lummi island wine tasting feb 23 ’24
Friday, Feb 16
OPEN for wine tasting and bread order pickup Friday from 4-6pm
NOTE:Beginning in March we will also be open Saturdays from 3-5pm!
This week’s wine tasting
Domaine Chibaou Surnaturel Merlot ’22 France $25
Complex nose of black fruits, candied strawberries and caramel; round, rich and concentrated, balanced, with good length in the mouth. No sulfites.
Domaine Chibaou Sauvignon Blanc ’22 France $19
no notes available
Garzon Tannat Reserva ’21 Uruguay $35
Deep purple color, fresh spicy aromas of plums and raspberries, full-bodied palate with ripe tannins and minerality make for a terroir-driven wine of unique identity.
Friday Bread Pickup This Week
Multi Grain Levain – Made with a sourdough culture and using a flavorful mix of bread flour and fresh milled whole wheat and rye. A nice mixture of flax, sesame, sunflower and pumpkin seeds and some oatmeal add great flavor and crunch. And just a little honey for some sweetness. – $5/loaf
Polenta Levain – Also made with a levain, known as sourdough, in which the sourdough starter is fed and built up over several days, then mixed with bread flour and polenta in the final dough mix. This bread is a nice rustic loaf with great corn flavor. – $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 topped with a black sesame streusel before baking. Ooh la la, what’s not to like? – 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: Alexey Navalny
“Alexey Navalny чб 2” by Митя Алешковский is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5.
For the past week I have been grieving for this man at some semi-conscious level. I never understood why he chose to go back to Russia after Putin had already tried to kill him once. Nor could I understand his perennial good spirits in prison. But since his apparent execution in Russia, it has been hard to think about him without feeling tears in my eyes. It is heartbreaking, and I don’t know exactly why.
He must have known it would eventually happen before he chose to go back, but he went anyway; and in most photos during his incarceration he seemed in good spirits. On a mission, perhaps, to make his people recognize their oppression and stand up to it themselves…?
I came to feel that he was in his way leading something important, something he believed in deeply about how people should be allowed to live. He confronted the megalithic power and penchant for cruelty of Putin’s post-Soviet Russia with a rare inner strength, commitment, and an endearing kind of innocence and commitment, all honorable pursuits.
It is hard to say why I feel such grief about his deeply symbolic, sacrificial journey…some combination perhaps of futility, horror, sympathy, outrage at the brutality, and hanging out here for so many days on the edge of tears I don’t understand.
And I wonder…is this touching everyone this deeply…?
lummi island wine tasting feb 16 ’24
Friday, Feb 16
OPEN for wine tasting and bread order pickup from 4-6pm!
contrails over the slough…
contrails over the slough…
This week’s wine tasting
Rocks of Bawn Shafts and Furrow White ’22 WA $19
Flavorful white Bordeaux blend of sauv blanc and semillon showing the waxy texture and fig flavors from semillon contrast beautifully with the fragrant aromas of the sauv blanc.
Top Source Columbia Valley Red ’19 WA/OR $23
60% Grenache, 40% Syrah; aromas of Bing cherries and crushed strawberry with aromas of black pepper, chocolate, and grilled meat and flavors of blackberry, dark plum, thyme, rosemary and spicy paprika; smooth, soft mouthfeel, tangy acidity and silky tannins.
Cote 125 Corbieres Carignan/Grenache France $12
Low yields of Syrah, Grenache and old vines Carignan; rich and concentrated, with blueberry and strawberry aromas with spices and black pepper on the palate, nice balance, and a long, smooth finish.
Friday Bread Pickup 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
Le Pave d’Autrefois – Translates roughly as old paving stones. This is a ciabatta like bread which has a lot of hydration so it isn’t really shaped so much as simply divided into approximate squares – hence the paving stones name. Made with a mix of bread flour as well as fresh milled whole wheat, rye and buckwheat flours for a lot of hearty whole grain goodness. A great artisan bread -$5/loaf (or paving stone)
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 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: Following the Bread Crumbs
Vietnam War 1966 – SWIFT Boats
Our inquiry from last week continues to explore how the hawkish, intolerant, pro-corporate Republican Party we never liked but could work with, sort of, sometimes, became the Maga-bots and domestic enemies we see everywhere today. Here are a few reads for this week as we search for the common threads that tie these things together, in chronological order…
1985: Under FCC Chairman Mark S. Fowler, a communications attorney who had served on Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign staff in 1976 and 1980, the FCC released a report stating that the fairness doctrine hurt the public interest and violated free speech rights guaranteed by the First Amendment. In 1987 Reagan vetoed Congressional resistance, thus removing the “single most important requirement of (broadcast) operation in the public interest – the sine qua non for grant of a renewal of license, and opening the door for the nonstop, anger-mongering Fake News that has proliferated and expanded across every media platform. This is what made Maga possible.
1997: The Project for a New American Century was launched by William Kristol and Robert Kagan. Originally conceived to promote American Leadership in the world, and espousing “strong interventionist and moral clarity foreign policy,” it was intertwined with both Kristol’s American Standard and the American Enterprise Institute, and was the foundation for the neoconservative policies of the Bush II administration. This is the kind of thinking that brought us the downfall of Colin Powell and the invasions and long-time occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and hundreds of thousands of deaths.
2000: Bush v. Gore : Bush won the popular vote in Florida by some 500 votes after a month of court battles and was declared winner by the Supreme Court. There was never an official state-wide recount. Gore won the national popular vote by a substantial margin.
2004: Bush v. Kerry: Bush prevailed after a campaign season of smearing Kerry’s service with the truly despicable campaign tactic that became known as “Swift-Boating” and several eyebrow-raising voting irregularities in Ohio.
Yesterday: Speaker Johnson recessed the House, ditching a $95 billion foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, important allies with whom we have a mutual interdependence and upon which the rules-based international order depends. WTF? Is he even Human…?
to be continued…
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…?
2072 Granger Way