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.
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.
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.
Craft beer was, and still is, community inspired.
