lummi island wine tasting feb 9 ’18
(note: some photos will enlarge when clicked)
Bread this week
Pain Meunier – aka “miller’s bread;” Made with pre-feremnted dough it contains all portions of the wheat berry: flour, fresh milled whole wheat cracked wheat and wheat germ. Always a favorite and a great all around bread. It makes the best toast! – $5/loaf
Fig Anise – One of our most popular breads. Made with a sponge that is fermented overnight, then the final dough is mixed with bread flour and fresh milled whole wheat. Honey, dried figs and anise bring in all the flavors of the mediterranean. A great flavorful bread – $5/loaf
For pastry this week:
Chocolate Babka Rolls – A sweet pastry dough full of eggs, butter and sugar, rolled and spread with a chocolate filling, and cut into individual rolls brushed with sugar syrup after baking. – 2/$5
February Wine Shop Schedule
The Wine Shop will be open for Bread Fridays and Wine Tasting on the remaining Fridays in February: Feb 9, 16, and 23, form 4-6. So keep ordering bread, stay around for Friday wine tasting, and celebrate our collective good fortune to live on this beautiful Island. And of course, stay tuned for updates!
Ciliegiolo
Ciliegiolo is a red grape variety of central and northwestern Italy, something of an obscurity in past decades but now undergoing a renaissance in Tuscany and Umbria. It’s dominant flavor is cherry, from which it derives its name due to both its flavor and color which have provided the appeal to fuel its renaissance.
Ciliegiolo brings a certain freshness and lively character to otherwise heavy wines. In a world that increasingly demands early-drinking wines, but which are nonetheless full of character, Ciliegiolo grapes provides an interesting and enjoyable option.
Mar a Lago Update: A Brief Digression on Psychopathy
We are used to hearing the label “psychopath” misused as a synonym for something like “Insane Murderer.” But in most schools of psychotherapy, clusters of behavioral traits are commonly grouped together in consistent patterns that quite faithfully represent the clusters of beliefs and behaviors that describe most ordinary people. Our responses to everyday events as adults depend to a very large degree on decisions we made before the age of six about the nature of the World and Our Places in it. “Psychopath” is just one of these; it is neither good nor bad. Like all personality strategies, it has its strengths and weaknesses.
Between birth and the age of six or seven, we all develop our own relationships with the World, constantly moving toward Rewards and away from Pain. Our own Circumstances and Experiences continually shape a Deep Belief Structure about the World and Our Place in it; these Core Beliefs have long been Unconscious to us, and can, as Jung put it, seem to appear in our lives as Fate, as though our Choices had nothing to do with our Circumstances.
The Psychopathic Strategy tends to form in a male child who so often does not get the sense of safety, affection, attention and approval he needs that he begins to believe, “No One Really Cares About Me.” Lots of children have this experience, but organize around it differently. The Psychopath is someone who has determined that Hiding Hurt behind Smug Superiority, Rewarding Loyalty with Generosity, and Punishing Disloyalty with Vengeance allows him to maintain the Illusion that he is Loved and Appreciated. But the Reality is that no amount of obeisance and adulation can relieve the underlying sense of Inadequacy.
This underlying Ego Structure is common among men who have been Driven to seek Power, Fame, Wealth, and Adulation: Politicians, Generals, CEO’s, Dictators, TV Evangelists, Ponzi Schemers, Snake Oil Salesmen, and all manner of Garden Variety Gang Leaders and Bullies. These are the famous Dominant Males that have Started Every War, Enslaved Entire Populations, created God and Religion in their Own Images, Polluted the World in the name of Profit…in short, visited Untold Destruction and Misery upon Society and Our Planet since at least the beginning of so-called Civilization, all in the Service of Satisfying their Hungry Ghost Egos.
Our Epic Tales of Heroism and Gallantry inevitably focus on the Contest between the Psychopaths of the Moment, while the thousands or even millions of ordinary people that did or could Die in the name of one or the other are turned Namelessly into Bloody Soil. (sigh). But, hey, we Digress: all of this is just to ask: Is the Tweetster any More or Less Dangerous than the rest of the the Psychopaths that have risen to Power over the Millenia??? …to be continued
This week’s wine tasting
Folie a Deux Chardonnay ’15 California $16
Good example of Russian River appellation style; bright acidity and seductive notes of pear, apple, pineapple, apricot, nutmeg and vanilla—all framed by a richly textured palate.
Vina Equia Rioja ’14 Spain $10
Vivid cherry red color with hints of vanilla, coconut, and licorice; it is well-balanced with mature red fruit flavors on the palate and full-bodied with an elegant finish.
Morellino di Scansano Maremma Toscana Capoccia ’15 Italy $11
Bright and clean with a dark color, soft cherry fruit and structure, but nice weight and a juicy finish. Fruit forward without being sweet or alcoholic. Great value.
Goose Ridge g3 Red ‘`14 Washington $14
Syrah-cab-merlot blend; supple ripe plum and blackberry notes with hints of spice, vanilla, black currant and Bing cherry. Nicely balanced with a lush, round mouth and a long, lingering finish.
Gilbert Cellars Left Bank Red ’14 Washington $18
(Cab, Merlot, Carmenere, Cab Franc and Petit Verdot) Meaty, with notes of tobacco, earth, charcoal and dark fruits, medium+ body, with a firm, structured feel on the palate. 19 months in 80% French and 20% American oak.
lummi island wine tasting feb 2, 18
Sorry, we are away and traveling this week, as is our baker, Janice. The wine shop is closed this weekend, reopening next weekend. Therefore the shop will be closed both Friday and Saturday Feb 2 and 3. We regret any inconvenience
The shop will be open Friday nights only for the rest of February…mark your calendars!
lummi island wine tasting jan 26 ’18
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Bread this week
Both breads this week use similar fermentation as last week, a poolish and a levain, though with different grains for different flavors.
The levain uses a natural yeast starter, sometimes referred to as ‘wild yeast’ while poolish uses a pinch of dry yeast to get the fermentation going. Many people find that pre-fermenting some of the flour makes the bread easier to digest. I know that it adds another level of flavor to what is already delicious bread!
Buckwheat Walnut & Honey – a flavorful artisan bread made with a poolish and fresh milled buckwheat and bread flour. A little honey to balance the earthiness of the buckwheat and some toasted walnuts for a nice crunch. This bread goes well with meats and cheeses – $5/loaf
Multi Grain Levain – Made with a sourdough culture 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 polenta add great flavor and crunch. And just a little honey for some sweetness. A great all around bread that is full of flavor – $5/loaf
For pastry this week:
Fruit & Spice Rolls – Include half whole wheat and plenty of butter, sugar and egg for flavor and a tender crumb. Dried cranberries, golden raisins, fresh orange peel and juice plus anise, cinnamon, mace and cardamon. Topped with demerara sugar before baking for that extra bit of sweetness and crunch…lingering flavors of the Holidays! – 2/$5
February Wine Shop Schedule
By Andy Reago & Chrissy McClarren
We have spoken many times in these pages about Cross-Quarter Days. There are four of them in each year, spread at equal intervals between the solstices and equinoxes (equinoxi…?). February 2, aka Groundhog Day by our custom, is halfway between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox, and represents a midpoint between winter and spring, a sign of Hope in a Dark Time. It is also known as Imbolc, Candelmas, or St. Brighid’s Day.
The first thing you need to know is that the Wine Shop will be closed the weekend of Feb 2-3. No wine tasting, no bread delivery. We will be away, and Janice will be away. We regret any inconvenience.
We are heading South in our little trailer for most of February, and look forward to seeing you in March. To nurse you through the Withdrawal that might cause, Janice will be here for Bread Fridays and Wine Tasting on the remaining Fridays: Feb 9, 16, and 23. Stay tuned to our blog (this one!) for updates.
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Tomàs Cusiné
We have spoken often of our deep attraction to the Deep Harmonic Resonance of the Spanish wines of Priorat.
The winery of Tomàs Cusiné is located in the village of El Vilosell, at the southern end of the DOC Costers del Segre, part of Catalonia, and just north of Priorat. Vineyards grow in dry, rugged terrain that also nourishes forests of oak, pine and juniper. As in Priorat, soils have calcareous compositions with varying amounts of gravel with good drainage, and sit at an average altitude of 250 meters.
The region is blessed by a local night wind called the marinade, which blows reliably cool on hot summer evenings. Day-night temperature contrast forms a cold climate that ensures slow ripening of the grapes, with late harvest that helps good acidity, thick skins, soft tannins and great color intensity in the wines.
This week’s feature wine is a blend of Carinena, merlot, and cab sauv. Interestingly, unlike many of the surrounding regions, the carinena (aka samso in Catalonia) vines are quite young, about 15 years old (over 100 yrs old in many nearby places), and the merlot and cab vines older (25 and 20). While this is a bit of a disappointment to those of us who have a Thang for Old Vines Carinena, this is still some very serious Juice worth savoring next to a fire on these long winter nights!
Mar a Lago Update: Hopes and Dreams, cont’d
Yes, yes, we know it is a Remote Possibility, but there is Increasing Evidence that some kind of “Deal” may be taking shape in the Nation’s Capital on Immigration. At a time when most other Threads of National Discussion remain Locked in Polarization (Climate, Environment, Equal Rights, Income and Wealth Distribution, Gender to name a few), there are a few tentative signs of Coalescence on Immigration. And let’s face it, the Very Idea that the Gazillionaire Class that populates most of our Congress could become Conscious enough to even begin to perceive some sense of Duty, Service, or Responsibility feels, yes, like Just Another Trick, so we remain Cautious…but, always, you know…Hopeful. We shall see what unfolds.
In the meantime, we have been recalling an old song by Woody Guthrie called “Deportee“. The song is a lament on the Futile Situation of migrant workers who died in a plane crash in 1948 as they were being deported to Mexico. It’s a beautiful and poignant ode to both their lives and their deaths, these people, these families with few options who made desperate decisions, took desperate chances, and worked their hearts out to find a Better Life than was possible in Mexico seventy years ago. Many were able to build a better life. Many were not. But we all must admire the Strength of their Commitment.
This system didn’t just benefit illegal immigrants. It has been the mainstay of agriculture in much of the American West and Southwest since before Woody wrote the song. In economic terms, there has been a Market for these workers for decades. In Business Terms, it has been without a doubt the Next Best Thing to Slavery. It’s the long, hard, rutted, and blood-stained Road generations of immigrants have taken to come to this country. For most of the world, the Gates of Heaven are Right Here in our Everyday Life. We are all Lucky Ducks, indeed.
So. How do we navigate the many paths that weave through our Compassion, our Selfishness, our Fears, and our Better Natures? It’s not an Easy Question. So the notion that this Congress might be able to get its Sh#* together long enough to achieve Any compromise on this issue is Breathtakingly, Head-scratchingly, and yes, even Seductively alluring, n’est-ce pas? Fingers crossed and Stay Tuned!
This week’s wine tasting
Bernier Chardonnay ’16 France $10
Lemon, herbs and lees on the nose. Full-on minerality, with a touch of lemon curd. Crisp, elegant, steely, and citrusy personality; classic Old World style.
Virginia Dare Pinot Noir ’14 California $17
Uncomplicated but entirely engaging with notes of blackberry, ground black pepper, and black olives along with typical Russian River notes of strawberry and pit fruits.
Sanguineti Cannonau de Sardegna ’15 Italy $12
This cannonau– a Sardinian varietal known elsewhere as grenache– offers dry and dusty aromas and flavors of cherry, pomegranate and plum that leave lingering, crisp, earthy and briny flavors that beg for food.
Robert Ramsay Mason’s Red ’1 Washington $1
Easy-drinking cinsault-dominant Rhone blend; subtle nose of black cherry paste with a hint of cinnamon spice that expands on the palate to a soft anise finish.
Tomas Cusine Geol ’12 Spain $21
Carinena, merlot, cab sauv; Elegant notes of cedar, eucalyptus, chocolate, and black currants with elegant and sweet wood on the nose. A wide and silky entrance, with rounded tannins; powerful, deep and persistent finish.
lummi island wine tasting jan 19 ’18
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Bread this week
Barley, Whole Wheat, & Rye Levain – Levain culture is built over several days and allowed to ferment before the final dough is mixed. Made with freshly milled whole wheat, barley and rye flours. – $5/loaf
Buttermilk Currant – A really flavorful loaf using a poolish preferment. A little honey for sweetness balances the flavors of the whole grain; buttermilk makes for a soft and tender crumb. Then lots of currants and just a little rosemary round out the flavors. This bread makes great toast and even better french toast – $5/loaf
and pastry this week…
Pan de Cioccolate – A delicious rich chocolate artisan bread using a levain with bread flour and fresh milled rye flour, honey for sweetness, vanilla and plenty of dark chocolate. A great bread to go with morning coffee or afternoon tea – $5/loaf.
Illahe Vineyards
Our white wine this week is 
Illahe gruner veltliner, the premier white grape of Austria, brought to the Willamette Valley in 1983 by Lowell Ford. Gruner (aka “gee-vee”) combines a delightful array of unique characteristics, including a complex palate that falls somewhere on the spectrum between riesling and chardonnay, with engaging fruit, complelling aromas, great acidity, and complex flavors.
Lowell Ford began growing gruner in Oregon in 1983, and in 1999 purchased the pasture land west of Salem that over the next several years became Illahe Vineyards. Son Brad Ford became the family’s winemaker in 2006. The vineyard was only tilled once, by horse; the wine is made almost entirely by hand with no electricity or mechanization, using a manual wooden basket press and transported by a team of Percheron draft horses that mow the fields and deliver the grapes to the winery at harvest. They may be the region’s only Completely Sustainable Winery. See video at bottom of this page.
New Year’s Prizes!
Thanks to all of you who slaved for hours in your kitchens, or picked something up somewhere, or just showed up with Whatever. It was Awesome, one of our best New Year’s events ever. Lots of Positive Energy…we are all Lucky Ducks!
Special mention goes to Mary Jane, who not only brings great food to these events each year, but also for being Inspired to bring these amazing Magical Glowing “Ice” Cubes! They are inert until they go into the liquid, and then burst into colors which change from moment to moment from green to blue to red to yellow…Amazing!
Our judge this year had her work cut out for her, because as usual there were many Delicious Dishes! However, after considerable tasting and deliberation, she settled on Mary Beth’s Stuffed Scallops as the Best-Tasting Dish! And they were also Beautiful (our Bad for blurring the pictures..) (:
Best-looking dish this year from from Peter, last year’s winner for “best-tasting” dish. Mexican by birth, Peter has great skill with peppers and salsas, and you gotta keep coming back for more! So yes, they were also Really Tasty! Oh, and yes there was a note on the table to Be Careful adding the Extra Spice…it was, um, Good Advice…! Tasty but mucho picante!
Mar a Lago Update: Hopes, Dreams, Karma, and Sh#*hole Countries
Everyone on the Planet now knows about the Sh#*storm that blew out of the Oval Office last week. And the Tweetster’s Comments have been widely interpreted as “Racist.” Which implies a prejudice against Whole Peoples because of their Race: white, black, brown, red, yellow, and all the shades in between. After due consideration, our Editorial Staff takes a Different View. We don’t think he gives even a single Sh#* about Race, per se. Oh, no, no, no, mes amis…this is not a Race Thing for him. It’s a Class Thing, shared by most Republicans: if people are So Poor they can’t meet their Basic Needs for Food, Clothing, Shelter, Sanitation, and Safety, It’s Their Own Fault!
Forty years ago when I was a grad student in Economics, the prevailing theoretician in Development Economics was Walt Rostow. The basic idea was that the Fundamental Problem with Lesser Developed Economies was Capital Formation, which requires Investment, which requires Savings, which requires (I am not making this up) “refraining from current consumption out of current income.” In practice, there had be some mechanism to turn the Labor and Natural Resources of the Region into Export Dollars so they could Import Capital (infrastucture, factories, technology). Only then could a country achieve the necessary threshold of capital formation for Economic Takeoff, as Rostow put it. This was the Basic Philosophy behind the World Bank and the policies it followed for decades.
Rostow’s Model was very appealing and made a lot of theoretical sense. In practice, however, the Benign Intent of the Model was quite consistently Twisted away from the Needs of the Many to support the “Greegos” (Greed + Ego..?) of the Few, including Local Dictators, Global Corporations, Cold War Strategists, Regional warlords, and Political Players of all Persuasions. The modern-day Fallout from all of this is a World of Heartbreaking Inequality.
Those of us with the Astounding Good Luck to have been born in industrialized nations have, by all historic standards, enjoyed the Regular Fulfillment of our basic needs for safety, food, clothing, and shelter to a degree of Comfort rarely seen in all of Human History. The Deeply Disturbing Fact is that Our Comfort comes at the Cost of most of those people who live in Sh#*hole Countries, which are, most fundamentally, not just places without running water, but places Without Hope. Think about that for a minute: Without Hope. So maybe Our Job As a Nation is to give all those people in Sh#*hole a little Hope that they too could enjoy the simplest of Gifts we Regularly Take for Granted: safety, shelter, food, water, and yes, a Clean Place to Sh#*.
This week’s wine tasting
Illahe Gruner Veltliner’16 Oregon $16
Light yet dense aromas of dried peach, apple, and fresh cedar. Fermented partially in acacia barrels which add herbal flavors and complex texture. Palate also shows red grapefruit, graham cracker, and white nectarine. Balanced and beautiful, great Washington take on Austria’s premier white.
La Rocaliere Tavel Rose ’16 France $14
Scents of dark berries, cherry, and licorice, with a floral accent. Firm and structured, displaying cherry and floral pastille flavors and a hint of bitter herbs, finishing with good power and length.
Tommasi Poggio Al Tufo Rompicollo ’13 Italy $17
Opulent, with an Amarone-like raisiny nuance to the ripe, soft red cherry, sweet spice, and herb aromas and flavors. Velvety, opulent, well balanced and smooth, with long, lush, smooth tannins. Terrific buy!
Terra d’Oro Zinfandel ’14 California $14
Vibrant aromas of clove and big, generous fruit lead to concentrated flavors of juicy plums and blackberries; well-balanced and smooth on the palate; plush but not jammy. Comforting and crisp on these long winter nights.
Maryhill Marvell GSM ’12 Washington $28
Grenache, Syrah and Mourvedre; shows ample tobacco leaf, licorice, cured meats and ripe red and black fruits in its mouth-pleasing, ripe, textured and balanced personality. Beautiful round body with notes of berry, cherry and baker’s chocolate.
2072 Granger Way