Chicken and Sausage Gumbo

After a brief hiatus, the Sitka Kitch community rental commercial kitchen is offering classes again, but at the temporary location of Sitka Lutheran Church (224 Lincoln Street). Our first Sitka Kitch class at the temporary location is in our Cooking Around The World series — Cajun Cooking With Geof Goudeau (direct link to registration page).

Geof Goudeau was born somewhere between the sugarcane fields and the muddy swamp waters of rural southern Louisiana. Word has it that he was rocked to sleep on the back of a pet alligator as a baby. But fortune has made it so that he found his way all the way to Sitka, Alaska. And now he wants to share with you a little bit of the knowledge he collected during his first 25 years of sweating over a cast-iron black pot of jambalaya.

Geof has seen his fair share of cooking education.  Through high school, college, and graduate school, Geof worked at restaurants with increasing culinary caliber, including regional favorites La Fonda Mexican Restaurant and Mad LuAnn’s southern food truck. Having not satiated his desire for cooking, Geof attended a three-month cooking school in San Francisco to truly sharpen and hone his cooking chops.

Geof Goudeau, with wife Ariane and daughter Elodie, operated the Goudeau’s Good-Doughs booth at the 2017 Sitka Farmers Markets.

Since then, Geof has called Sitka home where for the past four years, he has worked tirelessly to master those foods that demand your full attention, such as French macaroons, sourdough bread, and Latin flan. Desiring to share his newfound sourdough baking skills, Geof began a small-batch bakery: Goudeau’s Good-Doughs. He is now ready to pass on his love for Cajun food to you in the form a cooking class.

During Geof’s Cajun Kitch Course, he will masterfully guide you in the hidden, almost-lost art of making a Chicken and Sausage Gumbo, in all of its nutty velvet glory. But Geof isn’t solely interesting in passing on the secrets and wiles of his whisk regarding only gumbo. Oh no, my friends, Geof will capitalize on your intrigue by demonstrating his famous version of Cheesy Grits. Though many have apprehensions when it comes to grits, Geof’s good grits have seen no one regret daring to dine on his spoon. This course will provide you not only with the definitive way to make a body-warming gumbo and a can’t-wait-for cheesy grits, but you will also be treated to the history and lore surrounding these two iconic plates of Cajun cuisine, delivered in a way that only a true born Cajun can.

The registration deadline for this class is 11:30 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 24, so register now since space is limited. We need at least eight students to register and pre-pay to make this class happen. The class costs $40, which is part of our new all-inclusive fee system (you no longer have to pay a class fee to register, then a separate food/supply fee). You can register and pre-pay using credit/debit cards or PayPal on our EventSmart online registration page, http://sitkakitch.eventsmart.com (click on class title). For those wanting to pre-pay with cash or check, please call Claire or Clarise at Sitka Conservation Society (747-7509) to arrange a payment. We do offer one potential scholarship spot per class for people with limited incomes, so long as we have enough students registered to make the class happen. Contact Claire at SCS for more details.

Students should enter the Sitka Lutheran Church through the back entrance (through the alley off Harbor Drive by Bev’s Flowers and Gifts). The door on the right should be open for students to enter. Please do not park in the church’s back parking lot. Please use the public parking lots off Harbor Drive.

The Sitka Kitch also has a new class cancelation policy. If you register for a class, then find out you can’t attend, please email us at sitkakitch@sitkawild.org and we may be able to help fill your slot through our waiting list. If you cancel from the class at least five days in advance (eg, by Wednesday for a Monday class), you are eligible for a partial refund of your class fee, minus $5 for processing (in this case, $35). If you need to cancel with less than five days advance notice, there is no refund.