lummi island wine tasting june 14-15 ’24
Drydock Hours June 14-15
Our trusty Whatcom Chief is scheduled to be back in service this weekend, with no service for several hours while docks are re-adapted back to vehicle service.
The wine shop will remain OPEN for wine tasting and sales as usual through June:
Fridays 4-6 pm Saturdays 3-5 pm
Friday Bread This Week
Kamut Levain – Kamut, aka khorasan wheat, is an ancient grain with more protein than conventional wheat that some people find more digestible. The bread is made with a levain fermented overnight before mixing with with bread flour and fresh milled whole kamut flour. It has a nutty, rich flavor and makes a golden color. – $5/loaf
Walnut Raisin Levain – A bread I haven’t made for a long time. Has a nice mix of bread flour and freshly milled whole wheat and whole rye. The addition of raisins and toasted walnuts makes for a very flavorful bread – $5/loaf
and pastry this week…
Black Sesame & Candied Lemon Brioche: A delicious brioche dough full of eggs, butter and sugar. Filled with fresh lemon zest and candied lemon and as if that wasn’t enough, topped with a black sesame streusel before baking. – 2/$5
Island Bakery has developed a rotation cycle of several dozen breads and pastries. Each Sunday Janice emails the week’s bread offering to her mailing list. Orders received before 5 pm Tuesday will be available for pickup at the wine shop each Friday from 4:00 – 5:30 pm. Go to Contact us to get on the bread email list at least a week before visiting!
This week’s wine tasting
Natura Rose ’21 Chile $12
Cold-soaked before pressing and cold-fermented on the skins to develop rich and nuanced aromas and flavors of grassy lime, tropical fruits, and lychee, with a crisp, lingering finish…a long-time local favorite.
Riebeek Pinotage ’21 South Africa $14
Cold soaked overnight and fermented on the lees in 80% French and 20% American oak, and blended with unoaked wine to enhance fresh fruity flavors.
Jacob Williams Syrah ’21 Washington $34
Hand-destemmed, open-top fermentation, manual punchdowns, 11 months in 12% new American oak; earthy aromas of crushed gravel and a juicy blue- fruit palate with flavors of red pepper berries and spicy finish.
Mar a Lago Update: Freedom Of Religion ≡ Freedom From Religion *
*The mathematical symbol “≡” implies that an equation is also an “identity,” where each side of the equation statement says exactly the same thing in a different way.
We bring up this point because a central element in the political consternation in which our country has been embroiled since the sixties has been the deliberate and toxic intrusion of race and religion into politics by Republicans. This began in earnest with Goldwater’s “Southern Strategy” in the sixties to woo White southern Democrats with the implicit racism of “states’ rights” and “law and order.” That resulted in a massive shift of Southern Democrats becoming very conservative Republicans. read more
In the introduction to her book White Evangelical Racism: The Politics of Morality in America, Anthea Butler says it is “a racism that binds and blinds many white American evangelicals to the vilification of Muslims, Latinos, and African Americans.” This is not the philosophy of Jesus. This is the philosophy of self-proclaimed autocratic white men whose aims are far more political than spiritual. And it is this single element of our political reality that drives Maga Republicans toward the Tweetster.
For ten years now his constant hateful tweets, rallies, insults, and anger-mongering has filled media world-wide with propaganda confirming all the worst paranoid fears of his gullible base. They listen, entranced and soothed by his constant lies, and donates every time he touches any of their defensive hot-spot fears about blacks, Latinos, immigrants, or Democrats. This is the show that brought the Tweetster to the White House (with a little help from election-rigging). And remember, the Washington Post documented some 25,000 lies, one by one, told to us by the Tweetster while he was playing President. The Post stopped counting, but the lies never stop.
And so we find ourselves facing another Presidential election in a few months with the Tweetster a likely candidate who happens to be awaiting sentencing after conviction in one of four criminal trials brought against him associated with his attempted coup in 2020. And as if that isn’t plenty to try to get your head around, in the meantime we have learned about major ethics breaches in our federal judicial system that have been keeping both the Tweetster and Supreme Court justices from facing legal accountability for violations of both the letter and the spirit of our Constitutional rules.
Below are some recent developments worth reading about amid all this chaos.
1. Alito interview with undercover journalist Lauren Windsor (click to open)
The story has pretty much gone viral in the last couple of days based on casual conversations a young reporter had with Alito and his wife at the Supreme Court Historical Society Annual Dinner last week. The upshot is that they took her for a sympathetic ear (not a journalist) and confided disturbing details about their prejudices. The unavoidable takeaway is that Alito is committed to enshrining his religious/philosophical views into upcoming decisions involving matters about which he has obvious conflicts of interest.
Both he and Justice Thomas have already ruled on many cases in favor of extremely wealthy men from whom they have accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in expensive gifts. This is in obvious violation of the Justice Dept. rule that justices are obligated to disclose financial gifts and to recuse themselves from any case which their participation might invoke concerns about their impartiality. Both judges have indicated they will not recuse in important upcoming cases in which they have obvious conflicts. And that is a Problem.
2. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)
Over many months now, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) has dug deeply into ethics problems at the Supreme Court and made numerous videos and interviews on news programs. He has been dedicated to finding a way for Congress to get the Court follow even the modest rules already in place (such as recusing themselves from any case in which their presence might suggest even the possibility of bias. Here is a link to a very detailed and interesting interview between Sen. Whitehouse and Nicolle Wallace just yesterday on where we are and where we need to go with this issue.
3. In the same vein, here is a related interview between Chris Hayes and Reps Raskin and Occasio-Cortes on the House view of the same Supreme Court issues. The key problem, obviously, is that as long as Republicans control the House, there is unlikely to be any legislation to require Justices to act responsibly, ethically, and, well, justly. What is clear is that Democrats in both the House and the Senate are working hard to tighten ethics rules on SC Justices, because as the voting records of both Alito and Thomas imply, both have demonstrated disregard for public concerns about cronyism and outright bribery.
4. Finally, we close with this interesting piece from Politico about measuring bias of SC justices. It proposes that the current Court is made up of three groups of relatively like-minded justices who often agree with each other, depending on the cases. Their agreement or disagreement depends on two kinds of alignment, institutionalism (how much a justice considers implications beyond the facts and law of the specific case) and ideology (liberal/conservative).
One takeaway is that many decisions have been unanimous or nearly so, and generally are not controversial. The other is that the radical views of Thomas and Alito are the most toxic most of the time, and there MUST BE functional, binding, enforceable ethical standards if the Court is to reclaim the public trust and confidence.
lummi island wine tasting June 7-8 ’24
Drydock Hours June 7-8
Now three weeks into drydock routine. No trips to town last week, only one this week.Enjoying the quiet, with no trips to town this week, and none scheduled for next week. All in all, it has been pretty hassle-free, and only a few days of nasty weather. This is the latest spring drydock period we can remember. Most often DD has been two or three weeks right after Labor Day, and when in Spring generally late April-early May, which tends to be wetter and windier. The quiet this time has been restful and calming. Ahhhh
We will remain OPEN for wine tasting and sales as usual through June.
Fridays 4-6 pm Saturdays 3-5 pm
drydock passenger ferry “Salish Sea”
Friday Bread This Week
Whole Wheat Levain – Begins with a sourdouinal mixing of the dough- which is then fermented overnight in the refrigerator. This long slow process allows the fermentation process to start and the gluten to start developing. About 25% fresh milled whole wheat, a ‘toothy’ crumb, great texture and flavor and a nice crisp crust. – $5/loaf
Semolina Levain – Semolina is made from durum wheat, which is a hard wheat and often used in pasta. The flour has a lovely golden color that comes through in the bread. Uses a sourdough starter/levain that ferments overnight before mixing the final dough with bread flour, semolina and fresh milled whole wheat and little butter for a soft crumb. Makes great toast! – $5/loaf
and pastry this week…
Chocolate Croissants! – The traditional laminated french pastry made with sourdough and another pre-ferment to create the traditional honeycomb interior, rolled out and shaped with delicious dark chocolate in the center. – 2/$5
Island Bakery has developed a rotation cycle of several dozen breads and pastries. Each Sunday Janice emails the week’s bread offering to her mailing list. Orders received before 5 pm Tuesday will be available for pickup at the wine shop each Friday from 4:00 – 5:30 pm. Go to Contact us to get on the bread email list at least a week before visiting!
This week’s wine tasting
Bodega Garzon Albarino Riserva ’22 Uruguay $18
Left on fine lees in stainless-steel tanks for 3 to 6 months, developing fruity aromas of peach and citrus, fresh minerality, marked acidity, and a long and rounded finish.
Marietta Old Vine Red ’22 California $16
Zinfandel-based red blend from Geyserville with lovely bright plum fruit, dark and focused notes of briar and black tea, a perfect balance of big flavor and vibrant sophistication, with medium body, mouth of sweet spice and velvety tannins to pair with almost any meal or occasion.
Sineann Abondante Red ’22 Washington $20
A blend of 1% cab sauv, 46% zinfandel, & 53% merlot from top vineyards in the Columbia Valley in 2022. Bright, smooth, fresh, and nuanced flavors unfold and interact softly across the palate like the ever-changing nuances of some captivating Aurora Borealis of flavor.
Mar a Lago Update: The War for Everything Heats Up
In the week since the Tweester was convicted by a New York jury, cyberspace has been exploding with right-wing lying, shouting, fist-pounding, accusations, eye-rolling, finger-pointing, and most important of all in these trying times, non-stop fund-raising. And lots of lying!
In theory the funds are wanted to help elect Republicans to Congress so they can gain full control of House, Senate, and White House. But since the RNC has now been completely taken over by the Maga puppeteers, the vast majority of funds raised by Republicans will be spent trying to get the Tweetster back in office, starting with 24/7 lying in right-wing radio, TV, and social media.
The broader move toward some version of corporate-controlled autocracy has been under construction since the New Deal nearly 100 years ago. But the groundwork for where we are now began with the Heritage Foundation and other right wing think tanks beginning in the 70’s. Little by little the rights, freedoms, opportunities, and voices of individual people have been eclipsed by the burgeoning corporate state by linking political control at the highest levels of government with the corporate control of finance and production and the systematic global failure to make the global economy environmentally responsible.
Republicans have successfully changed the rules across the country enough to win the White House three times without winning the popular vote. And for the 2016 election, in the Tweetster they found their perfect candidate: a man with no allegiance to anyone or anything, an insatiable need to be constantly in the public eye, headlining in every day’s news across the entire planet with his latest rants, boasts, insults, and outrages, a man with no ethics, no scruples, no conscience: perfect for their needs.
It is of considerable comfort to have had the Tweetster found guilty of felony-level crimes. But news for the past week has seen a constant barrage of right-wing claims the trial was rigged by Democrats despite the Tweetster’s army of lawyers and high-placed judges successfully postponing his pending trials. (Sometime this month the Supremes will probably agree he is immune for prosecution on some newly hatched technical point) Numerous participants in the 2021 coup efforts are in jail, and more still face trials. But the process has been agonizingly slow.
The very recent vote in the Senate forced Republican Senators to say publicly if they endorsed pending state laws making both physical and drug-induced abortion illegal and also making contraception itself imprisonable. These laws are strongly opposed by considerable majorities of women voters and will hopefully be a boon to Democratic candidates in Red states in November.
Bottom line for today: lots of reasons to be pessimistic, but lots of possibilities for guarded optimism, too.
This must be something like the feeling ordinary citizens had in Germany when Hitler was rising.
In trying times like this, one thing is for sure: tasting some great wines with friends and neighbors will take some of the edge off. Join us for wine tasting this weekend!
lummi island wine tasting may 31- jun 1 ’24
Drydock Hours May 31-June 1
Now almost halfway through drydock and passenger-only ferry, and enjoying the quiet, with no trips to town this week. Ahhhh…
We will remain OPEN for wine tasting and sales as usual through drydock.
Fridays 4-6 pm Saturdays 3-5 pm
drydock passenger ferry “Salish Sea”
This week’s wine tasting
Domaine Chibaou Sauvignon Blanc ’22 France $19
no notes available
Can Blau Can Blau ’20 Spain $16
From the lovely Montsant wine region an hour SW of Barcelona, this long-time favorite calms the soul with a romas and flavors of cocoa bean, ripe dark fruits and berries, a seamless texture, and long, silky finish that improves with aeration.
Jacob Williams Barbera ’22 Washington $34
Medium body; juicy red fruit up front opens to a savory and herbal midpalate and earthy finish. Enjoyable now, but sure to evolve into an even more comforting sipper as it matures.
Friday Bread This Week (reminder: bread pickup is Saturday this week!)
Heidebrot – Translated as “bread of the heath,” after a region in central Germany known for fields of red heather. This is a farmhouse bread from an aromatic, lighter sourdough made with whole grain rye. a rye-fed sourdough starter, fresh milled whole grain rye flour, and regular bread flour as well – $5/loaf
Sweet Corn & Dried Cranberry– Made with polenta and bread flour, then enriched with milk, butter and honey for a soft and tender crumb and loaded up with dried cranberries for great corn flavor… A delicious bread that makes great toast!– $5/loaf
and pastry this week…
Muffins! – FOUR to an order for $5, with two flavors of two different muffins, i.e. four muffins per order! Each order comes with TWO Almond Poppy Seed and TWO Chocolate Chip muffins.
Island Bakery has developed a rotation cycle of several dozen breads and pastries. Each Sunday Janice emails the week’s bread offering to her mailing list. Orders received before 5 pm Tuesday will be available for pickup at the wine shop each Friday from 4:00 – 5:30 pm. Go to Contact us to get on the bread email list.
Mar a Lago Update: Tweetster at the Crossroads
Until about 2 pm today, given all the accountability that the Tweetster has NOT had to face for as long as anyone can remember, we feared the odds of his ever being held accountable for anything in any court anywhere were close to zero.
So we are deeply relieved to have been wrong about that, as the jury in the NY election interference just delivered a “guilty on all counts” verdict. This is a welcome and important victory for our Constitution and the America we grew up in. Still… it so surprising it will take a long time to sink in!
We hope it means that, as the ancient haiku claims, “To judge the direction of the wind, it is enough to see a single blade of grass…”
This likely throws at least a small wrench into the well-underway, highly organized, and extremely well-funded Fascist takeover of our country, as outlined in great detail in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. They are now out in the open about their efforts to re-install the Tweetster in the Oval Office as their wholly-owned PINO (‘President in Name Only’), to be their wholly controlled Dictator Puppet who distracts on stage while they eliminate all those cushy civil service jobs, social security, environmental protection…the list goes on and on and on. These are the capitalists Marx predicted would take all the profits from production and keep workers at bare subsistence living while they reserved wealth for their elite few.
So let’s keep in mind that this little victory is a troublesome inconvenience for Heritage and its Fascist enablers. After all, they have a lot invested in creating Maga for their own purposes, and changing candidates at this late date will now be an electoral challenge as well as a financial inconvenience. You can bet they have an array of backup plans, and recent history demonstrates clearly that there is no shortage of wannabe dictators in today’s GOP ranks who will say and do Anything to gain power. Curiously, none of them has the Tweetster’s complete lack of empathy for anyone or anything that drives the Maga Faithful to his service.
In any case, today’s events provide a long-overdue opportunity for us all to exhale for a few breaths between rounds. Please stop by this weekend to celebrate this collective victory for our Constitution and the society it has made possible for nearly 250 years.
lummi island wine tasting may 23-24 ’24
Drydock Hours May 17-18 ’24
We seem to have successfully made it through the first week of drydock and passenger-only ferry. Had to make three trips to town this week. We have a car on the mainland side in the limited luck-of- the-draw roadside parking available…every day it’s parking roulette. We were lucky to get spaces about a five minute walk from the dock the first two days, but today was more like ten. So we should be pretty much set till drydock ends around 6/11.
We will remain OPEN for wine tasting and sales as usual:
Fridays 4-6 pm Saturdays 3-5 pm
the trusty passenger ferry “Salish Sea”
This week’s wine tasting
Sineann Gruner Veltliner ’23 Washington $20
Made with fruit from Pear Blossom Vineyards in the spectacular Columbia Gorge, this Gruner has classic aromatics, great acidity, and remarkable body, texture, and mouthfeel.
Chapoutier CdR Belleruche Rouge ’21
Intense black currant and raspberry notes with hints of white pepper; juicy, lovely palate with silky, delicate tannins; good pairing for grilled meats, pizza, pasta, and and (someone says) especially lamb ragu!
Black Stallion Napa Cabernet “21 $28
Powerful, driving wine with notes of blueberry jam, lavender, graphite, crushed rocks, and sweet oak make for a brooding Cabernet that will benefit from a year or two in bottle
Friday Bread This Week
Levain w/ Dried Cherries and Pecans –A levain is made by mixing the dough with a sourdough starter to begin the fermentation process. 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… an enriched sweet pastry dough with lots of eggs, butter and sugar. Rather it is a rich chocolate bread made with a fermented levain, bread flour, 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…
Brioche Tarts au Sucre – aka Brioche Sugar Tarts– A rich brioche dough full of eggs and butter is rolled into a round tart and topped with more eggs, cream, butter and sugar. These are perfect with fresh fruit on top! – 2/$5–2/$5
Island Bakery has developed a rotation cycle of several dozen breads and pastries. Each Sunday Janice emails the week’s bread offering to her mailing list. Orders received before 5 pm Tuesday will be available for pickup at the wine shop each Friday from 4:00 – 5:30 pm. Go to Contact us to get on the bread email list.
Wine of the Week: Sineann Gruner Veltliner ’23 Oregon $20
Gruner Veltliner is a relatively new varietal in Washington that, like so many others from Europe, seems to feel at home with our climate of hot days and cool nights. Like the great Gruners of central Europe, here in Washington they are also among the most food friendly of white wines, with beautiful aromatics, acidity, complexity of fruit and mouth feel.
The fruit for this one came from Pear Blossom Vineyards in the spectacular Columbia Gorge.
The wine has classic aromatics, great acidity, remarkable body, and a mouthfeel like few others.
So, to remain in nonchalant equilibrium through drydock, we recommend attending our weekly tastings on Fridays and Saturdays (see hours, above)…!
Mar a Lago Update: Democracy at the Crossroad
In my heart, this week feels as if Everything Depends on the outcome of this little trial in NY. You know the one. Early next week the case will be turned over to the jury, and together these twelve people will decide not just the future of the Tweetster, but the future of every living thing on our planet. And whether there will even BE a future for any kind of life on this planet for very long.
My fear is that if the jury is rigged with one or more Maga Believers, it will mark the end of everything our country has stood for in our lifetimes. Power will be completely concentrated in the hands of a very small number of extraordinarily wealthy white Protestant men from Red States whose only interest will be to eliminate all threats to their own Power and Wealth.
They will achieve their ages-old Capitalist Corporate Wet Dream of eliminating all those annoying rules and regulations having to do with anyone’s so-called “rights,” or “environmental protection,” or “equal standing before the Law,” or the right for a woman to decide for herself if her personal and economic circumstances will allow her to provide adequately for a child (or another child).
It is blatant Hubris for any human to Assert that Their superstition about the Existence or the Nature of The Supreme Being are somehow superior in the Eye of that Being to those of all the other religious philosophies across human history. Those in many cultures who have presumed to speak for the intentions of a Supreme Being have allowed small groups of men (and sometimes women) to dominate entire cultures using religious claptrap to justify their Authority over everyone and everything.
As described in great and interesting detail in a very thought-provoking book some years ago, “The Alphabet Versus the Goddess,” there is a direct line from the development of writing to the oppression of individual spiritual inquiry and experience. We see throughout the world how governments have enforced conformity to the rules of their Bibles, or their Korans, or their Commandments to gain and maintain control and dominion over the Believers.
Other experiments over time have shown that as the density of a population of rats reaches a certain point, they all go mad, destroying habitat and each other. Maybe this present world our species has created with such blithe hubris is another kind of “God” that is thinking, “well, these little beings have been an interesting distraction in the ongoing creation and destruction of Everything in Every Moment, so let’s see how they will handle This, (hee hee…) as our collective behavior rolls out the next challenge to our collective existence.
So, we digress…the point is that a powerful, dangerous collective insanity has metastisized in our nation’s body politic which, like the worms eating RFK, jr’s brain, are shredding our Constitution, our values, our will to care for one another and for the health and well-being of every living thing on our little planet. It is always dangerous to believe that any subset of humans knows what’s best for all humans.
And the court decision next week will tell us something meaningful about where we are with our collective karma. No, not the kind of karma like “destiny,” but rather the kind of karma like “every step creates the conditions for the next step,” so “Be careful where you step!”
In any case, one week of drydock down, three to go. Hope you can stop by this weekend, see hours above.
2072 Granger Way