lummi island wine tasting dec 16-17 ’22
Hours this weekend: Open 3:30- 5:30 pm both Friday and Saturday
The weather looks dry and 40-ish for Friday.
Saturday will still be well above freezing but could see a little snow but no measurable accumulation is likely.
ALSO… please note above the slight change to new Winter hours!
Friday Bread Pickup This Week!
Flax Seed Currant Ciabatta – Made with a poolish that ferments some of the flour and water overnight before being mixed with a nice mix of bread flour, fresh milled whole wheat and rye flours, then loaded up with flax seeds and dried currants for a delicious bread. The dough takes a lot of water, making a very slack dough that is cut into pieces. A really flavorful artisan loaf – $5/piece
Egg Bread w/ apples & honey – Sometimes called challah or shiksa challah, either way it’s a delicious enriched bread full of eggs, honey, milk and butter, and dried apples for a lots of flavor, and braided into a round loaf ready to slice for breakfast toast. – $5/loaf.
and pastry this week…
Panettone – This is an italian brioche often made during the Christmas holidays with candied orange peel and raisins in a large loaf. These panettone are made with lots of sugar, butter, eggs and honey and are flavored with saffron, golden raisins, candied lemon and orange and topped with pearl sugar – 2/$5
AND our Holiday Special for those who ordered two weeks ago…
Stollen (see photo) – Our traditional Holiday bread, made with bread flour, a hint of fresh milled rye, milk, eggs, and lots of butter to enrich the bread for a soft crumb; then it is loaded with a mixture of dried fruit, fresh lemon and orange peel, candied lemon and orange peel, and almonds. Shaped around an almond paste filling then brushed with a glaze after baking made of melted butter, sugar and ginger then dusted with powdered sugar. Mmm-mm, Fabulous! -$10/loaf
To get on the bread order list, click on 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: Sineann Cabernet Sauvignon ’17 Oregon $27
The Sineann Winery is located just across the road from Oregon’s Champoeg State Park. We generally pop in to taste wine several times a year when we are visiting the park with our trailer. Our last visit was several months ago, and we have already poured many of the wines we brought back then. This is the first time we will be offering this one for tasting.
The best description comes from the winemaker:
Our 2017 Columbia Valley Cabernet is made up of Cabernet Sauvignon, and only Cabernet Sauvignon, from Phinny Hill Vineyards.
We easily could have vineyard-designated any of the components of this Cabernet. We chose instead to blend it into this gorgeous wine. You will rarely experience a wine this good that costs this little.
The wine is classic Columbia Valley Cabernet – dark and well-balanced. It is good friendly and will age very well.
You’ll rarely find a better value in well-crafted Cabernet!
Economics of the Heart: Folks For Far Fairer Ferry Fares
Our old-timers out there will likely remember the old Kingston Trio song, “MTA,” back in the early sixties, about a guy named Charlie who got stuck on a Boston subway because of a five-cent fare increase– he needed “one more nickel” to get off the train. We may have a similar problem right here on Lummi Island.
There are a lot of ferry routes here in the Pacific NW, carrying just about everyone and everything to and from a lot of islands. Most of these routes are served by the Washington State Ferry System, which operates from southern Puget Sound to the San Juan Islands and even to Vancouver Island aross the strait in Canada. A handful of smaller ferry systems are operated by several counties, including ours which is operated by Whatcom County.
Funding for county ferries varies according to the nature of the island and its demographics. All the systems get some subsidies from the State, some revenue from fares, and some funding from their County budgets. In our case we depend on a 60 yr old vessel that was originally designated a 16-car vessel, but which has been carrying up to 20 cars each way since we moved here about thirty years ago. It is due to be replaced in about 2026.
In recent years, our aging vessel has encountered significant increases in “maintenance” costs as major components wear out or fail. About 15 years ago the County passed a law requiring that fares should be set to cover 55% of “operating costs.” Over the following five years, fares for daily commuters were increased annually from several hundred $$ per year to over Two Thousand per year! Many residents, especially renters and young families, were forced to move to the mainland. The island elementary school enrollment dropped dramatically. The rate increases were a thoughtless and cruel experiment in demographic engineering.
Fast forward to today, and again the County is complaining that fares are too low to cover the required 55% of operating costs, and has just released its latest proposed rate increase. The proposed fares would add another $1500 to the annual cost of daily commuters, taking it up toward $4000/yr. To make it even worse, the entire fare structure makes a particular effort to exploit walk-on passengers. As one friend put it, “You can ride the ferry as a passenger for $10, and for another $6 you can even bring your car.” So a lot of people are upset about the proposed rate increases.
Last night about twenty residents gathered for a special meeting of the Lummi Island Ferry Advisory Committee (of which this writer is a member). Needless to say such big fare changes will prompt all of us to find ways to economize on ferry use. Some people may have to move to the mainland, as happened ten years ago. Others will make fewer shopping trips. Everyone will tighten their belts and buy less of everything else to cover our new ferry expense, because the ferry is not a luxury, it’s a necessity.
Islanders already pay higher property taxes than many other County communities; those miles of shoreline get assessed pretty steeply. All in all, many of us feel that “enough is enough, stop punishing us!” After all, the ferry is just our highway. No one else in the County has to pay thousands of dollars just to drive to work every day on roads and bridges paid for by general taxation.
The county statute that regulates fares requires that fare box receipts cover 55% of “operating costs,” which are further defined as expenses for “actual regular and routine maintenance and administrative expenses.” And ‘Ay, there’s the rub,” as Hamlet put it; some feel that fares are really being raised to shift the rapidly increasing repair costs of our 60 yr old ferry onto fares rather than onto the general road fund where they belong. Many of us are concerned that at least some of these growing “maintenance costs” do not meet the criteria for routine maintenance. Oil, lube, points, plugs, paint— “regular” connotes “predictable.” Repairs to failing capital equipment should not qualify as regular maintenance.
The County has tipped its hand often in recent years that a lot of effort goes into justifying quite a number of capital upgrade expenses as “regular maintenance” so they can be charged to farebox receipts. It will take some digging to confirm if that’s true.
Stay tuned!
This Week’s $10 Wine Tasting
Maryhill Viognier ’18 Washington $14
Carefully picked and slowly pressed to extract vibrant aromas of melon, pear, and apricot with traces of pineapple and grapefruit, continuing into a sensational and crisp fruit finish.
Cala Civetta Sangiovese di Toscana ’21 Italy $13
Earthy nose of red plum accompanies a vibrant yet mildly tannic palate of tart cherry with a hint of smoke and ocean brine – a true expression of Scansano, nestled halfway between the Tyrrhenian Sea and Mt. Amiata.
Sineann Cabernet Sauvignon ’17 Oregon $27
Classic Columbia Valley cab– dark, well-balanced, food friendly, and age-worthy. “We easily could have vineyard-designated any of the components of this Cabernet; we chose instead to blend it into this gorgeous wine. You will rarely experience a wine this good that costs this little!”
lummi island wine tasting dec 8 ’22
Hours this weekend: Open 3:30- 5:30 pm both Friday and Saturday
The cold, rain, snow, and ice on the roads made for a sparse turnout last weekend, so we will be doing much the same wines this weekend as last. plus a bubbly for the holiday season.
We have been testing negative for Covid and feeling a lot better the last several days, so looking forward to visitors again. We notice the clock change to Standard Time last month has made the sudden arrival of darkness in the afternoon still feel a little shocking! The good news is (we are not making this up) it’s now only two weeks till Winter Solstice, when the days will start getting longer again! Yay!
ALSO… please note above the slight change to new Winter hours!
Friday Bread Pickup This Week!
Dried Cherry and Pecan – 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…
Morning Buns – Made popular by Tartine Bakery in San Francisco, these are my interpretation. Made with the same laminated dough as croissants. The dough is rolled out, spread with a filling of brown sugar, orange zest, butter and cinnamon. Rolled up and sliced before baking. As always, quantities are limited, be sure to get your order in early – 2/$5….AND our Holiday Special…
Stollen – Our traditional Holiday bread, made with bread flour, a hint of fresh milled rye, milk, eggs, and lots of butter to enrich the bread for a soft crumb; then it is loaded with a mixture of dried fruit, fresh lemon and orange peel, candied lemon and orange peel, and almonds. Shaped around an almond paste filling then brushed with a glaze after baking made of melted butter, sugar and ginger then dusted with powdered sugar. Mmm-mm, Fabulous! -$10/loaf
To get on the bread order list, click on 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: J. Laurens Cremant de Limoux Traditionelle
Everyone has heard of Champagne, which is essentially a sparkling wine from the Champagne region of France, east and a bit south from Paris. It has such Global caché you would think they invented the method…but mais non, monseieur, they didn’t. The earliest reference to sparkling wine, in the records of the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Hilaire, dates back to 1531. Residents of Limoux believe the so-called “methode champenois” was actually developed in Limoux, in the shadow of the iconic Pic de Bugarach. (shown at left)
By this “traditional method,” bubbles are produced in the wine by a second fermentation that takes place when yeast is added to each bottle, which is then recorked. When secondary fermentation is completed, the wines are uncorked, yeast residue removed, and rebottled. These days, while blanquette de Limoux is still made mainly from the grape mauzac, the more “internationally styled” Cremant de Limoux is predominantly chardonnay and chenin blanc (as in Champagne), with only a vestigial proportion of mauzac– though hopefully still enough to produce sparkling wines that are fresh and grassy with aromas of green apple.
A Farewell Toast to Blaine Wetzel’s World Famous Willows Inn!
photo courtesy of Susy Bando
Islanders have mixed feelings about the decade or so of having a world-famous restaurant here. While looking at some old blog posts, I found a reference to this article from 2015, which has some terrific photos of the carefully crafted servings at the Willows, spectacular views of the Strait from Baker Preserve, and a kindly review of one food writer’s experience during the peak of the restaurant’s success.
While many Islanders have soured on the entire enterprise for various reasons over the years, it seems appropriate to some of us to lift a glass to toast Blaine’s accomplishment in achieving global recognition for his creative efforts, and sincerely wish him good fortune with his next effort, rumored to be somewhere near Puerto Vallarta.
He consistently pleased a lot of people a lot of the time in his own creative way, and even as you read this you can bet a bunch of top chefs are getting in touch with Lighthouse Mission, the bequested new owners of the property, and which has long sheltered and served the homeless in Bellingham. It could all be yours for only $2M…!
Economics of the Heart: Sophistry IS the Republican Platform
Nobody talks about sophistry any more. It’s probably because so many are actively engaged in it that no one needs to talk about it. Sophistry is in the saying and proclaiming and the faux certainty and that’s the point. Indeed, pretty much everything Republicans say lately is well-practiced persuasion using spurious arguments that have no factual basis whatsoever. The same lines are repeated over and over and over in the face of overwhelming evidence that they are false.
This all comes to mind after stumbling on this little piece by Ted Gioia called “The Word of the Year Is: Sophistry.”
So let’s consider it point by point.
1. The sophist is interested in what is persuasive; the philosopher is interested in what is true.
It has been many, many years since anyone has heard ANY Republican make a cogent argument for or against any real idea. They all recite the same talking points with the same angry and dismissive tone as if they were actual policies and some part of a party platform. But there IS no platform, no ambition, no deliverable, only the creation of a belief that there is one somewhere and that it will be Wonderful: the Border Wall, the Muslim ban, the perfect phone calls, the calls for donations. It is all Empty.
2.The sophists, unlike philosophers, do not pursue the truth, but only master the art of persuasion.
See above!
3. In a very real sense, talking IS their vocation, although you might guess otherwise from their rhetoric, which invariably promises more than any sophist will ever deliver.
Listen to anything Mitch McConnell has ever said…on second thought no, no, don’t put yourself through that…you would just nod along with him till he is finished, only to realize that you can’t remember even a single thing he said. How does he Do that…?
4. Despite the shallowness of their thinking, sophists have far more influence than honest and serious thinkers, especially in matters of politics and policy. This is because the sophist’s rhetoric is always shaped by what their audience wants to hear.
This why the Tweetster is so able to control the entire Party; he is just like them, but born to it, a professional scammer and liar, completely out of their league, and they are all helpless against him. Sad!
5. For that same reason, sophists will avoid painful truths that run counter to popular demand. Addressing hard truths is bad for their business.
An old cartoon comes to mind. An old man is sitting on a park bench throwing popcorn to a very large “Bird,” obviously a guy in a not-at-all convincing bird costume, while another guy is whispering to the old man, “Sir, that fellow is making a fool of you…!”
6. Sophists are frequent deceivers and sometimes outright charlatans, whose goal is to make people believe whatever they want—and thus, according to Plato and Aristotle, they are responsible for a large portion of the public’s holding false beliefs.
And now they control vast audiences on talk radio, Fox News, Facebook, Twitter, and more, not to mention budding dictatorships around the world. These guys have been around for a Long Time.
You get the picture, and no doubt it resonates. Below are the remaining points in Mr. Gioia’s list. We leave it to you to read them and observe your own reactions, most likely some kind of nodding, oh-yeah-ing, and forehead-slapping agreement. It’s a great article, both entertaining and thought-provoking, hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
7. If necessary, a sophist can actually argue both sides of any issue—and thus has the skill to make the bad seem good, or evil look like justice.
8. They are often aligned with the rich and powerful, and have a knack for making money from their abilities.
9. In the words of one classicist, the end result is a powerful group of “influencers” (as we would call them today) who are “crudely self-serving” and “frivolously manipulative.”
10. Sophists remain popular despite all these obvious warning signs. That’s no coincidence, because the sophists practice a vocation that deliberately aims at enriching and empowering the possessor of sophistical skills.
This Week’s $10 Wine Tasting
J. Laurens Cremant de Limoux France $16
Long before there was “champagne,” there was cremant de Limoux, a little area SW of Carcasonne with creamy mousse texture, and notes of baked apple, prune, and yeasty minerality.
Domaine de l’Amauve La Daurèle, Côtes du Rhône Villages Séguret ’20 France $17
Grenache blanc, clairette, viognier, & ugni blanc; expressive nose of white fruits, Mirabelle plum, and acacia honey; soft on the palate with lively citrus flavors…delicious and very Food Versatile!
Chateau Auzias Cabardes ’18 France $12
From Carcasonne, 60% Cabernet Franc, 30% Syrah, 10% Grenache. Enticing aromas of black raspberry and mulberry that showcase the Cabardes appellation where both Rhone and Bordeaux varietals may be grown. Fine-grained tannins and lacy, billowing acidity carry that raspberry/mulberry fruit all the way to a fresh, graceful finish.
Pomum Red ’16 Washington $18
Carefully made Bordeaux blend of cab, cab franc, malbec, petite verdot, and merlot; aromas of red fruit-leather and exotic spices; flavors of black cherry, cranberry, and garrigue.
lummi island wine tasting dec 2-3 ’22
Hours this weekend: Open 3:30- 5:30 pm both Friday and Saturday
We are happy to report that we are now testing negative for Covid and feeling much better. All in all, we are thankful to have had mild cases and to be on the mend, thanks in large part to the effectiveness of the Omega booster. For your safety and peace of mind we plan to be masked up in the wine shop this weekend.
ALSO… please note above the slight change to new Winter hours!
No Friday Bread Pickup This Week!
Please note there will be no bread pickup this week. If you are on the bread list you will receive an email on Sunday with selections for next weekend.
To get on the bread order list, click on 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: Greywacke Pinot Noir ’18 New Zealand $30
Most simply, greywacke is a type of sandstone with a lot of rock grain and fragments in it, kind of a lumpy batter that set up before it was completely stirred. It is believed to have formed by mudslides along a continental shelf. Greywacke is made up of dull-colored sandy rocks that are mostly grey, brown, yellow, or black which can occur in thick or thin beds, and which bear some similarity to local formations of “Chuckanut sandstone” that we see on our own shores here on Lummi Island and around the San Juan Islands.
Last year we learned that many of the formations at the Aiston Preserve (recently acquired for restoration and preservation by the Lummi Island Heritage Trust) and much of the southern half of Lummi Island contain significant deposits of greywacke. These formations are about 150 million years old, and overlay basalt and chert from an even more ancient sea floor.
Greywacke is also a major part of the geological structure of New Zealand, and just a couple of years ago we learned there is a NZ winery of the same name. We have been stocking their sauvignon blanc and pinot noir for a couple of years now, and so far it has been universally satisfying. The rocky soil gives the wines a complex minerality with aromas and flavors of dark fruit and nuances of cedar, earth, and smoke.
Winemaker Kevin Judd was the longtime winemaker at the consistently highly regarded Cloudy Bay winery before starting his own winery at Greywacke in 2008. It’s good! (read more)
Economics of the Heart: Will Majorities Actually Matter Again?
https://fontsarena.com/ugly-gerry/
In one of today’s posts, opinion writer Jennifer Rubin put out a thoughtful and encouraging take on the recent national election. In particular, voter turnout and election outcomes across the country suggest that Republicans have lost control of at least some of their key constituencies. While the MAGA base of less-educated, white, evangelical, Christian, rural, and older voters (along with their other base of self-serving bazillionaires…) still forms the core of Republican support, it is clear that that base is shrinking over time.
Rubin points to this week’s example of nearly a dozen Republican Senators who voted in favor of the Respect for Marriage Act. Though fully two thirds of their caucus voted against it, one third actually voted for it for a surprising bit of vanishingly rare aisle-crossing. Across the nation some 70% of voters support the Act, suggesting the (we can only hope) possibility that Republicans are facing a long-term uphill battle against a growing population of young voters, “especially millennials and Generation Z voters who will soon dominate the electorate.”
For the last fifteen years the Republican operational plan for maintaining political power with a declining base has been twofold. Part 1 was gaining control of rural state legislatures before the 2010 Census and effectively using blatantly partisan gerrymandering to increase the number of “safely Republican seats” in their states’ Congressional districts. Despite being cynical, anti-American, and mean-spirited, the tactic was enormously successful. Part 2 over the past ten years has been to fire up the base with a vast, 24/7 right-wing media bombardment to stoke their fears and prejudices about race, gender ambiguity, and every nation’s obligation to provide refuge from the ever-increasing number of toxic regimes and failing economies around the world. All in all Republicans have been very effective at setting up the conditions for their minority rule across the Red states, and most Congressional Republicans are still all in to eliminate fair elections.
This picture is nicely summarized in a quotation from Robert P. Jones, head of the Public Religion Research Institute about the Dobbs decision: “it is part of a gambit to hold onto a particular conservative vision of white Christian America and impose it upon a more religiously and racially diverse nation that is increasingly supportive of a set of rights grounded in a constitutional right to privacy.”
Rubin’s encouraging main point is that yes, we can see most Republican leaders still pretty much All In with their long-term commitment to keep changing the rules at both state and national levels to their advantage. At the same time, however, as suggested by the recent election results, long-term demographic trends are not in their favor. The recent election pleasantly surprised us with the thoughtfulness of voters around the country. That result, along with growing evidence that younger voters generally lean toward inclusion and fairness, are causes for a bit of hope that we might once again become a nation of, by, and for the People.
This Week’s $10 Wine Tasting
Domaine de l’Amauve La Daurèle, Côtes du Rhône Villages Séguret ’20 France $17
Grenache blanc, clairette, viognier, & ugni blanc; expressive nose of white fruits, Mirabelle plum, and acacia honey; soft on the palate with lively citrus flavors…delicious and very Food Versatile!
Chateau Auzias Cabardes ’18 France $12
60% Cabernet Franc, 30% Syrah, 10% Grenache. Enticing aromas of black raspberry and mulberry that showcase the Cabardes appellation where both Rhone and Bordeaux varietals may be grown. Fine-grained tannins and lacy, billowing acidity carry that raspberry/mulberry fruit all the way to a fresh, graceful finish.
Greywacke Pinot Noir ’18 New Zealand $30
Delicious aromas of juicy blackberries, blueberries and strawberry jam, with suggestions of black olives, cedar and a hint of lavender. Finely structured palate shows red and black fruit with earthy, smoky nuances.
lummi island wine tasting Thanksgiving weekend ’22 nov 25-26
Covid Update
courtesy MD Anderson Cancer Center
I am now around Day 10 of Covid, and have been feeling “almost” normal. Pat is in about Day 5, and feeling about the same. It is interesting to note that our symptom patterns have been quite different. I hit a temp of 102 for a day or so early on, and she did not. Mine has definitely been very much in my chest, hers not at all. Both of us have had less energy and gotten tired more easily. But all in all, it is our understanding that Omicron, while very easily transmitted, produces milder symptoms than some of the early, more virulent variants. So it’s been a long haul, but hopefully our herd is reaching some kind of equilibrium with the virus.
This Week’s Schedule:
PLEASE NOTE: The wine shop will NOT BE OPEN for tasting THIS weekend (Nov 25-26), but WILL be open as usual NEXT Friday and Saturday (Dec 2-3 a little bit earlier because of the waning daylight: 3:30 – 5:30 pm.)
Also…there will again be No Bread pickup next weekend (Dec 2), but there will be bread again the following weekend, Dec 9-10. Look for an email from Janice a week from Sunday (Dec 4) with details.
Thanksgiving Wishes
There is a lot to be thankful for this year… and a lot of work to do to keep our planet supporting eight billion of us without killing it.
On the plus side, the recent election results have generated a collective exhalation of relief from the numerous elements of moderation that were evident in the results, with a broad public rejection of election denialism and extremism.
Still, we need to keep our fingers crossed and keep working to reestablish effective dialogue and comity in our national and state legislatures, and our society as a whole needs to find ways to inoculate our media platforms against the deliberate deceit which has become such a divisive fixture across the internet.
And of course we are grateful to be finally emerging from the siege of Covid and for the increasing signs of global progress against climate change we are beginning to see across the globe. We also press our palms together and bow to all of you who have been part of our wine shop community during the past year. It’s your ongoing warmth and conviviality that keep this place going!
2072 Granger Way