Frost on the ground is a welcome sight these days, as it likely means a clear sky, crisp sun day. As we head into the dog days of January, the woodstoves trail little rivulets of smoke into the valleys all day long. The fires (some literal) remain lit in the ovens of the bakers as well, and this week we are celebrating all things leavened and unleavened. Whether savory or sweet, this county is a who’s who of scratch bakers. Follow the trail of breadcrumbs through our newsletter to find your way to tasty baked delights! 

Having navigated Frigemageddon, we are eager to get back to offering all the best and yummiest products we can get our hands on here at the Corner. To double the fun we are doubling the deals all year long! After the hoop-la of the holidays, it is a relief to save some dough on groceries. And with the accelerated pace of our deal offerings, you’ll never know what you will be stoked to stock up on next! So walk your little tamale on down to the Corner and get to saving.

We’re thrilled to announce that our refrigeration issues have been resolved and we’re back to having all the cold things! Snacks, drinks, treats, salads, sauces, cheese, chocolate milk, and more! Today our fantastic Corner Crew worked together to reload the deli, beverage, and dairy coolers after a multi-day stint without refrigeration inside the store. It all started Friday evening with coolers beginning to temp high. We got them emptied and the problem diagnosed, but it wasn’t possible to access the needed parts over the weekend. First thing Monday morning, techs were on site to replace the faulty compressor (for which the warranty had just expired in November of 2024!). The work took most of the day, and we needed to let the system run a minimum of 12 hours (overnight) before we felt comfortable deeming the coolers safe and stable enough to reload with goods. Thank goodness the repairs were successful and we had folks on hand to restock. So, a big ol’ HURRAH to that! What an endeavor it was to schlep all that food.

Well we did it! 2024 is coming to a close and as we aim for an even bigger and brighter 2025 we’re grateful for our beloved Chimacum Corner Community! We look forward to serving you in 2025 and beyond. January 1st serves as our major inventory count day annually. So, the store will be CLOSED NEW YEAR’S DAY so we can count each and every last item in the store and nursery. You may see us inside rocking to our favorite playlists and indulging in a tasty staff meal, but we will not be open to the public. We’ll be back to our regular OPEN 8am to 7pm DAILY schedule on Thursday the 2nd.

Thank you everyone for an outstanding 2024! Happy New Year!

“Nothing fades like the light” wrote Orville Peck on his lauded debut album “Pony,” and that much is true. Merry Winter Solstice, everyone. No snow this fall, other than the Snowbale People that have sprung up around town. Yet the light still fades, and so it is in our darkest days that we turn to one another and reflect on another season gone. Nothing cuts through the gloom like sharing with friends. Long evenings are tailor-made for well-plated spreads of local bounty. If you need last minute gifts, the Corner is a great place to pick stuff up on the fly. 

In the recently released essay “The Serviceberry,” by Robin Wall Kimmerer, she describes an anecdote where an anthropologist on location in a Brazilian rainforest notices a hunter who has brought back a sizeable kill. When the anthropologist asks the hunter how he plans to store the meat, the hunter replies, “Store my meat? I store my meat in the belly of my brother.” The hunter then called for a community feast. We see the power of a gift in this story. To give a gift is to make your community more resilient. In the hunter’s case, he is caching life force in his extended family, to help in the process of survival. May we all walk through the festive dark days of winter with a firm eye on the significance of gifting, and take heed of Kimmerer’s other choice words, “All Flourishing is Mutual.” Come flourish with us!

A large part of the beauty of the Peninsula lies in our coniferous forests, who stay “forever green.” This week we are celebrating greens of all stripes. A big thank you to all who came out and purchased wreaths from Sky Island Farm over the last few weeks, y’all blew through the inventory! Read on for more verdant content from the Nursery, Kitchen, Grocery, and Produce departments. As Kermit the Frog once said, “It isn’t easy being green,” but gosh if we aren’t grateful for chlorophyll around here!

Hard to believe 14 years have passed since this little slice of Chimacum was a vacant auto parts store. Born in a snowstorm, we’ve continued to weather whatever is thrown our way.  And you all have been with us every step of the way. Some can remember when there was a table by the window in the store for customers to sit and have coffee. Some can remember when the cold storage was inside the store (what is now the dairy zone) and you had to watch out for staff emerging from the walk-in with local eggs!

As clerks, we find people’s shopping lists laying around the store sometimes. It’s neat to see how people organize their thoughts, and the cornucopia of handwriting styles. Whether your holiday list is worthy of an excel spreadsheet, or a little ink on the back of your hand, we’ve got what you need to make it through the next week. From the first cracker on the plate, to the last slice of pie out of the dish, we would be proud to serve your feasting needs. So make your list, and check it twice! And as ever, keep it local when ya can!

With crops falling off the fresh sheets one by one as we head for winter, farmers turn to their long-storing zones to keep the markets stocked with local produce. Even the longest growing winter squashes have now cured and are ready to be dug into. With eighteen varieties, there is plenty to get excited about in the winter squash category at the Corner. Perhaps the most punk-rock of all winter squash is the Tetsukabuto squash from Midori Farm, whose name translates to “Iron Helmet”. Among the longest keeping of all winter squashes, it is a great squash to roast whole and stuff with all kinds of savory goodies, or simmer at length in curries or soups. Perhaps it could even be a vessel for fondue?! Winter squash is a very important component of eating seasonally in the fall/winter in our bioregion, staying edible and vital long after their thinner-skinned sisters, zucchini and crookneck, have packed it up for the season. Read along for the full download on all things squashy.

We are thick in the bounty of apples. Malus Domestica, patron saint of Washington agriculture. How best to celebrate the variety of experience an apple can be? Trying them alongside our premier grower, Tonnemaker Hill Farm of course! We will have Luke Tonnemaker out in the greenhouse on the afternoon of November 13th from 1pm to 3pm to culture more stoke around his Wonka-like array of fruits. Calling all true produce nerds and pomologists! Read on for other deals in the house, perhaps while listening to “Sweet Thing” by Van Morrison.

Things are rolling right along at the Corner. We are set to launch the Protein Pre-Orders for the holidays, Sandwiches and Pies are being cranked out daily, and we continue to settle in with a bevy of fall fruit and vegetable crops. Hearty soup additions like Rutabagas and Celeriac from Midori Farm have joined their brethren on the Produce Porch, as well as our seasonal roasting fave, Brussels Sprouts, from Stellar J Farm. We also have some great restocks on Store Merch, with the full array of colors for our signature Beanie. Read on for all the ways to light your oven fires!

We hope everyone managed the week of winds and power outages as best they could. Apropos that the weather would turn scary in time for all things spooky to emerge from the woods. We have some shocking thrills in store for you at the Corner this week. We are tricking out all of our treats to the nines. As you load up on sweet goodies, it is also time to give a thought to your holiday meal entrees. Read on for gripping tales of ghoulishly good groceries!

Roots are radical. At Chimacum Corner, we encourage you to know your roots. Did you know that carrots weren’t orange until Dutch farmers bred for the type in the 17th century, in a patriotic genetic display? Or that beets weren’t cultivated for their taproot and were more or less treated (and prized) as chard until German and Italian farmers did so in the 16th century? And that Aphrodite was said to eat beets to enhance her appeal? Or that black radishes were fed to the workers who built the pyramids by order of the pharaohs to increase their energy levels? Roots are fascinating, and are best studied through the lens of your own palette. Come on down to the Corner and root around for something nourishing and earthy. We’ve got loads of rootin’ tootin’ good stuff! 

Jack Skellington would be proud of our farmers and wares at the Corner of late. The winter squash has made it out of the fields and onto our Produce Porch. All but a few of the later season squashes are up for grabs. The grocery and kitchen departments are changing gears and fine-tuning new fall flavors to complement the long grey evenings. Staff arrives to the store in the mornings accompanied by the scent of neighbors’ woodstoves. And the coffee pots are rollin’ all day long! Read on to see what tricks (and treats) we’ve got up our flannel sleeves these days. 

The crackle of fall air has officially entered our midst. Word on the ridgelines is this season has had a most impressive early flush of wild mushrooms, chief among them Lady Chanterelle. This week we celebrate all things mycelial. The duff is calling. Without mushrooms we would all be swimming in the accumulation of biomatter! If you haven’t read Cool Dark Places by Amber Autumn Leaves Huntsman, published by our local luminary and poet laureate Conner Bouchard-Roberts of Winter Texts, the time is nigh. Perhaps curled up next to a fire with a bowl of mushroom soup. The mycelia of our coniferous forests would be proud of you for doing so. Read on for the Fungus Amongus…

There’s an old saying: “Garlic is as good as ten mothers”. The original phrase, of course, was that garlic is better than ten mothers for keeping the “girls” away. I much prefer the shorter, less specific form. For love, for care of your circle, garlic IS as good as ten mothers. Maybe better. Right now is the time to nurture your body and immune system with all the garlicky goods down at the Corner. Perhaps it’s also time to watch Les Blank’s 1980 celebratory documentary of the same name, to get all jazzed about the old “Stinking Rose.” And as we’ve crossed the threshold of the equinox, time to get out those dutch ovens and sauce pots and get them cranking! 

This weekend marks the official beginning of fall, y’all! We feel it in the air and in the evenings. A big thank you to all in the community who went out and visited the local farms during Farm Tour Weekend. We know it meant a lot to all of our hyperlocal small producers. As we begin to re-gather inside and cozy up, there is still a mountain of work to be done in the fields.

The whole crew here at the Corner is proud to host Farm Tour Central once again. And as September has now officially been declared Eat Local Month in the state of Washington, we are proud to be one hub of many in our region trying to showcase the best of what our county has to offer. This newsletter will be a tour of its own, highlighting all of the farms on Farm Tour that stock their products at CCF.

We welcome all the inbound mariners venturing to Port Townsend for the Wooden Boat Festival this weekend.  Billed as the largest celebration of wooden vessels in North America, it is a cornerstone of the annual calendar that makes Port Townsend what it is. A chance for transference of maritime skills, knowledge, culture, and fun, in the name of reverence for the ocean. As merchants of fine foods, we humbly invite you to pack yer galley at the Corner this weekend. One hand for you, sailors! Read on for all the scuttlebutt!