education

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Sitka Kitch to offer Making Zarzuela With Chef François Sanchez class in Cooking Around The World series

Learn how to make zarzuela, a Spanish/Mediterranean fish stew, with Chef François Sanchez of St. Charles, Ill., at the next Cooking Around The World class at the Sitka Kitch. Zarzuela, or zarzuela de pescado, is a mixed finfish and shellfish stew (note to allergy sufferers) that brings out the best of Mediterranean cuisine. It is similar to French bouillabaisse or the Italian chopino.

This class takes place from 6-8 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 11, at the Sitka Kitch community rental commercial kitchen, now located at the Sitka Lutheran Church (224 Lincoln Street, use back entrance through alley by Bev’s Flowers & Gifts off Harbor Drive). This class will be taught demonstration style, which means we have more room than usual for students. He will have time after the class for a Q&A about French and Spanish food.

Chef Sanchez is the father of Sitka resident Claire Sanchez, and husband of baker Betsy Peterson Sanchez who taught three Baking With Betsy classes at the Sitka Kitch this summer.

Chef Sanchez completed two years of study at the Culinary School of the Moulin à Vent in Perpignan, France. He has a lifetime of culinary experience working for hotels in France and the U.S., including Hotel Sofitel and Hotel Nikko. François was the chef owner of a southern French-style restaurant, as well as several Spanish tapas restaurants for 16 years before working at a conference center as the executive chef in St. Charles.

Defining Culinary Experience: “I lived next door to a gourmet hotel restaurant in the south of France as a teenager and worked there during the weekends. That experience is what prompted me to choose a culinary career. I loved the intriguing aromas and the great level of energy in the kitchen. It had a profound impact on me from very early on.”

Culinary Philosophy: “If you can nurture passion, focus on your perseverance and keep an open mind to new culinary horizons – you will succeed.”

Favorite Style of Food: “I love to prepare classical regional cuisine (French or Spanish), which has natural, clean flavors and includes minimalist cooking steps to preserve the true integrity of the ingredients.”

Top Chef: “I admire Mr Paul Bocuse. Although in his 80s, he is still very much involved in the culinary scene.”

Proudest Career Moment: “When I was inducted into the Entrepreneurial Hall of Fame at the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1996.”

This is the second Sitka Kitch class at our new location at Sitka Lutheran Church. After that, our next class will be from 1-6 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 15, when Sarah Lewis of the UAF Cooperative Extension Service’s Juneau District Office will teach Preserving Leftovers and Holiday Gifts by distance delivery (this is a five-hour class, because she will teach students how to can several products). AFS exchange student Mohan Arul will teach a class on Indian cooking from 6-8:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 15, at the Sitka Kitch.

The registration deadline for the zarzuela class is 11:30 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 8, 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 page, http://sitkakitch.eventsmart.com (click on class title). For those wanting to pre-pay with cash or check, please call Claire Sanchez or Clarice Johnson 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.

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Sitka Kitch offers Cajun Cooking With Geof Goudeau class in Cooking Around The World series

One of the dishes Geof Goudeau will teach is Cheesy Grits.

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.

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Check out the November 2018 edition of the Sitka Local Foods Network newsletter

The Sitka Local Foods Network just sent out the November 2018 edition of its monthly newsletter. Feel free to click this link to get a copy.

This month’s newsletter includes short stories about the upcoming Southeast Alaska Farmers Summit in February in Sitka, the Sitka Local Foods Network’s #GivingTuesday fundraisers, and an invitation to join our board of directors. Each story has links to our website for more information.

You can sign up for future editions of our newsletter by clicking on the newsletter 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. Don’t forget to like us on Facebook, like our Sitka Farmers Market page on Facebook and follow us on Twitter (@SitkaLocalFoods).

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Sitka Local Foods Network hosts its fourth annual #GivingTuesday fundraiser on Nov. 27

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 Tuesday, Nov. 27, 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 fourth 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. In addition to our usual #GivingTuesday fundraiser page on MightyCause.com (formerly Razoo.com), this year we also have one on Facebook that will be eligible for matching dollars from the Facebook and PayPal. The #GivingTuesday fundraiser page on MightyCause.com will accept early donations, for those who don’t want to wait until Nov. 27 to give.

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. We also can use funds to help us match the first $20 in produce purchases WIC and SNAP beneficiaries make at the Sitka Farmers Market, which helps get more healthy local produce into the hands of lower-income Sitkans. In 2018, we launched a Sitka food business innovation contest, so your donation might support that effort to encourage food entrepreneurship in Sitka. For businesses and organizations, we have a yearly sponsorship program with four tier levels of support — Grower ($2,500-plus), Harvester ($1,000-$2,499), Planter ($250-$999) and Friend ($50-$249).

In addition to our own projects, we support 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 MightyCause.com (formerly Razoo.com, an online site that collects donations for nonprofit organizations), or through our Facebook fundraiser page (the one with the match from Facebook and PayPal). 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.

In 2018, the Sitka Local Foods Network returned to the Pick.Click.Give. program after missing a year due to a clerical snafu. We thank the 24 donors who contributed $1,175 to us this year through Pick.Click.Give. and look forward to the 2019 donation period. In Pick.Click.Give., Alaskans can donate part of their Permanent Fund Dividend when they file their applications between Jan. 1 and March 31 each year. It’s a great way to share the wealth Alaskans receive through the Permanent Fund with a variety of nonprofit organizations in the state.

For those who prefer to donate the old-fashioned way (or want to avoid online processing fees), 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) and NetworkForGood.org (the organization that handles most of the fundraisers started on Facebook).

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.

• 2019 Sitka Local Foods Network sponsorship program details and registration form

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Like what we do? Now you or your business can sponsor the Sitka Local Foods Network in 2019

The Sitka Local Foods Network in recent years created a sponsorship program to help promote our mission, and Sitka businesses and individuals are welcome to join for 2019. The goal of the sponsorship program is to make the projects we undertake (Sitka Farmers Market, St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm, gardening education, etc.) more sustainable.

“Sitka has a precarious position when it comes to food security, and the Sitka Local Foods Network is trying to improve our food security through our mission to increase the amount of locally harvested and produced foods in the diets of Southeast Alaskans,” Sitka Local Foods Network president Charles Bingham said. “Sponsors of the Sitka Local Foods Network are working with an organization and a farmers market that values local food and businesses, fun, premium quality goods and experiences.”

In recent years, the Sitka Local Foods Network has hosted seven Sitka Farmers Markets during the summer (from July to September). We haven’t set our 2019 dates yet, but we anticipate we will have seven markets again this summer. In addition, we grow most of the local produce sold at the markets at St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm communal garden and a couple of other locations in town. We also offer a variety of garden education classes in the spring. One way we ensure fresh, local produce is available to lower-income Sitkans is through our matching program for WIC and SNAP beneficiaries (the first $20 spent on produce at the farmers market). In 2018 we launched a new food business innovation contest to inspire food entrepreneurs in Sitka, but we haven’t decided if the contest will continue in 2019.

There are four levels of sponsorship available, and each has its own set of perks.

  • Grower ($2,500-plus) — We’ll hang your banner at ANB Hall during the Sitka Farmers Markets, include your logo and company name prominently in our merchandise and advertisements, and thank you on our social media and web pages. If appropriate for the Sitka Farmers Market, you may set up a free promotional booth.
  • Harvester ($1,000-$2,499) — We’ll hang your banner at ANB Hall during the Sitka Farmers Markets and include your logo and company name in our merchandise and advertisements.
  • Planter ($250-$999) — Your banner will hang at ANB Hall during the Sitka Farmers Markets.
  • Friend ($50-$249) — You are listed on our online sponsor page.

We have limited space for banners at the Sitka Farmers Markets, so please contact us before May 1 to guarantee your spot. To learn more about the sponsorship program, click the link below for details and a registration form. For more information, contact Charles Bingham at (907) 623-7660 or by email at charleswbingham3@gmail.com, or email us at sitkalocalfoodsnetwork@gmail.com.

• 2019 Sitka Local Foods Network sponsorship program details and registration form

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Southeast Alaska Farmers Summit coming to Sitka in February 2019

 

The Southeast Alaska Farmers Summit is scheduled for Friday through Sunday, Feb. 15-17, 2019, in Sitka, with an extra all-day on Feb. 18 for an optional produce grower safety training.

Most of the events at this year’s summit will take place at Sweetland Hall on the Sitka Fine Arts Camp (old Sheldon Jackson College) campus or at Harrigan Centennial Hall. The summit opens at 1 p.m. on Friday, and closes at 5 p.m. on Sunday. Full details can be found on the summit website, https://www.saltandsoilmarketplace.com/farmers-summit/

This event takes place every other year at various locations throughout the region, with the previous events taking place in Petersburg (2015) and Haines (2017).

“This gathering began in 2015 when commercial farmers and producers in Southeast Alaska decided to come together to learn from one another about producing local food in a challenging growing environment and how to bring these products to market,” event organizers posted on their website. “Since then, this summit has met every other year in a different community to reconnect, expand their knowledge, and share their experiences with a growing network of local food producers. The 2019 Southeast Alaska Farmers Summit will be the third annual gathering for current commercial produce growers and for those who would like to explore this potential in our region.”

Friday’s schedule highlights include reports from various growers around Southeast Alaska about what is working and what isn’t working where they are. On Saturday, there will be in-depth presentations on pest disease management, composting in Juneau and Petersburg, farming in Fairbanks, employees and interns, cover crops, and growing gourmet mushrooms. Sunday’s schedule includes more in-depth presentations, as well as side sessions on hydroponics, composting, entrepreneurship/business consulting, and more.

Early bird registration currently is available through Dec. 31 on the summit website at $40 per person, with the price rising to $60 after Jan. 1. This fee does not include meals, which are $100 for all three days if purchased before Dec. 31 and $120 after that. Accommodations are $85 a night in the Sweetland Hall dorms, and details can be found on the summit website.

This year’s summit is being coordinated by the Southeast Alaska Watershed Coalition out of Juneau (with SAWC local foods coordinator Jennifer Nu being the main contact), and the Sitka Local Foods Network and other Sitka groups are supporting the event. For more information about the summit, contact Jennifer at jennifer@sawcak.org.

The Sitka Local Foods Network has been asked to help coordinate a community potluck or catered local foods dinner on Friday night, and to help provide transportation between the airport or ferry terminal and summit site. We will need volunteers to help with these requests. To help with the Friday night meal or ground transportation, contact Sitka Local Foods Network board chairman Charles Bingham at charleswbingham3@gmail.com.

 

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Alaska Sea Grant offers online course about how to direct market seafood to the consumer

The Alaska Seafood School, which is part of the Alaska Sea Grant program, will offer an Introduction to Starting and Operating a Seafood Direct Marketing Business class over five sessions from 5:30-8 p.m. on Mondays and Wednesday, from Oct. 22 through Nov. 5.

This introductory course presents content on the development and management of a successful seafood direct marketing business from inception to operation. The practical application of business planning, obtaining financing, permitting, feasibility analysis, marketing, and operational aspects of a seafood direct marketing business will be introduced.

The course will be delivered online, primarily by lectures and class discussions, supported by four homework assignments that are individualized to assist you in developing an action plan for your business.

At the end of the course, the student will understand and be able to use the appropriate managerial and decision-making tools that are needed to start and run a seafood direct marketing business.

The course is designed for commercial fishermen with little or no experience in direct marketing, who want to onboard or custom process and direct market their catch in various ways. The course costs $125 and will be taught in five sessions, from 5:30-8 p.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays, Oct. 22, 24 and 29; and Nov. 1 and 5.

• 2018 Fall Seafood Direct Marketing Class Outline

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Forest Service, Sitka Tribe to harvest Tlingit potato garden for community on Oct. 19 (changed to Oct. 24)

The U.S. Forest Service-Sitka Ranger District and Sitka Tribe of Alaska will harvest the Tlingít community potato garden — and present scientific and cultural information about the unique crop — at 12:30 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 19, at the Sitka Ranger District office, 2108 Halibut Point Road (NOTE: According to the flier posted at the library, this event has been moved to 3:15 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 24). Participants from the community will receive information on how to grow Tlingít potatoes, as well as their biology, history, and cultural aspects.

Michelle Putz stands in the Tlingít potato garden at the U.S. Forest Service-Sitka Ranger District office.

The Sitka Ranger District provides the sunny plot of land to serve as the shared potato garden and tends the garden over the summer. Volunteers from the Sitka Tribe’s Traditional Foods Program, the gardening class from Pacific High School, and others from the community planted the potatoes in April. School and tribe volunteers are expected to assist in the harvest, but community involvement is also needed. Attendees are asked to wear boots and gardening gloves, and bring hand trowels or shovels. Five-gallon buckets of kelp to incorporate into the soil after harvesting also would be beneficial.

All of the potatoes will need to be dried and prepared for storage. Many of the potatoes harvested will be saved as next year’s seed potatoes. Depending on the size of the harvest, the group will share the harvest among the volunteers and through the Sitka Tribe’s Traditional Foods Program and Social Services Department.

(Photo courtesy of Klas Stolpe/Juneau Empire) Bill Ehlers, assistant gardener at the Jensen-Olson Arboretum in Juneau, holds a Tlingít potato next to some of the potato plant’s flowers.

The potato garden was started in 2017, partially, to support food security in Sitka.

“We’re excited about this year’s harvest because of the size and vigor of this year’s potato plants. The plants are more than three times the size of last year’s plants, so we are hopeful that we’ll have a really good harvest,” said Perry Edwards, Sitka District Ranger. “We also look forward to learning more about the genetic make-up of our harvest from the scientists who have studied them over the last year.”

Tlingit potatoes (sometimes called Maria’s potatoes) have been present in Tlingit gardens for over 200 years. The potatoes originate from Mexico or Chile* and were a trade item in Southeast Alaska in the early 1800’s.

This work day and educational opportunity will be at the Sitka Ranger District office, located at 2108 Halibut Point Road. Participants should come prepared for the weather as all activities will occur outdoors. For more information, contact Michelle Putz at 907-747-2708 or mputz@fs.fed.us.

*Zhang, Linhai with Charles R. Brown, David Culley, Barbara Baker, Elizabeth Kunibe, Hazel Denney, Cassandra Smith, Neuee Ward, Tia Beavert, Julie Coburn, J. J. Pavek, Nora Dauenhauer and Richard Dauenhauer. Inferred origin of several Native American potatoes from the Pacific Northwest and Southeast Alaska using SSR markers. Euphytica 174:15-29

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Check out the October 2018 edition of the Sitka Local Foods Network newsletter

 

The Sitka Local Foods Network just sent out the October 2018 edition of its monthly newsletter. Feel free to click this link to get a copy.

This month’s newsletter includes short stories about the Sitka Health Summit, the Sitka Farmers Market earning top honors for Alaska in the annual Farmers Market Celebration, and an invitation to join our board of directors. Each story has links to our website for more information.

You can sign up for future editions of our newsletter by clicking on the newsletter 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. Don’t forget to like us on Facebook, like our Sitka Farmers Market page on Facebook and follow us on Twitter (@SitkaLocalFoods).

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Like what we do? Please join our board of directors or volunteer with us

Did you enjoy the fresh local veggies at the Sitka Farmers Market this summer? Did you take any of our garden education classes this spring? Are you concerned about increasing access to local food for all Sitka residents?

The Sitka Local Foods Network is holding an open house for potential board members and volunteers from 5:30-7:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 26, at the Sitka Public Library, Gus Adams Meeting Room. This is a good time to learn about what we’re doing and how you can help.

Please consider joining the board of directors for the Sitka Local Foods Network to help us pursue our mission to increase the amount of locally produced and harvested food in the diets of Southeast Alaskans. We need more board members in order to keep running our programs.

Board members help direct the Sitka Local Foods Network, a non-profit that promotes the harvest and use of local food in Sitka. In addition to setting the focus of the group during our monthly meetings, board members also serve on at least one committee supporting at our three main projects of the Sitka Farmers Market, St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm, and garden education. In 2018, we launched the annual Sitka Food Business Innovation Contest to encourage food entrepreneurs in Sitka.

We also hope to help with the Sitka Community Gardens project as we look for a new location now that Blatchley Community Garden has been closed. In addition, some board members have supported other local foods projects in Sitka, such as the Sitka Kitch, Let’s Grow Sitka, the Sick-A-Waste compost project, the Sitka Community Food Assessment project, Sitka Fish-To-Schools, other school education projects and more.

To apply for a spot on the board, please fill out the application linked below and submit it to sitkalocalfoodsnetwork@gmail.org. For more information, please email us. Please note this is a working board, and our group is evolving and maturing as we try to raise funds to hire staff. Board terms are for three years, with three seats up for reapplication each winter.

We also are looking to increase our pool of volunteers who will help out during the various projects hosted by the network each year (no formal application needed, just send us your name/contact info and what types of projects you enjoy). We need volunteers to help with the upcoming Sitka Farmers Markets, helpers for our lead gardener at St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm, and people to teach gardening classes.

The next regular Sitka Local Foods Network board meeting is from 5:30-7:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 26, at the Sitka Public Library, Gus Adams Meeting Room. The board usually meets once every 4-6 weeks. Please note, we will sometimes move our meetings to avoid conflicts with board member schedules, venue schedules and to ensure a quorum. All of our board meetings are open to the public.

Click here for a copy of the Sitka Local Foods Network board of directors job description. Click here for a copy of the board application.