Swiped: Banks, Merchants And Why Washington Doesn’t Work For You

Interchange fees on credit cards are one of our largest expenses.  This article details the little known effects on both small businesses such as ours as well as the costs to our customers.  Even more interesting, this debate is a metaphor for the way business is done in D.C.

“The swipe fee debate, as mundane as it may appear, is emblematic of how Washington works today — and helps explain why Congress hasn’t passed an appropriations bill in years, can’t write an annual budget, is flirting with defaulting on the country’s debt and effectively gave up on job-creation efforts in the midst of a brutal economic downturn. There are, to be sure, a variety of reasons that Congress is zombified, but one of the least understood explanations is also one of the simplest: The city is too busy refereeing disputes between major corporate interest groups.”

Cooking Central Oregon Style: Molten Chocolate Cupcakes

Here is a link to the molten chocolate cupcake recipe that I demonstrated in the last episode of Cooking Central Oregon Style.

Chateau de Montfaucon Winemaker Dinner Sunday, April 17

The dinner menu features foods from this area in France.  The wines will be presented by M. Rodolphede Pins, the winemaker of his family’s estate, Chateau de Montfaucon. The chateau, which is the oldest occupied castle in France at about nine hundred years old, sits across the Rhône River from Châteauneuf-du-Pape. M. de Pins is a graduate of the UC Davis school of Oenology and Viticulture and has made wine in Australia and in Chateauneuf-du-Pape at Vieux Telegraphe, one of the most prestigious wineries in Châteauneuf-du-Pape. This will be a unique opportunity to taste the complex and elegant Rhône wines produced by Chateau du Montfaucon and to learn about them from the winemaker in person. How often do we have the opportunity to hear from a winemaker from France in Bend?