March 13, 2017 by Charles Bingham

Check out the March 2017 edition of the Sitka Local Foods Network newsletter

The Sitka Local Foods Network just sent out the March 2017 edition of its monthly newsletter. Feel free to click this link to get a copy.

This month’s newsletter features short items about our open Sitka Farmers Market manager position, a showing of two free films for Alaska Food Security Awareness Week, info about how people and businesses can sponsor the Sitka Local Foods Network, recruiting for new board members, and info about a variety of upcoming classes. 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.

March 13, 2017 by Charles Bingham

Celebrate food security in Alaska with two free movies on March 24 at Harrigan Centennial Hall

Food security can be a precarious thing in Alaska, where 90-95 percent of our food has to be shipped here from the Lower 48 or elsewhere. In honor of the third annual Alaska Food Security Awareness Week, join us for two short, free movies on the theme of “All About Alaska Grown” from 6-8 p.m. on Friday, March 24, at Harrigan Centennial Hall.

The first movie, “Alaska Far Away,” is about an hour long and tells the story of the New Deal colonists who settled in the Matanuska and Susitna valleys to farm during the 1930s. The second movie, “Five Reasons To Choose Alaska Grown,” is about 30 minutes and features interviews with Alaska farmers about why they enjoy Alaska Grown produce.

The movies, which also are showing in Anchorage, Fairbanks and Juneau during the week of March 13-17, are coordinated by the office of Rep. Geran Tarr (D-Anchorage), who has introduced several bills over the years to improve Alaska’s food security. The Sitka showing of the films is co-hosted by the Sitka Local Foods Network and Sitka Public Library.

March 12, 2017 by Charles Bingham

Learn the basics of starting and running a home-based food business with free class

Do you have an old family recipe for barbecue sauce you think would sell at the local farmers market? Have you seen your friends and neighbors selling their home-processed jams and jellies and thought you could do that too? Do you like to bake bread and cookies and think you could sell them?

The Sitka Local Foods Network and the University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service have a free class for you. Join us from 6-8 p.m. on Thursday, April 6, in Room 106 at the University of Alaska Southeast Sitka Campus for a https://www.uaf.edu/ces/small-food-business/cottage-foods/ basics class.

This class will be taught via videoconference by Sarah Lewis of the Juneau District Office of the UAF Cooperative Extension Service, with assistance from Sitka by Nina Vizcarrondo of the Sitka Local Foods Network. The short class will teach people some of the basics of the home-based food industry, including Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation food safety regulations for home-based food businesses, how to market your products, how to set your prices, and more.

For those folks hoping to sell home-based food items at the Sitka Farmers Market, there will be a special discount for class attendees of 50-percent off for your first Sitka Farmers Market table of the 2017 season.

Please pre-register for this free class by clicking this link and filling in this short online form. For questions, contact Nina at (863) 286-9230 or email us at sitkalocalfoodsnetwork@gmail.com.

March 11, 2017 by Charles Bingham

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

The Sitka Local Foods Network has a sponsorship program to help promote our mission, and Sitka businesses and individuals are welcome to join. 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, fun, premium quality goods and experiences.”

This year there are seven Sitka Farmers Markets from July through September. The 2017 farmers markets take place from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturdays, July 1, July 15, July 29, Aug. 12, Aug. 19, Sept. 2, and Sept. 9, at the Alaska Native Brotherhood Founders Hall (235 Katlian St.). 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. In the next few days, we will be posting a list of upcoming gardening education courses this spring. We also are helping with a project to create a new community garden program in Sitka.

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 by 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.

• 2017 Sitka Local Foods Network sponsorship program details and registration form

March 7, 2017 by Charles Bingham

SEARHC offers healthy cooking demonstration March 21 at Sitka Kitch

The SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium (SEARHC) will offer a free “Putting Your Best Fork Forward” cooking demonstration from 6-7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, March 21, at the Sitka Kitch community rental commercial kitchen (located inside First Presbyterian Church, 505 Sawmill Creek Road).

The demonstration will be led by SEARHC Health Educator Heleena van Veen and SEARHC Registered Dietitian Jessica Holland. Heleena and Jessica will demonstrate how to cook healthy breakfasts, snacks and even an entire meal.

This free event is open to the entire community. For more information, contact Heleena van Veen at 966-8914.

March 5, 2017 by Charles Bingham

Lori Adams switching her u-pick garden to a community-supported agriculture program

Down-To-Earth U-Pick Garden will be changing formats in 2017. It will no longer be a u-pick garden open to the public and will become a community-supported agriculture (CSA) program where local residents can subscribe and receive regular boxes of fresh veggies, berries, eggs and other items.

“After eight years of business Down To Earth U-Pick Garden will no longer be open to the public,” Lori wrote in an email. “Starting this year we will be selling weekly CSA shares to a select group of customers who are committed to supporting locally grown food.”

At this time, Lori said she has 20 subscribers to get through her first season and isn’t looking for new subscribers. She didn’t say if she will continue to have a booth (or farm truck) at the Sitka Farmers Market this summer to sell extra produce. Her book, Gardening in Southeast Alaska, is still available at local book and garden stores.

March 1, 2017 by Charles Bingham

Scenes from the Sitka Kitch’s Cooking Around The World series class on Chilean cooking

Students learned how to make a pastel de choclo (a Chilean version of shepherd’s pie) on Monday, Feb. 27, at the Sitka Kitch community rental commercial kitchen. This was the second of five classes in the Cooking Around The World class series offered this spring.

The class was taught by Barbara Palacios, a Chileno who works as a chef with the Westmark Sitka Hotel and the Dock Shack (Totem Square Inn). Barbara taught students how to make the pastel de choclo, which features a layer of ground beef and onions, chicken, boiled egg, olives, a layer of creamed corn, and pebre (a Chilean pico de gallo without the jalapeños).

Future Cooking Around The World series classes include:

Thailand — 5:30-7 p.m., Tuesday, March 28, taught by Nancy Knapp. Nancy is a longtime health educator from Sitka who spent several years in Laos and Thailand. She still hasn’t announced which dishes she will teach for this class, but she taught a Thai cooking class last year that sold out quickly and had a long waiting list. The registration deadline is 9 p.m. on Saturday, March 25.
Austria — 6-8:30 p.m., Wednesday, April 12, taught by Suat Tuzlak. Suat is the former owner of the Alpine Bakery in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, and co-author of “Little Cookbook For The Great Outdoors.” For this class he will teach students how to make a savory strudel with two fillings and a sweet strudel with apples that’s great with ice cream. The registration deadline is 9 p.m. on Sunday, April 9.
Turkey — 5-7:30 p.m., Monday, April 17, taught by Suat Tuzlak. For this class, Suat, who is Turkish, will teach students how to make a Turkish dinner that is vegan and gluten-free without using sophisticated ingredients. You will learn to make red lentil soup, green beans with olive oil, festive rice pilaf with currants and pine nuts, and a fusion dessert, chia-coconut pudding. The registration deadline is 9 p.m. on Friday, April 14.

When registering, students should prepay for the class through the Sitka Kitch online registration site, http://sitkakitch.eventsmart.com, using PayPal or credit/debit card. If you need other payment arrangements, contact Chandler or Clarice of Sitka Conservation Society at 747-7509 to arrange a time when you can pay with cash or check. To qualify for a partial refund, please notify us at least three days in advance if you need to cancel. The registration deadline is three days before each class so our instructors have time to purchase materials. Please email sitkakitch@sitkawild.org with any questions.

Also, the Sitka Kitch has another upcoming class series this winter/spring — Nourish: Using Food As Medicine For Optimum Health — which will be taught by Sitka nutritionist Holly Marban during National Nutrition Month in March.

Class topics include nutrition foundations, balancing blood sugar, everyday superfoods, foods to fight inflammation, and and detox. There will be five classes from 6-8 p.m. on Mondays, March 6, 13, 20, 27 and April 3. When we opened registration, the entire series was posted first (we sold out of our spaces set aside for a series-purchase discount), and now the individual classes are being posted about a week or so before each scheduled class as we fill any empty spaces remaining.

Watch the Sitka Kitch page on Facebook or our online registration page to see when these and any future classes are scheduled (there will be a Preserving The Harvest class series this summer).

A slideshow of scenes from the Chilean cooking class follows below.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

February 23, 2017 by Charles Bingham

Scenes from the Sitka Kitch’s Cooking Around The World series class on Moroccan cooking

Students learned how to make a variety of Moroccan dishes on Saturday, Feb. 18, at the Sitka Kitch community rental commercial kitchen. This was the first of five classes in the Cooking Around The World class series offered this spring.

The class was taught by Dr. Julien Naylor, a Sitka internal medicine specialist who also trained and worked as a chef. She taught the class how to make a bisteeya de Fez, a chicken-onion-garbanzo bean mix cooked in a tagine, Berber couscous topped with a mix of stewed winter veggies, a carrot salad, a beet salad, an orange-date-almond salad over lettuce, and a dessert called The Snake.

Future Cooking Around The World series classes include:

Chile — 6-8:30 p.m., Monday, Feb. 27, taught by Barbara Palacios. Barbara. who is Chilean, is a chef with the Westmark Sitka Hotel and the Dock Shack (Totem Square Inn). She will teach students how to cook a pastel de choclo (a Chilean version of shepherd’s pie with corn and meat) with pebre (a Chilean pico de gallo). She taught an empanadas class last year that was very popular. The registration deadline is 9 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 24.
Thailand — 5:30-7 p.m., Tuesday, March 28, taught by Nancy Knapp. Nancy is a longtime health educator from Sitka who spent several years in Laos and Thailand. She still hasn’t announced which dishes she will teach for this class, but she taught a Thai cooking class last year that sold out quickly and had a long waiting list. The registration deadline is 9 p.m. on Saturday, March 25.
Austria — 6-8:30 p.m., Wednesday, April 12, taught by Suat Tuzlak. Suat is the former owner of the Alpine Bakery in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, and co-author of “Little Cookbook For The Great Outdoors.” For this class he will teach students how to make a savory strudel with two fillings and a sweet strudel with apples that’s great with ice cream. The registration deadline is 9 p.m. on Sunday, April 9.
Turkey — 5-7:30 p.m., Monday, April 17, taught by Suat Tuzlak. For this class, Suat, who is Turkish, will teach students how to make a Turkish dinner that is vegan and gluten-free without using sophisticated ingredients. You will learn to make red lentil soup, green beans with olive oil, festive rice pilaf with currants and pine nuts, and a fusion dessert, chia-coconut pudding. The registration deadline is 9 p.m. on Friday, April 14.

Class topics include nutrition foundations, balancing blood sugar, everyday superfoods, foods to fight inflammation, and and detox. There will be five classes from 6-8 p.m. on Mondays, March 6, 13, 20, 27 and April 3. When we opened registration, the entire series was posted first (students receive $20 off if they register for the full series, $117.50 vs. $137.50, plus food/supply fees), and now the individual classes are being posted about a week or so before each scheduled class as we fill any empty spaces remaining.

Watch the Sitka Kitch page on Facebook or our online registration page to see when these and any future classes are scheduled (there will be a Preserving The Harvest class series this summer).

A slideshow of scenes from the Moroccan cooking class follows below.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

February 21, 2017 by Charles Bingham

Sitka Food Co-op to host annual meeting and potluck on Sunday, Feb. 26

The Sitka Food Co-op will host its annual membership meeting and potluck lunch from noon until 3 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 26, at the Sitka Fire Station conference room. The meeting is open to all Sitka residents, regardless of co-op membership.

This meeting will give members and prospective members a chance to learn what the co-op is doing, where its going and how it plans to get there. There also will be elections for the board of directors (five seats on the seven-member board are open and you must be a co-op member to run or vote), amendments to the by-laws, and there will be several new and important committees created. Co-op officers encourage people to attend and take part in building the co-op to the next level.

The Sitka Food Co-op was incorporated on Sept. 26, 2011, as a way to bring good food and community together. The purposes of the Sitka Food Co-op are to:

Create a community-based, member-owned buying service;
Make available wholesome natural and organic foods and products as inexpensively as possible;
Support and encourage local growing of fresh organic foods;
Purchase and purvey, whenever feasible, the goods or services of local and regional growers and producers; and
Serve as a center for activities and services which otherwise enrich the life of the community.

Please note that the Sitka Food Co-op is a separate organization than the Sitka Local Foods Network, even though we share some of the same goals.

To learn more about the Sitka Food Co-op and its annual meeting, email sitkafoodcoop@gmail.com or go to http://sitkafoodcoop.org/. Potential board members should submit an online candidate application form by 5 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 24, telling a little bit about yourself and why you want to serve on the board of directors.

• Draft agenda for Sitka Food Co-op 2017 annual meeting

February 19, 2017 by Charles Bingham

Sitka Kitch provides opportunities for education, entrepreneurship

lisasadleirhartwithjuliecheryllibbykristenatstove

Lisa Sadleir-Hart, left center, watches as Julie Platson, Cheryl Call, Libby Stortz and Kristen Homer heat milk during a Nov. 14, 2016, Cooking From Scratch class on making homemade yogurt held at the Sitka Kitch.

(NOTE: The following article appeared in the Daily Sitka Sentinel‘s Weekender section on Friday, Feb. 17, 2017. It was written by Sitka Local Foods Network board president and Sitka Kitch advisory team member Charles Bingham, who also took the photos.)

By CHARLES BINGHAM
For the Daily Sitka Sentinel

With a mission to “Educate, Incubate, Cultivate,” the Sitka Kitch community rental commercial kitchen serves a variety of functions to improve food security in Sitka. It’s a classroom, a maker space and a community meeting place.

The Sitka Kitch project was a result of the 2013 Sitka Health Summit and is coordinated by the Sitka Conservation Society. Located inside the First Presbyterian Church (505 Sawmill Creek Road), the Sitka Kitch is best known for the variety of cooking and food preservation classes it regularly hosts.

Right now, registration is open for five classes in a Cooking Around The World series, where a variety of instructors will teach students international dishes from Morocco, Chile, Thailand, Austria (strudel), and Turkey. Registration also is open for a five-class series called “Nourish: Using Food As Medicine For Optimum Health,” taught during National Nutrition Month (March) by Sitka nutritionist Holly Marban.

JasmineShawJoycePearsonAddBrineToJarsOfSquash

Jasmine Shaw and Joyce Pearson add brine to a jar of squash during a July 18, 2016, Preserving The Harvest class on simple pickles and sauerkraut held at the Sitka Kitch.

The Sitka Kitch plans a series of food preservation classes this summer, and may host a cottage foods entrepreneurship class in the future. It also has offered basic culinary skills and Cooking From Scratch classes in recent months. In addition, the Sitka Spruce Tips 4H Club has hosted cooking and food preservation classes for kids at the Sitka Kitch.

The Sitka Kitch offers a full schedule of classes because learning how to cook and preserve your own food allows Sitkans to improve their nutrition and extend their food budgets.

“The Sitka Kitch programming team already has plans underway for a dynamic 2017 Preserving the Harvest series,” said Lisa Sadleir-Hart, a member of the Sitka Kitch advisory team. “In addition to some old time favorites like pickling, jam, jelly and fruit butter classes, the Sitka Kitch team is hoping to offer classes focused on local foods and medicinals like seaweed, devil’s club, rhubarb and rosehips. June will showcase a ‘Clean Out Your Freezer’ class and an ‘Introduction to Food Dehydration’ class as well.”

lisasadleirhartshowslavinasueandcherylhowtopinchdough

Lisa Sadleir-Hart, left, shows Lavina Adams, Sue Falkner and Cheryl Call how to knead and pinch their dough during a Nov. 28, 2016, Cooking From Scratch class on baking whole-grain breads using the Tassajara bread technique held at the Sitka Kitch.

While it isn’t as well known as the classes, the Sitka Kitch also provides an Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation-certified commercial kitchen for local cottage food entrepreneurs to use as a maker space. One of the businesses that rents the Sitka Kitch (by the hour) is Simple Pleasures, a Sitka company that sells jams, jellies, kelp pickles and other products around the state. In addition, other groups have used the Sitka Kitch as a meeting venue, such as the Sitka Conservation Society, which hosted its 2016 annual meeting in the Sitka Kitch.

“The Sitka Conservation Society is proud of the Sitka Kitch’s work to build community connection and celebrate local, healthy and delicious food,” said Sitka Conservation Society Community Catalyst Chandler O’Connell, another member of the Sitka Kitch advisory team. “We hope that the community kitchen will continue to be a positive space for Sitkans to come together and share their skills.”

The Sitka Kitch has a website where people can learn how to rent the kitchen, http://www.sitkakitch.org/, and a Facebook page which posts class updates and other info, https://www.facebook.com/SitkaKitch. To learn more about and register for classes, go to the online registration page, http://sitkakitch.eventsmart.com/, and click on the class title. You can pay for classes online using credit/debit cards or PayPal, or you can call Chandler or Clarice at the Sitka Conservation Society (747-7509) to arrange a time to pay with cash or check.

Local businesses can sponsor upcoming classes for $300 per class, which helps cover the instructor stipend, facility rental and food/supply costs. Contact Chandler at 747-7509 or email sitkakitch@sitkawild.org for more info.