Have you harvested some edible mushrooms in Southeast Alaska, but don’t know how to cook them?

Join Beak restaurant chef/owner Renée Jakaitis Trafton and University of Alaska Southeast Sitka Campus Assistant Professor Kitty LaBounty for the Sitka Kitch‘s Cooking With Mushrooms class from 6-8:30 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 13, at the Sitka Kitch community rental commercial kitchen (located at the Sitka Lutheran Church kitchen, 224 Lincoln Street, enter back door through alley off of Harbor Drive).

The menu is to be determined, but it also will involve a discussion on how to properly cook mushrooms in general. Renée will teach students a variety of methods of cooking wild edible mushrooms, while Kitty will help students identify which mushrooms are edible and which are poisonous.

Beak restaurant owner Renée Jakaitis Trafton

This class is being held in conjunction with Kitty’s annual mushroom identification class at UAS Sitka Campus, and it costs $40 (the UAS class costs $50 and is a separate fee). The registration deadline is 11:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 10. Space is limited, so register early to secure your place in the class.

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 page, http://sitkakitch.eventsmart.com(click on class title). For those wanting to pre-pay with cash or check, please call Chandler O’Connell or Clarice Johnson at Sitka Conservation Society (747-7509) to arrange a payment.

Kitty LaBounty

For more information about the class, contact Jasmine Shaw at 747-9440. 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 Chandler at SCS for more details about the scholarship. This class is a fundraiser for the Sitka Kitch.

Students should enter the Sitka Lutheran Church through the back entrance (through the alley off Harbor Drive by the old Bev’s Flowers and Gifts location). 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 the week before 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.