFAC meeting at the Grange (or on Zoom) at 6pm next Wednesday, and let your voice be heard. At present a LIFAC majority tips strongly in favor of anything PW wants, so your participation matters.
see PW proposed ferry ordinance
see LI working group proposed ferry ordinance
This week’s wine tasting
Pascual Toso Chardonnay ’16 Argentina $14
Aromas of ripe green apple, pineapple and mango; full, fresh palate with bright acidity, finishing with a slight toasty hint on a smooth, lingering finish.
Chateau la Roque Rouge ’18 France $19
65% Grenache, 25% Syrah, 10% Mourvèdre. A lithe and expressive red, with fine balance and well-structured flavors of dried cherry, plum, and boysenberry, featuring hints of tarragon and cream on the finish.
Eola Hills ‘Patriot Red’ Oregon $22
Zinfandel, Sangiovese, Merlot, & Pinot Noir from Oregon, Washington, & California. Intense aromas of fruitiness lead to a soft, smooth palate with flavors of red berry jam. All you need to know is it’s pretty tasty!
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2072 Granger Way