lummi island wine tasting November 22 ’14
CLOSED FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 21!!
Anyway, Ryan (he who opens our wine shop on most Fridays) is on loan to the BSC as wine advisor/wait staff trainer/sommelier for a few weeks, so is not available to open the wine shop on Fridays for a few weeks. Unfortunately, we are not available this weekend either, as we have a long standing reservation for Pre-Thanksgiving dinner at Ciao Thyme on Friday…!!
Your important Take-Aways here are that 1) we will NOT be open this Friday as usual, and 2) Janice will NOT be bringing bread this weekend. (We know because she and David will be with us at Ciao Thyme!) We regret any inconvenience, and look forward to seeing you Friday regulars on Saturday as you load up wines for Thanksgiving!
Old BSC Logo
I don’t remember the exact year. The basic history (these are impressions, not facts, so I expect many corrections before next week!) is that there was once an old Store in this building called the Beach Store, because it was a “store” and because it was on a little spot actually known as “Beach, Washington.” The store closed a Long Time Ago. In the late eighties, Mark and Lis Marshall bought it, made it beautiful, and reopened it as the original Beach Store Cafe.
Over several years they built it into a Fine Dining Experience, with great food, good jazz, and a clientele from both the Island and the mainland. They closed the restaurant and moved on to other things sometime in the mid-nineties, and the building was dormant for several years, prompting the brief and incandescent manifestation of Java the Hut (more on that next week!), which for a brief time presented great coffee and weekend pasta meals where Art Hohl now has his Glass Studio.
This old sew-on decal has lost most of its color over the years, and I don’t remember who did the graphic. It shows sunrise over Mt. Baker, a checkered table with (l to r) a cup of coffee, a loaf of bread, and fresh vegetables. And yes, I think there was more color back then…but it is still a cool image. Obviously graphics have gotten a lot less personal in fifteen years. But the idea is the same, here and everywhere: “come on in, sit down, and be nourished. And take a moment to savor this amazing view!”
We take a moment to wish Tess, Jason, Craig, Janice, Ryan, and all the staff every success with their new vision of the BSC! Most of you will love it; some will hate it; and we will continue to bow in Gratitude to anyone who puts in the time and energy to try to make a restaurant happen way out here at the End of the Universe.
Good deeds, Punishment, and “Never Volunteer”
Circumstances require that I be a little cryptic here, a little (for lack of a better term) diplomatic, a tad obscure. The insight I would like to share with you is that after feeling Very Badly Burned in my last outing in Community Service over a decade ago, I have been duly conditioned to “never volunteer” (yes I know it is a split infinitive, mea culpa, mea culpa, it’s for a good cause…!).
So it was with some trepidation that recently I took on a couple of Civic Responsibilities. And for the most part it has been congenial and rewarding. So from that perspective, the old Adage about volunteering is entirely misplaced.
The image here is Titan Prometheus’ daily torture, assigned by a Jealous Zeus, of having his liver ripped out and eaten by an eagle, only to have it regenerate in time for the next day’s repetition of the same Hell. At the moment, given things that have been going on in my life lately, it is absolutely clear to me that this fable, this image, this extraordinary metaphor, could ONLY have been the Insight of someone who, with all Good Intentions, in a weak moment allowed himself or herself to be persuaded to volunteer for the Public Good. We are a strange species, passionate, irrational, and hateful as often as we are thoughtful, rational, and compassionate. No wonder the Rats fear us, huh…?
Pollyanna
Curiously, the image here illustrates the point at a deeper metaphysical level. This paragraph started with an intention to take a more positive attitude about our so-called “Culture,” with a search on “Pollyanna,” motivated by my new conversational mantra, “Yeah, it’s all Good!” But “Pollyanna” turned out to be yet another name that has been commercialized into meaninglessness by the New Thought Police: a search for images relating to “Pollyanna” delivered (I’m not making this up, you should try it for yourself!) a gazillion images of nail polish ads, which were, like, “Hello, wtf…?”
This leaves us with the gear-spinning, clutch-slipping, mind-blowing Reality that the Big Algorithm designed to Think As We Think has determined that a commercial interpretation of what is basically a literary reference must be what people are looking for when they put the term in a Search Engine. I mean, just Think about that for a few seconds…OMD, what happened to what we used to call “Reality”….!
Admittedly, this recent finding makes it even harder to keep telling ourselves, “Hey Dude, it’s all Good, man!” So okay, it’s not necessarily All Good, and if you believe that and don’t watch out you are gonna get Squashed into a blob of yellow-green Goo like a Bug. What’s important here is that we’re all salmon swimming against a powerful stream, and no matter how tired we get, we still have to keep swimming. We swim for Truth, we swim for Wholeness, we swim for Whatever we believe in. Sorry, Pollyanna, modern politics and business have made you an endangered species; it is, we are sorry to say, not a good time for Optimists…but hey, hang in there!
This week’s tasting menu
Brancott sauv blanc ’12 New Zealand $14
Spicy quince and Asian pear flavors rest on a crisp, juicy body, with plenty of lime zest and grapefruit notes through the juicy finish.
Campo Viejo Tempranillo ’12 Spain $11
Aromas of ripe red fruit followed by gentle sweet notes of vanilla and spices. On the palate it is perfumed, soft and fresh with a long finish that leaves memories of red fruit, vanilla and cocoa.A perennial go-to value here at AWG.
Maryhill Winemaker’s Red ’11 Washington $11
Aromas of berry jam, chocolate, and cinnamon, with fruity notes of strawberry, caramel, and hints of white pepper, oak, and tart marionberry.
Lacroix-Vanel Fine Amor ’12 France $18
Grenache, Syrah, Cinsault, Mourvedre, and Carignan; generous dark cherry and black raspberry tinged with lavender, sassafras, brown spices and tobacco, with suggestions of iodine and crushed stone.
Pomum Red ’11 Washington $19
Bordeaux blend with a bit of syrah– Inviting, open-knit aromas of plum, raspberry and tobacco. Supple, sweet and mellow; plummy and broad in the mouth, displaying good depth of texture.t
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2072 Granger Way