lummi island wine tasting feb 9 ’24
Friday, Feb 9, 4-6pm
Open for wine tasting, sales, and bread order pickup
Padilla Bay reflection…
This week’s wine tasting
Adroît Orange Ribolla Gialla California ’21 Lodi $23
Clusters were hand-sorted and fermented on the lees prior to a gentle pressing, aged on fine lees for 11 months, then racked and bottled unfined and unfiltered.
Riebeek Pinotage 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.
Rocks of Bawn Shafts and Furrow Red ’20 $18 Washington $18
88% Merlot from Frenchman Hills Vineyard (south-facing & high elevation); 12 % Merlot from Southwind Vineyard in Walla Walla (full-bodied and rich); 6% Cab Sauv from Red Mountain & Horse Heaven Hills; and 4% Cab Franc from the iconic Red Willow Vineyard in Yakima Valley; and a spicy 2% Malbec.
Friday Bread Pickup 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…
Gibassiers – A traditional french pastry recipe from southern France. Made with a delicious sweet dough full of milk, butter, eggs and olive oil. The addition of orange flower water, candied orange peel and anise seed bring great flavor to these pastries. After baking they are brushed with melted butter and sprinkled with more sugar. Ooh La La a delightful pastry to go along with your morning coffee or tea! – 2/$5
Island Bakery has developed a lengthy rotation cycle of several dozen breads and pastries. Each Sunday Janice emails the week’s bread offering to her mailing list. Orders received before Wednesday 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.
Economics of the Heart: Invasion of the Zombie Republicans
“File:I Like Ike button, 1952.png” by Tyrol5 is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0
My first memories are of moving from a home I don’t remember when I was about three and sort of “coming on line” as we (mother, father, older sister, & I ) were en route from New Jersey, where I was born, to Maine, where my mother grew up. So first memory is of waking up in a jumble of blankets, clothes, lots of people talking at what turned out to be my Polish grandparents’ home in Hartford.
My second memory is standing of on the tarmac at Hartford airport walking out to a 2-engine airplane with a tail wheel (a DC-3), which we boarded. The third memory is the changing engine sounds on the flight from the changing pitch of the propeller blades between waaaa to wohhh and back. And the fourth memory is looking out the window as the plane was landing in Boston and seeing the boats right below us and yelling something about wanting to play with the boats. So even very young children pay more attention to their surroundings when stimulated by the constant newness of travel experience. What are your earliest memories…?
Anyway… we had been living in the same house in Bangor long enough to make it feel like home when my father (almost always gone when I was awake) left quite suddenly during a shouting argument with my mother. (Picture Jack Paar walking off the stage in the middle of his TV show.) In June, 1952 he came back to visit, and took my sister and me to his parents’ house in Hartford, about a 10-hour drive in those days, where we started school and remained until late Fall, closely monitored and cared for by Nana. By late fall my mother had filed for divorce, drove down with a friend, and took us home.
The point of this little vignette is that again traveling made everything new and memorable. It was also an election year that summer in Hartford, and Everybody Liked Ike! There were posters and loudspeaker trucks everywhere, blaring slogans. Ike was President till I was in high school. He was kindly, credible, serious. And back in those days Maine Republicans were often more liberal than many Democrats. Like Margaret Chase Smith. It was a good place to be.
In the sixties all of that started changing. The JFK years were both magical (Camelot!) and heart-breaking. LBJ picked up the banners of civil rights and going to the Moon and ran with them, while the Vietnam war brewed major divisions across the nation. Right and Left became blurred on many issues, and violence erupted about the war, segregation, and protests. There were more assassinations: Bobby, Martin, others. And Nixon became President in the middle of all of this under the auspices of “ending the war.”
Nixon, who had been Ike’s VP, did accomplish some valuable things, including connecting with China, starting the EPA, establishing Earth Day, and passing the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Marine Mammal Protection Act, and Title IX. He appointed four pretty good Supreme Court Justices to the Court that later decided Roe v. Wade.
At the same time, his VP Spiro Agnew and others in his administration were starting to lean further Right, while he dabbled in his own vain illegalities that brought him down. As we discussed recently, these are the same forces that in 1973 made over the fringy John Birch Society into the extremely polished and well-funded Heritage Foundation, a good marker for the beginning of the no-holds-barred, corporate-powered takeover of the Republican Party by mega-wealthy, ego-centric, self-entitled white men with thin skins.
Or, as the old cartoon has it:
“Mommy, is it true that Republicans have hearts of Stone…?”
“No, dear, it’s not…Republicans don’t have hearts.
As mentioned in that same post, by 1980 the HF had become so well-funded that its “think tank” had produced the first of many 20-volume manifestos for the corporatization of American institutions, which Reagan adopted lock, stock, and barrel, passing into law thousands of “conservative” new laws and accelerating the transfer of wealth from the poor and the middle class to those who were already billionaires.
Perhaps the most insidious of those rules was doing away with FCC rules which required “balanced reporting” on political or controversial issues. Almost overnight, the rules of civil discourse were freed from fact-based reporting and opened to any form or lying, hyperbole, personal insult, and political slander. Numerous new networks jumped into the game, with countless well-funded propaganda broadcasts 24/7, all of them lying, hyping, arousing anger, fear, distrust of our institutions, and slandering all things Democratic, egalitarian, kind, compassionate, foreign, “unwhite,” “unChristian,” regulatory, or fair.
That was just the beginning…!
to be continued…
lummi island wine tasting Groundhog Day 2024
Friday, Feb 2, 4-6pm: Groundhog Day!
Open for wine tasting, sales, AND bread order pickup
“Jour de la marmotte — Groundhog Day” by Gilles Gonthier is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
Hmmm…why does this keep happening over and over…?
This week’s wine tasting
https://www.facebook.com/thewolftrapwine/
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.
The Wolftrap Syrah Mourvèdre Viognier ’18 South Africa $12
Aromas of ripe plums, red currants, violets, Italian herbs and exotic spices lead to vibrant flavors of darker berries and spicy plum with hints of orange peel that linger on a juicy finish. Also way over-delivers for its modest price! (read more)
Chapoutier – Cotes-du-Rhone 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!
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…
Traditional Croissants – Made with two preferments, a levain as well as prefermented dough – which is also known as old dough where a portion of the flour, water, salt and yeast is fermented overnight. The final dough is then made with more flour, butter, milk and sugar, laminated with more butter before being cut and shaped into traditional french croissants. I’ve heard some say these are the best they have ever had. Quantities are definitely limited so if you want croissants this week be sure and get your order in early. 2/$5
Island Bakery has developed a lengthy rotation cycle of several dozen breads and pastries. Each Sunday Janice emails the week’s bread offering to her mailing list. Orders received before Wednesday 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.
Economics of the Heart: The Last Republicans
“Constitution Avenue Sign” by JSquish is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
This week on PBS Judy Woodruff did an in-depth interview with long-time Republican and card-carrying “old school” Conservative David Frum. He was briefly a speech writer for Dubya, sat in a couple of think tanks, is now an editor/writer at the Atlantic, and an outspoken critic of Trump and Trumpism. His own website shows his photo with the quotation “Those who seem to despise half of America will never be trusted to govern any of it.” (Some of us would prefer “should never be trusted to govern any of it again.)
Mr. Frum observes that the Tweetster has an intuitive talent for engaging and manipulating people’s fears in ways that:
- make them feel justified in breaking established rules of both law and civilized behavior;
- condition them to applaud when he breaks the rules and be encouraged /obligated to do it themselves on his behalf (as on Jan 6);
- convince them every criticism of him is really a criticism of them, because his words and actions are always on their behalf.
He sees the Tweetster as most Democrats do: a strange amalgam of circus barker, mob boss, and con man with an instinct for inspiring unquestioning loyalty to him from his followers to take up arms against a mythical Democratic “Deep State” he warns is committed to taking away their rights and their stuff and replacing them with foreigners, Blacks, Muslims, Hispanics, Asians, and non-Christians. Like some kind of Underworld shaman, he keeps his Maga Believers in a sort of trance where they feel completely justified in destroying property; threatening, injuring, and killing those who disagree with the Maga religion; and abandoning established conventions for civil behavior, not on their own behalf, but on his.
On that, Mr. Frum warns, quite apocolyptically, “If he regains power “the chaos will never stop.”
Mr. Frum’s philosophical aspiration seems to be an archaic and almost quaint belief that Conservative means “protecting the things that are precious about America, being cautious about change, and setting limits on power.” He seems to recognize, along with what we hope is a growing number of former Republicans, that another Trump government would likely be the end of both our country and our World. Therefore, along with card-carrying Conservatives Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Mitt Romney, George Conway, and hopefully a growing number of others, they are all campaigning for Biden in this year’s election.
It is hard to imagine that anyone would disagree with Frum’s observation that “balance between the two major parties is essential to maintain a need for continual compromise,” a kind of ongoing “satisficing” where neither side wins or loses, the trains run safely and on time, and people can trust their elected officials to serve the greater good and preserve the values and the set of rules set forth in the Constitution to which we all pledge allegiance.
The job of Government in our system, he suggests, is to manage and balance various grievances among groups, maintain a broadly shared sense of belonging, well-being, and sharing across this nation, making it work for everyone, and maintaining a functional set of institutions so that no one gets all of what they want, but “everybody gets enough to call it progress.”
Encouraging vision, huh…?
lummi island wine tasting Jan 26 ’24
Friday, Jan 26, 4-6pm: Open for wine tasting, sales, AND bread pickup
top of pole at end of pier…two bald eagles schmoozing about their day…
This week’s wine tasting:
Borealis White ’22 Oregon $13
Aromas of orange blossom, honeydew, guava and kiwi; sumptuous flavors of stone fruit, Meyer lemon and juicy pear drizzled with caramel.
Rubino Oltreme Susamaniello ’19 Italy $15
Fresh, fragrant notes of cherries, pomegranate, raspberries and ripe plum; fruity, round and minerally, with soft tannins and rich flavors; a versatile pairing with richer dishes.
Marques de Caceres Rioja Red Blend Organica ’21 Spain $18
75% Tempranillo, 25% Graciano; whole cluster fermentation delivers complex aromas of red fruits, anise and spices; rich and well-rounded palate with a fresh, youthful, lingering finish.
Friday Bread Pickup This Week
Breton – Incorporates the flavors of the french Brittany region. Bread flour and fresh milled buckwheat and rye make for interesting flavor and the salt is sel gris -the local grey salt that brings regional mineral flavors to this bread. Great with meats and cheeses! – $5/loaf
Spelt Levain – Spelt is an ancient wheat with a nutty, slightly sweet flavor and lower gluten than modern wheat. This bread starts with a levain preferment before the final dough is mixed with traditional bread flour, spelt flour, fresh milled whole spelt and fresh milled whole rye. – $5/loaf
and pastry this week…
Muffins! Two each of:
Chocolate Muffins – Rich and delicious…great chocolate flavor and beautifully moist. Made with flour, brown sugar, sour cream and eggs; and plenty of chocolate chips stirred in and sprinkled on top.
Cinnamon Streusel Muffins – Sometimes you want a cinnamon roll, but don’t want to wait so this muffins fits the bill. Made with all the traditional muffin ingredients: flour, sugar, eggs and butter with a brown sugar, butter, pecan and cinnamon filling that is swirled through the batter and then topped with a streusel made with more butter, brown sugar and pecans and as if that isn’t enough topped with a cream cheese glaze. Yum! Feed your cinnamon roll fix! Four/$5
Island Bakery has developed a lengthy rotation cycle of several dozen breads and pastries. Each Sunday Janice emails the week’s bread offering to her mailing list. Orders received before Wednesday 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.
Economics of the Heart: Heritage Foundation Goes Full Dark Side
“Hand holding a ballot to vote for the European Parliament elections in front of a white ballot box” by verchmarco is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
Woven into many or even most conversations about federal government policy since the early seventies have been vague references to the Heritage Foundation, usually referred to as a “conservative think tank.” Founded in the early 70’s, it came to prominence and considerable influence over federal policy as it helped Reagan win the presidency in 1980 and hire hundreds of HF staffers to write its dream legislation for him.
Its first, very extensive Mandate for Leadership (more of a manifesto, really), issued in 1981 for Reagan’s Inauguration, was 3000 pages long and “contained more than 2000 individual recommendations to move the federal government in a ‘conservative’ direction.” Subsequent volumes (and their countless recommendations) followed in 1984 (1500p) and 1988 (1300p). Additional volumes followed over several election cycles, including the 1996 focus on Congress (essentially creating Newt’s ‘in-your-face’ Republicanism).
By 2005, so many of HF’s goals had been implemented by the Reagan and Bush Administrations there were only 150 recommendations, because most of HF’s goals had already been met by its extensive lobbying efforts and symbiotic relationship with the Republican Party. But in 2016 the Mandate grew again to three volumes aimed at rolling back all the accomplishments of the Obama years (who, you will recall, stepped into office just as the massive 2009 recession caused by the Bush Administration’s rigid application of the earlier HF recommendations hit the credit market, and lots of our friends lost their homes)
The big Takeaway here is that Heritage has been a major driver of “conservative” policy for many decades, and it has forcefully promoted its own political agenda.The Big News right now is that that agenda has changed suddenly and radically in just the past two years, aligning its new “conservatism” toward an explicitly fascist/authoritarian State to serve the whims and interests of a few ultra-wealthy white Christian men.
This Project 2025 version of the HF Mandate has already been widely distributed and discussed, and represents a jagged swing from Right to Ultra-Right. It is explicitly tied to a second Donald Trump term in the White House in 2025. The HF calls for doing away with civil service, slashing DOJ funding, dismantling the FBI and Dept of Homeland Security, eliminating the Departments of Education and Commerce, and immediately invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807 to deploy the military for domestic law enforcement, and using the DOJ to pursue Trump adversaries.
These new HF policies make it exactly one of the “domestic enemies” referred to in the oaths of office taken by every federal employee, elected official, and service member in the United States. Most of us still take those oaths very seriously even many years later.
It should be of profound concern to all Americans and to all our allies around the world that this new Heritage Foundation is 100% all in with Trump, completely willing to tear up the Constitution, back away from our alliances around the world, do away with civil service, the IRS, welfare programs, women’s rights, climate change…the list is bottomless and its Christo-Fascist intentions plain, and it comes amid the growing national rebellion against the Extreme Right’s war on women’s rights to control of their own bodies, children’s rights to a fact-based education, immigrants’ rights to safe haven, and all of our rights to vote and have our votes counted.
lummi island wine tasting jan 19 ’24
HOURS for January 19, 2024
Last Friday we were in the Deep Freeze with high winds from the NE and 18 deg F, wind chill below zero. Bread pickup was out of Janice’s car, quick and efficient. No sitting under the awning schmoozing with the gang!
The Cold has continued through the week into snow the last three days, about 6-10″ of light and fluffy and a balmy 32 deg. Tonight it turns to rain and gets warmer, mid to high 30’s tomorrow. It might even be passable enough for some of you to venture out of your shelters and come taste some wine. Just to keep it simple we will use the same wine list as last weekend, when five or six neighbors came by. Therefore….
Friday, Jan 19, 3:30-5:30 pm: Open for wine tasting & sales (NO bread this week)
Friday, Jan 26, 4-6pm: Open for wine tasting, sales, AND bread pickup
This week’s wine tasting: hearty wines to keep you warm durin’ the Nor’eastuh
Phantom Chardonnay ’21 California $16
Entices with rich layers of green apple and pear that lead into spicy flavors of freshly baked apple pie, while barrel fermentation imparts a creamy, luscious mouthfeel finishing with sweet notes of vanilla and melted caramel. (especially soothing at room temperature! )
Jordanov Vranec ’20 Macedonia $12
Aromas of ripe berries with notes of clove, nutmeg and cardamom. In the mouth it is full bodied with ripe dark fruit and hints of herbs with a noticeable dark chocolate edge on the well-structured finish. Enjoy with cheese, beef, lamb dishes or grilled sausage.
MAN Vintners Pinotage ’20 South Africa $12
Aromas of dark coffee beans, red berries, nutmeg, and vanilla spice turning to dark berries and smoky plum; rustic yet silky and juicy, with smooth tannins, balanced acidity, and comforting intensity.
Taylor Fladgate 10 yr Tawny Port Portugal $28
Deep brick color with amber rim; rich, elegant nose of ripe berries with a delicate nuttiness and subtle notes of chocolate, butterscotch and fine oak; smooth and silky on the palate with persisting ripe, figgy, jammy flavors on the long finish.
NO Friday Bread Pickup This Week
Island Bakery has developed a lengthy rotation cycle of several dozen breads and pastries. Each Sunday Janice emails the week’s bread offering to her mailing list. Orders received before Wednesday 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.
Lummi Island Wild– Canned Wild Pink Salmon and sushi grade Wild Albacore Tuna
As all of our locals know, one of the many blessings of living here is the annual late summer reefnet fishery in Legoe Bay. Though for many years it has been a mere shadow of the incredible harvests of the past as migrating salmon (silver, chinook, coho, sockeye, chum, pink) swam by on their way to spawn in upper reaches of the Nooksack and Fraser Rivers.
Nowadays the entire life cycle of anadromous fish (that return from the ocean to spawn in the fresh water rivers and streams where they were hatched) is under duress from climate change as well as from many decades of systematic over-fishing, pollution, and dams.
Given all of that, the Lummi Island reefnet fishery is a special gem, using ancient techniques and modern gear to catch a small number of migrating fish each fall in a way that preserves their quality and the ability of the stock to spawn and reproduce.
No doubt many of you have taken advantage of this year’s local catch at the Beach Store Cafe and/or the Reef Net trailer parked regularly by the Islander store. For several month now they have been serving fish and chips using reef-net caught salmon, particularly pinks . It is soooo good!
And now it is available in cans right here at the wine shop, right next to our stock of LI Wild canned albacore tuna, both almost certainly the best you have ever had!
Mar a Lago Update: Tweetster Advisors Who Will Vote Against Him
Well, this is a brief post tonight, and you might not be able to read this link from today’s NYT unless you are a subscriber. Adapted from an article by Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark, it is cleverly composed, entertainingly presented, and carries a stark and vital message.
The NYT article is What 17 of Trump’s ‘Best People’ said about him. See also Longwell’s article in The Bulwark “It’s Time for Former Trump Officials to Come Out Against Him”
The basic message is a stark warning that we must heed the stories of “People who worked closely with Mr. Trump — whom he trusted, who worked with him every day, who saw him in private when the cameras were off.”
Her goal in the article is that everyone should understand clearly why so many high level professionals who worked with the Tweetster daily over months and years regard his ever holding office again a clear and present danger to our country and to the World.
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