A Meal to Remember

Backblip.

I didn't get to bed until midnight yesterday, after a fabulous wine dinner at The Willows Inn on Lummi Island, a fundraising event for NSEA (Nooksack Salmon Enhancement Association). The profits from the dinner were generously donated to NSEA by the Willlows' owners, Riley Starks and his wife Judy Olsen.

The impressive five-course menu included salmon (of course), caught by fellow NSEA board member Jeremy Brown. That's it cooking in the wood-fired oven.

Four of the courses were paired with wines donated by Lost River Winery. Liam Doyle from Lost River was there to talk about the wines and to introduce a new red wine blend crafted for NSEA, called Nooksack Redd. (A redd is the nest excavated in a gravel stream bed by a female salmon, where fertilized eggs are deposited and develop.) Lost River will make a donation to NSEA for each bottle of the Redd sold.

Heavy rain was falling as I drove to catch the ferry, and I could see ominous black clouds looming large over Lummi. (Can't resist a little alliteration occasionally). However, half an hour later I was standing on the beach in brilliant sunshine, enjoying the first course of spot prawns and oysters. There's no better way to enjoy oysters than on the half shell, with a fine white wine, on a sunny beach.

The oysters came from Taylor Oyster Farm, just a few miles to the south, and the spot prawns were local, as was almost everything on the menu. Much of the food served at The Willows is grown on the adjacent Nettles Farm, also owned by Riley and Judy.

It was a wonderful evening -- and it would have been perfect if only C had been there, but unfortunately she was housebound with a bad cold.