Voted Bellingham's best grocery store. Full-service deli, hot bar, salad bar featuring organic, local, and natural foods. Everyone can shop, anyone can join. Co+op, stronger together.
Free, all ages
Art: Dawn Kodin
Music: Sam Chue is a traveler/songwriter from Bellingham. Born 1991, his influences include Ween, Tom Waits, and Arlo and Woody Guthrie … to name a few. Check out four of his albums at www.bandcamp.com, just search Sam Chue.
Food: Tasty tidbits and sips throughout the store including a treat from the Co-op bakery.
Stop in and save! Need recommendations? Ask our wine stewards: Tim at the Cordata store or Vic at the Downtown store.
Celebrate National Rosé Day with a few of our favorite rosés. We’ve curated a list of well-priced and great drinking rosés to help you enjoy National Rosé Day.
Rosé is a versatile wine that pairs well with many foods, from charcuterie boards to chicken and fish entrees. And of course, rosé is also a wonderful complement to brunch and afternoon drinking on lovely spring and summer days.
Try a few of our featured rosés, carefully curated by our wine department.
Domaine Dyckerhoff is a winemaker from Reuilly, in the French Loire Valley. The majority of their planting is dedicated to Sauvignon, and complemented by small parcels of Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris. This wine is pale salmon in color, and has a fruity nose with freshness and flavors of wild strawberries, peach skin, and minerals.
Les Quatre Tours Aix-En-Provence Rosé is made with 40% Grenache, 15% Syrah, 15% Cinsault, and 15% Cabernet Sauvignon. The vineyard is a cooperative, with growers committed to sustainability. This rosé is dry and well-balanced, with hints of melon, vanilla bean, lemon, and thimbleberry.
This rosé is summer in a bottle. It features wonderful pomelo and sugar notes on the nose and strawberries on the palate. The framework is lithe, brightly acidic, low alcohol, and delicious.
Librandi vineyards dot the countryside of the small town of Cirò Marina, overlooking the Ionian Sea, benefitting from its cool ocean breezes. Cirò Rosato is made from 100% Gaglioppo, Calabria’s signature grape variety, selectively harvested in late September into early October. This delicious rosato is deep coral-pink in color, with delicate red berry, floral, and spicy aromas. It pairs well with cured meats, antipasti, grilled fish, white meats, and mildly spicy dishes.
The Elk Cove Estate Pinot Noir Rosé is pale pink in color, with peach and strawberry cream on the nose. This wine opens with juicy watermelon, garden strawberry, and mango, leading into a lime finish.
Give the gift of the warmth and health of the hive with this great selection of natural beeswax candles made especially for Valentine’s Day from Big Dipper Wax Works. Choose from aromatherapy sprays and a wide selection of candles shaped and scented for Valentine’s Day.
Tulips brighten your Valentine’s Day and indicate that spring is near. Our tulips are grown locally in Mount Vernon and are available in a variety of lovely colored 5-stem bouquets.
Calm the senses, leave your skin silky smooth, and balance your spirit with Aura Cacia aromatherapy foaming bath products in fragrances such as relaxing lavender, sweet orange, or meditating cedarwood. Aura Cacia products feature nourishing jojoba oil, soothing coconut oil, and essential oils.
Finish your Valentine’s Day meal with our housemade bakery items. These specialty items are only available for a limited time around Valentine’s Day and frequently sell out.
The Bleeding Heart is a moist chocolate cake with a tart raspberry filling covered in a dark chocolate ganache. This vegan cake is sold in a serving for two to end your Valentine’s Day meal on a sweet note.
Our favorite gluten-free chocolate cake gets some raspberry love for Valentine’s Day. The gluten-free chocolate cake is filled and topped with raspberry and finished with a creamy mascarpone frosting.
This light, airy cake is rolled with a fresh raspberry filling and frosted with a sweet, tangy cream cheese frosting. And, it’s gluten free! This popular dessert is a delicious way to celebrate Valentine’s Day.
For the chocolate lover in your life, we have a heart-shaped chocolate cake. Our dark chocolate cake is frosted with dark chocolate ganache and decorated for Valentine’s Day with buttercream accents.
The Co-op’s wine manager has selected some special bottles of bubbly to cheer your Valentine. If sparkling wine isn’t for you, we are featuring the Floating Rock Zinfandel from Washington and locally crafted Honey Moon’s Raspberry Mead. Honey Moon’s Raspberry Mead is a blend of mead from blackberry honey and raspberry wine both produced in Whatcom County. It has distinct berry aromas and a tart finish and is especially good paired with cheeses and desserts.
The Valdo rosé is a perfect combination of barely off-dry and creamy in the mouth with enticing suggestions of Pink Lady apple, rose hip, salmonberry, Rainier cherry, and kiwi.
This succulent sparkler is medium-bodied, crisp, and clean. If you are looking for a fun Valentine's Day cocktail try this Cava in a French 75.
In a cocktail shaker, combine the gin, lemon juice, and simple syrup. Fill the shaker with ice and shake well. Strain into a chilled flute and top with the cava.
The holidays can feel overwhelming, especially when you are hosting a gathering. Reduce stress by planning and shopping for you meal early. Simplify your to-do list by sourcing key menu items and ingredients from the Co-op. Feeling short on inspiration? Try some of these fun, festive recipes.
The Co-op's cheese balls only come around once a year, but they sure make a big impression. Made with a blend of cheese, herbs, and spices, dipped in gluten-free beer, and encrusted with slivered almonds, these cheese balls will set the tempo for your holiday gathering. Serve with Lesley Stowe Raincoast Crisps or round out a charcuterie board with Oloves olives, Divina fruit spread, and Olli Salumeria chubs.
Warm up your guests with a Naughty Nog cocktail designed by our friends at Chuckanut Bay Distillery. A Naughty Nog combines Twin Brook Creamery's seasonal eggnog with Chuckanut Bay Distillery's Krampus Herbal Liqueur for a smooth holiday treat. Find everything you need at the Co-op and follow our step-by-step instructions. If eggnog's not your speed, serve Valdo Prosecco Brut Rosé.
No holiday meal is complete without a show-stopping main course. We recommend a generously marbled and neatly trimmed bone-in prime rib roast from Oregon Country Beef. You can order your roast up until Christmas Eve for just $15.99/lb. Bone-in roasts are a tender and flavorful holiday indulgence and easy to portion because each rib feeds two people as a rule. We suggest following this recipe for a salt and pepper-crusted prime rib served with horseradish cream.
Pair your prime rib with a simple-to-prepare potato dish with a big payoff, brown butter hasselback potatoes with caramelized onions. Russet potatoes are on sale through Christmas and can lend this gorgeous side their iconic mix of crispiness and creaminess. Tip: Place a chopstick on either side of each potato to help keep your slices a consistent depth and to prevent yourself from accidently cutting all the way through.
Bring a pop of color to your holiday table with this elegant green bean dish. Steam your green beans to preserve more of their natural nutrients, toast your walnuts to bring out their nutty flavor, and toss it all in aged balsamic vinegar for a sweet and thick glaze. The best part? You can be saying bon appétit in just 15 minutes.
Oven roasting red beets highlights their earthy sweetness. Spoonful of Flavor has a great guide, complete with tips for keeping your hands stain free. If you're feeling adventurous, you can add other vegetables that roast at similar temperatures, such as asparagus and delicata squash. Toss with orange zest, herbs, and spices and then garnish with goat cheese.
Delegate dessert to the Co-op. This six-inch, superbly decorated holiday cake will wow your partygoers. Gluten and sugar-free with three intricate layers, the Winter Wonderland Cake promises to please every guest, while being just a bit too lovely to slice. Order yours here for just $24.99.
Sulfur is an antioxidant and antimicrobial that at very low levels is used as a preservative in wine. It serves to keep bacterial activity in check (wine is not pasteurized), preserves color (especially important in white wines), and keeps wine from oxidizing prematurely.
Its use in wine goes back to Roman times. Wines sold in the U.S. must list “contains sulfites” on the label, when sulfur is used in winemaking. Although no such rule applies to other foods including cheeses, dried fruits, or processed french fries, all of which contain far higher levels of sulfites than wine (we can thank neo-prohibitionist politicians in the 1970s for that).
While sulfites in wine may be a problem for a tiny minority of people with allergies or asthma, for most of us sulfites are not an issue. The relationship between sulfites and wine-related headaches has been debunked.
For winemakers, making no sulfites added (NSA) wines is a difficult and risky proposition. When making NSA wine, the winemaking equipment must be sterile, and NSA winemaking techniques often involve the additional use of specialized yeasts, pasteurization, and sterile filtering. In other words, making NSA wines is not exactly non-intervention winemaking.
However, many winemakers have accepted the challenge of making NSA wines (even NSA wines contain residual sulfites, as sulfur dioxide is a byproduct of fermentation), and there is a market for these wines. And, while many NSA wines still seem sterile and stripped of flavor, we are seeing a vast improvement in the quality of these wines in general.
Many medicinal herbs are easy to grow and do not require a lot of space to produce a decent harvest. Additionally, many common “weeds” have medicinal properties.
Have you tried the hand-harvested single-vineyard wines imported from boutique Mexican wineries from the premiere Valley de Gualdalupe wine-growing region?
Learn more …
The Co-op team visited Atwood Ales to learn more about this unique local family farm brewery. Tag along with us on a virtual tour and see for yourself what makes Atwood Ales stand out among the local brews.
