Students learned how to identify, clean, and cook a variety of wild and cultivated mushrooms during the Sitka Kitch’s “Cooking With Wild Mushrooms” class on Friday, Sept. 13, at the new Sitka Kitch location in the Sitka Lutheran Church. This class was a fundraiser for the Sitka Kitch community rental commercial kitchen.

This class was taught by Beak Restaurant owner/chef Renée Jakaitis Trafton and University of Alaska Southeast Sitka Campus assistant professor Kitty LaBounty, who teaches an annual mushroom identification class at the university in September. After a quick primer on how to identify and clean mushrooms from Kitty, Renée taught students a variety of recipes so they can use their foraged finds.

The next class at the Sitka Kitch is a special free class, “Bees, Pollinators, and Honey, Oh, My!,” from 7-9 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 20, at the Sitka Kitch, which is located inside the Sitka Lutheran Church. This class will be taught by former Sitka resident Christi (Wuerker) Henthorn, who now lives in North Carolina where she keeps bees. Brinnen Carter of the Sitka National Historical Park will assist Christi.

The registration deadline for the bees and pollinators class is 11:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 18, so register now since space is limited. Even though this class is free, we are asking for people to pre-register so we know how many people are coming.

Most Sitka Kitch classes now cost $40 per person, 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.

For more information about this class and future classes, 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. These classes are fundraisers 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 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.

A photo slideshow of scenes from the Cooking With Wild Mushrooms class is posted below.

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