November 30, 2016 by Charles Bingham

Scenes from the Cooking From Scratch whole-grain breads class at the Sitka Kitch

Students learned how to make whole-grain breads using the Tassajara technique during the second Cooking From Scratch series class held Monday, Nov. 28, at the Sitka Kitch community rental commercial kitchen.

The whole-grain breads class was the second of three classes in the Fall 2016 Cooking From Scratch series at the Sitka Kitch, which is located at First Presbyterian Church (505 Sawmill Creek Road). The three classes are taught by Lisa Sadleir-Hart, a registered dietitian and health educator. The classes are designed to help Sitka residents learn how to expand their culinary skills while also eating healthy foods and stretching their food dollars.

The Tassajara bread technique, which also was taught last year, is a virtually fool-proof way to make whole-grain breads. It was developed at a monastery in California, and there have been books detailing the technique. In addition to proofing a loaf of whole-wheat bread (so it’s ready to bake at home), the students also learned about a variety of whole grains that aren’t commonly used in the United States but are rich in flavor and nutrition.

The third Cooking from Scratch class will focus on winter morning creations (registration link), featuring baked and fried pancakes from around the world. It will be taught at 6-8:30 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 5. This class is new this fall, and it will teach students how to make a Finnish baked pancake called Krupso, the Eastern/Middle Eastern potato pancakes called Latke, Swedish pancakes, and Strata, a baked bread and egg dish. The first class in the series, on Nov. 14, taught students how to make homemade yogurt with non-fat powdered milk.

The Cooking from Scratch series goal is to teach basic cooking skills using high-quality ingredients, and to help Sitkans take back their kitchens and reduce their food budgets. Interested individuals can register at https://sitkakitch.eventsmart.com/ (click on the event title to register, and use our PayPal feature to pay for the class). We need at least eight students registered for each class to guarantee they happen.

Class size is limited, so register early. The cost is $27.50 per class, plus a food/supply fee that will be divided among registered participants. The registration deadline is late on the Friday night before each class. For more information about the class series, call Lisa Sadleir-Hart at 747-5985.

In addition, the Sitka Kitch will host a Holiday Make and Take class with Nickie Knight from 6-8:30 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 12, where students will learn how to make a variety of organic bath and body products using essential oils (such as body butter, luxurious sugar scrub, lip balm and holiday cheer room spray). This class will cost $20, plus a supply fee of about $15. We’re also putting together a Cooking Around The World class series for this spring, so watch for updates once details are confirmed.

A slideshow of scenes from the whole-grain breads class can be found below.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

November 30, 2016 by Charles Bingham

Sitka community gardens project meeting on Thursday moved to Harrigan Centennial Hall

Since the Sitka School District closed Blatchley Community Gardens in October, the gardeners have been removing their raised garden beds and soil in preparation for finding a new location for Sitka’s community gardens.

Due to a schedule conflict, the Sitka community gardens project meeting scheduled for 6-7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 1, has been moved to Harrigan Centennial Hall instead of its originally scheduled location of the Sitka Community Hospital classroom.

The Sitka community gardens project is one of the two community wellness projects chosen at the 10th annual Sitka Health Summit in October. Because of the recent closure of the Blatchley Community Gardens by the Sitka School District, Sitka residents are looking for a replacement site and structure for some new community gardens. People are encouraged to bring their ideas about where they think might be a good location for new gardens, and how the gardens should be structured.

All are invited. For more information, contact Dave Nuetzel, 738-8372, or go to community.garden@hotmail.com or sitkagardens@gmail.com. People also can like the Sitka Community Gardens page on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/Sitka-Community-Gardens-210713299032006/, for more info.

November 28, 2016 by Charles Bingham

Check out the December 2016 edition of the Sitka Local Foods Network newsletter

The Sitka Local Foods Network just sent out the December 2016 edition of its monthly newsletter. Feel free to click this link to get a copy.

This month’s newsletter includes short articles about our #GivingTuesday campaign on Nov. 29, a request for new board members, an update on two food-related Sitka Health Summit projects, and info about some upcoming classes at the Sitka Kitch. Each story has links to our website for more information.

You can sign up for future editions of our newsletter by clicking on the registration form image in the right column of our website and filling in the information. If you received a copy but didn’t want one, there is a link at the bottom of the newsletter so you can unsubscribe. Our intention is to get the word out about upcoming events and not to spam people. We will protect your privacy by not sharing our email list with others.

November 23, 2016 by Charles Bingham

A thank you to those people who donated to us through Pick.Click.Give.

We recently received a check from Pick.Click.Give. for donations from the 2016 Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) community giving program. This year there were 42 donors giving the Sitka Local Foods Network $2,800.

Thank you. We appreciate your support for our mission to increase the amount of locally produced and harvested food in the diets of Southeast Alaskans.

This was the third year the Sitka Local Foods Network participated in the Pick.Click.Give. program, which allows people to donate in $25 increments to their favorite statewide and local 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations when they file their PFD applications. When you choose to donate part of your PFD to the Sitka Local Foods Network, you support the Sitka Farmers Market, St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm, education programs about growing and preserving food, the Sitka Kitch community rental commercial kitchen, community gardens, the sustainable use of traditional foods, the Sitka Community Food Assessment, the Sitka Food Summit, the Fish-To-Schools program, and a variety of other projects designed to increase access to healthy local foods in Sitka.

Unfortunately, due to a clerical snafu, we will not be participating in the 2017 Pick.Click.Give. program. We hope to be back for 2018, though.

You still can donate to the Sitka Local Foods Network, even if we’re not in the 2017 Pick.Click.Give. program. To donate, send your check to the Sitka Local Foods Network, 408 Marine St., Suite D, Sitka, Alaska, 99835. Our EIN is 26-4629930.

On Tuesday, Nov. 29, we will launch our second annual #GivingTuesday fundraising campaign. Giving Tuesday is a day set aside to donate to various causes you care about after the consumer-oriented Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday events. Our Giving Tuesday campaign will take donations through Dec. 31, for those wanting another donation for tax purposes.

You also can make an online donation through our Razoo.com crowdfunding page. Please let us know if you need a receipt for tax purposes. The Sitka Local Foods Network now has a Bronze rating from the GuideStar Nonprofit Profile Service, and we are listed with the Benevity Causes Portal used by larger corporations for employee giving programs. For more information about donating, you can send an email to sitkalocalfoodsnetwork@gmail.com.

November 21, 2016 by Charles Bingham

Sitka Kitch to host Holiday Make and Take class on Dec. 12

The holidays are upon us! Join Nickie Knight for a Holiday Make and Take class from 6-8:30 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 12, at the Sitka Kitch community rental commercial kitchen. The Sitka Kitch is located inside First Presbyterian Church, 505 Sawmill Creek Road.

Treat yourself, or leave with a variety of gifts to share. Luxurious, organic bath and body products don’t need to be expensive. Learn how to make some of your favorite concoctions in the kitchen using all natural ingredients and 100-percent pure essential oils. Nickie is an essential oil aficionado, who has been an advocate for the removal of toxins in the home for more than a decade.

The Holiday Make and Take class is $20.00 per person, plus the cost of supplies. Students should prepay for the class through the Sitka Kitch online registration site using PayPal.

Students will leave with finished products including — Body Butter, Luxurious Sugar Scrub, Lip Balm, and Holiday Cheer Room Spray. The supply fee (about $15, paid at the class) allows students to make one each of the body butter, sugar scrub, and room spray; and five tubes of lip balm. (Also, ask Nickie how to get your class fee reimbursed!)

To learn more about the class, contact Nickie at nickie@essentialwellnessak.com. To learn more about the Sitka Kitch, send an email to sitkakitch@sitkawild.org.

Also, the Sitka Kitch still has a few openings in its last two Cooking From Scratch classes — Whole-Grain Breads Using the Tassajara Techinique from 6-8:30 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 28, and Winter Morning Creations (baked and fried pancakes from around the world) from 6-8:30 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 5. These classes are taught by Lisa Sadleir-Hart and they cost $27.50 each, plus a food/supply fee based on the number of students in each class. Space is limited and we need a minimum of eight students registered in each of these two classes to guarantee they happen. You can register at http://sitkakitch.eventsmart.com (just click on the class title).

November 21, 2016 by Charles Bingham

Sitka Local Foods Network launches its second #GivingTuesdayAK online fundraiser

Most people have heard about Black Friday, Small-Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday, three consumer-oriented days geared toward shopping for the holidays. But have you heard about Giving Tuesday, which takes place on Nov. 29 this year?

Giving Tuesday, also listed at #GivingTuesday (known as #GivingTuesdayAK in Alaska), is a day for people to celebrate generosity and give to worthy nonprofits who support the local community. This year, the Sitka Local Foods Network is launching its second Giving Tuesday online fundraiser to help us meet our mission of increasing the amount of locally produced and harvested food in the diets of Southeast Alaskans.

When you donate to the Sitka Local Foods Network you support us as we host the Sitka Farmers Markets during the summer, grow food at the St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm communal garden, and teach people about gardening and food preservation through our education program (which includes a garden buddy/mentor program for beginning gardeners). We also help with other local-food-related projects in town, such as Fish To Schools (which puts more locally caught seafood in school meals), our fruit tree project (where we got more community apple and cherry trees in town), the Sitka Kitch community rental commercial kitchen, or the Sitka Community Food Assessment (which gave us baseline data on food security issues in Sitka).

It’s easy to donate to our Giving Tuesday fundraiser through our secure donation page hosted by Razoo.com (an online site that collects donations for nonprofit organizations). The minimum donation through this site is $5, but we appreciate whatever you can give. A donation of $10 can help us purchase some seeds or work gloves, while a gift of $100 can buy wood, soil and seeds to build a raised garden bed. While #GivingTuesday launches on Nov. 29 this year, our #GivingTuesday donation page will accept gifts through Dec. 31 in case you need some charitable write-offs for tax purposes.

We just received our Pick.Click.Give. donations for 2016, $2,800 from 42 donors, and we thank all those people who chose to share part of their Alaska Permanent Fund Dividends with us. Unfortunately, the Sitka Local Foods Network will not be in the 2017 Pick.Click.Give. program due to a clerical snafu. We hope to return to the program in 2018.

For those who prefer to donate the old-fashioned way, you can send a check to the Sitka Local Foods Network, 408 Marine Street, Suite D, Sitka, Alaska, 99835. For those looking for end-of-the-year tax deductions, we are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and our EIN is 26-4629930. Please let us know if you need a receipt. We hold a Bronze level rating with GuideStar.org, and we also are listed with Benevity.org (a site where employee donations to nonprofits sometimes are matched by larger corporations).

We thank you for supporting local foods in Sitka, Alaska. Your donation is greatly appreciated. If you need more information about our organization or a receipt for tax purposes, you can email the Sitka Local Foods Network board of directors at sitkalocalfoodsnetwork@gmail.com.

November 17, 2016 by Charles Bingham

Scenes from the Cooking From Scratch homemade yogurt class at the Sitka Kitch

Students learned how to make homemade yogurt from non-fat powdered milk during the first Cooking From Scratch series class held Monday, Nov. 14, at the Sitka Kitch community rental commercial kitchen.

The homemade yogurt class was the first of three classes in the Fall 2016 Cooking From Scratch series at the Sitka Kitch, which is located at First Presbyterian Church (505 Sawmill Creek Road). The three classes are taught by Lisa Sadleir-Hart, a registered dietitian and health educator. Theclasses designed to help Sitka residents learn how to expand their culinary skills while also eating healthy foods and stretching their food dollars.

The second Sitka Kitch Cooking from Scratch class is from 6-8:30 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 28 (rescheduled from Nov. 7), and will focus on basic whole-grain breads (registration link) using the Tassajara bread technique. This class was offered last year and the students enjoyed learning this simple way to bake whole-grain breads.

In addition, the Sitka Kitch will host a Holiday Make and Take class with Nickie Knight from 6-8:30 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 12, where students will learn how to make a variety of organic bath and body products using essential oils (such as body butter, luxurious sugar scrub, lip balm and holiday cheer room spray). This class will cost $20 and more details will be available on our registration site soon. We’re also putting together a Cooking Around The World class series for this spring, so watch for updates once details are confirmed.

A slideshow of scenes from the homemade yogurt class can be found below.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

November 17, 2016 by Charles Bingham

Paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) advisory lifted for Starrigavan Beach North in Sitka, but others remain

The SouthEast Alaska Tribal Ocean Research (SEATOR) project, SouthEast Alaska Tribal Toxins (SEATT) partnership and the Sitka Tribe of Alaska Environmental Research Lab (STAERL) on Thursday, Nov. 17, lifted an advisory warning that people should not eat molluscan shellfish (bivalves such as clams, oysters, scallops, mussels, geoducks, cockles, etc.) harvested at Starrigavan Beach North in Sitka.

However, the recent harmful algal bloom warning for the Sitka Sound Science Center Beach remains in place. There also have been new warnings issued on Wednesday, Nov. 16, for Gartina/Harbor Way Beach in Hoonah and the Annette Island/Moss Point and Sand Bar beaches in Metlakatla.

Esther Kennedy of the Sitka Tribe of Alaska Resource Protection Department samples water near the Starrigavan Recreation Area dock for marine biotoxins such as paralytic shellfish poisoning. (Photo by Emily Kwong, KCAW-Raven Radio)

Samples harvested by STAERL at Starrigavan Beach North on Monday, Oct. 31, had elevated levels of the paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) toxins above the FDA regulatory limit of 80µg/100g. When samples were taken on Monday, Nov. 14, the toxin levels had dropped below the regulatory limit, which allowed SEATOR to lift the advisory, which includes little-neck clams, butter clams and cockle clams.

The Sitka Sound Science Center Beach advisory is based on shellfish harvested on Oct. 24. Molluscan shellfish from this site should not be harvested at this time. The Hoonah and Metlakatla advisories are based on shellfish harvested on Monday, Nov. 14, having PSP toxins above the FDA regulatory limit.

The PSP advisories are for bivalve shellfish that have been recreationally or subsistence harvested. It does not apply to commercially harvested shellfish, which are tested before they enter the market. The advisory does not apply to other shellfish, such as crabs or shrimp, which do not carry PSP (unless you eat the crab butter or viscera).

There have been several harmful algal bloom alerts released by SEATOR this summer, but this recent announcement is a good reminder that PSP can happen throughout the year. It also discredits the myth that you don’t have to worry about shellfish harvested in months containing an R.

According to SEATOR, “This does not ‘certify’ any of our monitored sites. Conditions may change rapidly and data is site-specific. Caution should always be taken prior to harvesting.”

The butter clam has one set of rings that go one direction only, around the same center point (Photo courtesy of Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation)

SEATOR posts updates and information to its website at seator.org/data, which can help provide Southeast Alaska residents with reliable information so they can choose whether or not to harvest shellfish. In addition to testing water samples weekly from certain Southeast beaches, STAERL also tests samples of butter clams, littleneck clams, and blue mussels (which is STAERL’s indicator species, because of how quickly blue mussels absorb saxotoxins).

In addition to the saxitoxins that cause PSP, the lab in Sitka has been monitoring for other blooms that cause amnesic shellfish poisoning (ASP). PSP and ASP can cause severe health problems, including death in some cases.

Since most beaches in Alaska aren’t tested for harmful algal blooms, SEATOR and the SEATT partnership were formed in October 2014 to train people to test beaches in Southeast Alaska. In April 2015, the Sitka Tribe of Alaska opened a regional lab on Katlian Street, so samples could be tested in Sitka without having to be sent to the Lower 48, which delayed results. By testing for harmful algal blooms, SEATOR and the SEATT partnership hope to be able to provide information so people can make informed choices whether or not to harvest or eat shellfish.

Harmful algal blooms, such as paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP), typically have not been monitored in Southeast Alaska for subsistence and recreational harvesters of clams, mussels, oysters, cockles, and other bivalves (commercial harvests are tested). Even though many people in Southeast Alaska love to harvest shellfish, eating it comes with some risks. There have been several PSP outbreaks in recent years that sent people to the hospital, and in 2010 two deaths were attributed to PSP and other HABs, such as Alexandrium, Pseudo-nitzchia and Dinophysis.

To learn more about harmful algal blooms and how they can raise the risk for PSP and ASP (amnesic shellfish poisoning, which also can be fatal), go to SEATOR’s resources page. If you have shellfish you recently harvested and want to test it, click this link to learn what you need to do to have it tested by STAERL or watch this video. SEATOR also has a new Facebook page, where people can find updates. Please contact STAERL at 747-7395 with any additional questions.

November 6, 2016 by Charles Bingham

Sitka Kitch to host second annual Cooking From Scratch class series in Fall 2016 (Rescheduled dates)

Ever wanted to learn how to cook more and better food for less money?

Join us for the second annual Cooking from Scratch series of cooking classes at the Sitka Kitch community rental commercial kitchen, which is located in the First Presbyterian Church (505 Sawmill Creek Road). Registered dietitian and health educator Lisa Sadleir-Hart, MPH, RD, will teach three classes designed to help Sitka residents learn how to expand their culinary skills while also eating healthy and stretching their food dollars. Please note that two of the three classes have been rescheduled from their originally announced dates.

The first class in this year’s fall series will focus on how to make yogurt using nonfat dried milk (registration link). It will be offered from 6-8:30 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 14 (this class was rescheduled from its original Oct. 10 date). We offered this class last year, and it was a big hit.

November 5, 2016 by Charles Bingham

Sitka Conservation Society to host its annual Wild Foods Potluck on Sunday, Nov. 13

The Sitka Conservation Society will host its annual Wild Foods Potluck from 5-7 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 13, at Harrigan Centennial Hall.

Please bring a dish featuring ingredients that were fished, foraged, hunted, or cultivated in Southeast Alaska. Prizes will be awarded for first place in the following categories — Best Dish, Best Dessert, and Most Creative.

The event will highlight subsistence stories and the work performed by the Sitka Conservation Society over the last year. SCS members can pick up their 2017 SCS Calendars at the potluck.

The potluck is open to the entire community, especially SCS members, friends, family, and anyone else interested in learning about the Sitka Conservation Society. Come celebrate Alaska’s wild food bounty with your friends and neighbors.

Interested in volunteering at the potluck or want more information? Contact the Sitka Conservation Society at info@sitkawild.org or call 747-7509.