October 7, 2009 by Charles Bingham

• Sitka Local Foods Network hosts garden work party on Oct. 17

The Sitka Local Foods Network will host a “putting the garden to rest” work party from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 17, at St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm.

The Oct. 17 work party involves a last bit of weeding, pulling out the annual plants for compost, putting mulch and protective coverings over the perennials, and getting all the tools inventoried and stored away for the winter. This will help make the garden easier to get ready for spring planting. Most of the vegetables grown at the St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm are sold at the Sitka Farmers Markets during the summer.

For more information about the work party, contact Lisa Sadleir-Hart at 747-5985 or Maybelle Filler at 738-1982.

To learn more about the Sitka Local Foods Network and how it supports community gardens and greenhouses, organizes the Sitka Farmers Market, supports traditional foods and provides education and encouragement to local gardeners, browse through this site.

October 6, 2009 by Charles Bingham

• Recent articles highlight food security issue in rural Alaska

The New York Times on Saturday ran a lengthy article by former Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reporter Stefan Milkowski about how weak runs of king salmon are hurting Yukon River communities. The article is datelined from the village of Marshall, near the mouth of the Yukon River, where villagers already are feeling the pinch of no salmon to fill their freezers for the winter.

This is a region where heating oil costs $7 a gallon and a can of condensed milk goes for nearly $4. It also is a region that last year faced critical food shortages last year, with many faith groups from around the country sending food to help tide the residents through the winter. Click here to read accounts from “Anonymous Bloggers” about last year’s airlift and what villagers are doing to prepare for this winter.

The food shortages resulted in some July protest fisheries, which resulted in the arrest of the only police officer in Marshall, Jason Isaac, who joined other villagers in claiming state and federal fish and wildlife officials were more concerned with a Canadian fish treaty than they were about rural Alaskans. The Tundra Drums reports that 67,000 Yukon kings reached Canada, about 10,000 to 13,000 more than the treaty called for.

In relatively close-by Bethel, Tim Meyers and his wife Lisa have helped their communities food security with Meyer’s Farm, which is growing enough fruits and vegetables that Bethel residents can buy weekly boxes of locally grown produce for $30. This shows that local produce can be grown in rural Alaska to reduce our dependency on store-bought food.

Food security also hits closer to home, where state Sen. Albert Kookesh of Angoon faces a trial over subsistence fishing practices near his home village.

Not all of the local foods news in Alaska is gloom and doom this week. The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner featured a story on Monday about the growth of the Delta Meat and Sausage plant in Delta Junction, which processes locally raised Galloway cattle and game meat shot by local hunters.

Also, this week’s Chilkat Valley News (Haines weekly) included a brief item about a Haines moose hunter who was the beneficiary of a snow goose dropped by a hawk that didn’t have the strength to carry its prey.

Finally, the Alaska Dispatch site includes an update on the inaugural Alaska Local Food Film Festival, which runs from Oct. 2-8 at the Beartooth Theatrepub and Grill in Anchorage. Sitka filmmaker Ellen Frankenstein presented her movie “Eating Alaska” on Sunday, Oct. 4.

October 3, 2009 by Charles Bingham

• Alaska Local Food Film Festival featured on Alaska Public Radio Network and other local food news

The Alaska Public Radio Network’s Alaska News Nightly show on Friday night had a feature story about the inaugural Alaska Local Food Film Festival that runs Oct. 2-8 at Anchorage’s Beartooth Theatrepub and Grill. The story included discussion about the movie “Eating Alaska” by Sitka filmmaker Ellen Frankenstein, which will be shown on Sunday and feature a post-movie discussion with Ellen. The feature story link has streaming audio. Here’s a link to more information about the film festival.

Earlier this week, former Fairbanks Daily News-Miner editor Sam Bishop wrote an article about hunting and gathering in the season of the moose hunt. While centered on a September moose hunt Sam took with his parents, the story discusses the role of local foods and how people make their food choices.

Also in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner this week was a letter to the editor from Barry Brown about how to properly take care of the meat after a successful hunt.

Anchorage Daily News garden columnist Jeff Lowenfels writes a column about getting the garden ready for a long winter’s nap.

Finally, an article from a paper in Ontario, Canada — the Peterborough Examiner — about “Yes, they garden in Alaska.” The article is by Joan Harding, a master gardener for Peterborough Gardens, who took a trip through Southeast Alaska where she visited gardens along the way.

September 29, 2009 by Charles Bingham

• Aliens from Running of the Boots fundraiser show up in Daily Sitka Sentinel and Juneau Empire

Screenshot of the Daily Sitka Sentinel site on Monday with the aliens photo from the 2009 Running of the Boots

Screenshot from Tuesday's Juneau Empire featuring the aliens photo from the Running of the Boots

The green-headed aliens were the hit of the Running of the Boots on Saturday, earning spots on the front page of the Daily Sitka Sentinel on Monday and in Tuesday’s issue of the Juneau Empire. The Running of the Boots is a fundraiser for the Sitka Local Foods Network, and we greatly appreciate race founder Sheila Finkenbinder and the Greater Sitka Chamber of Commerce donating the proceeds from the event to our organization. A photo gallery from the race is posted just below this one, or click here to go directly to the gallery.

In other recent local foods news, Sitka filmmaker Ellen Frankenstein and her movie, “Eating Alaska,” are featured in Wednesday’s Anchorage Daily News. Ellen will be in Anchorage to show her film on Sunday night at the inaugural Alaska Local Food Film Festival, which runs Oct. 2-8 at Anchorage’s Beartooth Theatrepub and Grill.

Click here to read a “Local Flavor” column by chef Ginny Mahar about chanterelles from Sunday’s Juneau Empire, which local mushroom enthusiasts can find throughout Southeast Alaska about this time of the year. Ginny, who works for Rainbow Foods in Juneau, writes the Food-G blog where she has posted several recipes that use chanterelles. Chanterelles are popular this week, because Carla Peterson also writes about them in Capital City Weekly.

Click here to read a letter to the editor in Tuesday’s Juneau Empire about how to eat healthy foods on a budget. The letter, written by staff members from the Juneau office of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service, was in response to a Fairbanks Daily News-Miner story (that appeared later in the Juneau Empire) about Alaska lawmakers trying to live on food stamps for a week.

Click here to read a Seattle Times article about how Northwest cooks are falling in love with the sablefish (aka, black cod), a fish frequently caught in Sitka waters and available at the Sitka Farmers Market. The article includes a recipe.

Click here to read a blog post on The Atlantic Food Channel called “Local Food Comes To Alaska,” by New York University nutrition, food studies and public health professor Marion Nestle (author of “Food Politics,” “Safe Food,” “What To Eat,” and “Pet Food Politics,” as well as the “Food Matters” column for the San Francisco Chronicle).

If you haven’t visited the “Eat Local Northwest” blog, it’s worth a look. This blog is maintained by two friends — Stephen lives in the Mat-Su Valley and works in Anchorage, while Audrey is from the Seattle area. In the most recent post (as of Tuesday night), Stephen writes about his happy discovery that some of the prices at the South Anchorage Farmers Market actually were comparable or lower than what he was finding at several of local grocery stores. There is a link to this blog in our blog roll on the right side of the page.

Click here to read a story from KTUU-TV (Anchorage NBC affiliate) about Meyer’s Farm in Bethel, a project started by Tim Meyers that now involves a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program where local residents pay a fee and get weekly boxes of fresh, local produce. You can click a video link in the upper right corner, too. Meyer’s Farm was featured in the April 2009 issue of Alaska Magazine (link opens a PDF file of the article). There also is a Flickr photo gallery that shows nearly 100 photos of Meyer’s Farm.

Finally, the new farmers market near the White House isn’t about Alaska food, but it does promote and encourage people to eat local food. Click here for a story about the new farmers market on National Public Radio and click here for an article from the Washington Post. Click here for an article from USA Today about the growth of farmers markets across the nation.

September 25, 2009 by Charles Bingham

• Daily Sitka Sentinel features Running of the Boots preview, plus other news about local foods from around the region

Runners hit the trail during the 14th Annual Running of the Boots race on Sept. 27, 2008, in Sitka.

The Friday issue of the Daily Sitka Sentinel featured an article and photo previewing the 15th annual Running of the Boots on Saturday (Page 9), which is a fundraiser for the Sitka Local Foods Network. Unfortunately, the announcement did not make onto the Sentinel’s Web site. The Running of the Boots starts at 11 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 26, at the Crescent Harbor shelter (registration opens at 10 a.m.). The entry fee is $5 per person, or $20 per family, and there is a lip-synch contest after the race that costs $10 to enter. Click here for all the details about Running of the Boots.

In other news about local food around the region, the Juneau Empire ran several stories in its Outdoors section on Friday.

Click here to read the On The Trails column by Mary Willson, who writes about picking berries this late in the season.

Click here to read a brief item about some gardening presentations hosted by the Juneau Garden Club from 1-4:30 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 26, at Centennial Hall in Juneau.

Click here to read a story by Kwame Diehl about a fishing trip in Juneau to catch some halibut.

Click here to read a story by Abby Lowell about where to catch silver (coho) salmon in the Juneau area.

Click here to read Anchorage Daily News photographer Fran Durner’s “Talk Dirt To Me” garden blog, who writes about growing organic produce and a potato dig in Palmer this weekend.

September 23, 2009 by Charles Bingham

• Capital City Weekly features Sitka Farmers Market Table of the Day, Running of the Boots fundraiser for Sitka Local Foods Network

Screenshot of Capital City Weekly page about Mike Wise winning the Table of the Day Award at the final Sitka Farmers Market of the summer

Click here to see this week’s Capital City Weekly coverage of Mike Wise of Raven’s Peek Roasters and Sailor’s Choice Coffee winning the Table of the Day Award for the final Sitka Farmers Market of the summer on Sept. 12.

Click here to read a notice in this week’s Capital City Weekly about the Running of the Boots on Saturday, Sept. 26.

For those of you who will be in Juneau and not in Sitka on Saturday for the Running of the Boots, click here to read about the Autumn Garden Party and Wine Tasting event on Saturday at the Jensen-Olson Arboretum up in Juneau.

In a local foods story from the Northwest Arctic, Kotzebue author/photographer Seth Kantner (author of “Ordinary Wolves” and “Shooping for Porcupine”) writes an essay for the Alaska Dispatch Web site about hunting caribou to provide meat for his family.

Finally, we have two stories about the role salmon played in the development of two Southeast Alaska communities — Ketchikan and Pelican. Ketchikan’s Dave Kiffer writes one of his regular history columns for the Stories in the News Web site about how Ketchikan became “the canned salmon capital of the world.” In the Capital City Weekly, Norm Carson writes a story about how a cold storage plant helped Pelican “settled closest to the fish.”

September 15, 2009 by Charles Bingham

• Final Sitka Farmers Market of the summer makes front page of Tuesday’s Daily Sitka Sentinel

Screenshot of Tuesday's Daily Sitka Sentinel photo from the final 2009 Sitka Farmers Market

The final Sitka Farmers Market of the 2009 summer (held Sept. 12 at ANB Hall) was featured in a front-page photo in the Daily Sitka Sentinel on Tuesday, Sept. 15.

The photo shows Kiki Norman as she sells hand-made jewelry to Annie Satterley during the final Sitka Farmers Market of the season at ANB Hall Saturday. While fresh produce was in short supply, tables of original artwork and jewelry were not. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)

Daily Sitka Sentinel photo of Kiki Norman, left, selling jewelry to Annie Satterly during the final Sitka Farmers Market of the 2009 summer on Sept. 12 at ANB Hall

September 15, 2009 by Charles Bingham

• This week’s e-newsletter (Sept. 14)

Click here to read this week’s Sitka Local Foods Newsletter courtesy of Linda Wilson. Don’t forget, you can sign up for the e-newsletter by typing your e-mail address in the box on the left side of the page.

September 10, 2009 by Charles Bingham

• A get-together for Sitka gardeners on Sept. 15

As the growing season winds down, a group of local gardeners is starting up a monthly get-together for interested Sitka gardeners. The group meets from 7-9 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 15, in Room 106 of the University of Alaska Southeast-Sitka Campus on Japonski Island.

The get-together provides a venue for gardeners of all types (food and non-food), interests, and skills to informally exchange ideas, information, seeds and growing tips. Share and learn from other gardeners with no dues or commitments other than good fellowship. Sitka Gardeners plan to get together the third Tuesday of the month at UAS-Sitka. The UAS-Sitka Campus and UAF Cooperative Extension Service will organize the first gardeners’ get-together.

For more information, call 747-9473 or 747-9413.

September 9, 2009 by Charles Bingham

• Fifth and final Sitka Farmers Market of the summer takes place this Saturday, Sept. 12, at ANB Hall

The fifth and final Sitka Farmers Market of the 2009 season takes place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. this Saturday, Sept. 12, at the Alaska Native Brotherhood Hall (235 Katlian St.). Hope to see you there.

The Sitka Farmers Market features about 20-30 vendors each market who sell locally grown produce, locally harvested fish and locally made arts and crafts. The market features musicians inside, a jam tent outside, local cooks with ready-to-eat dishes and a fun activity for children. The Sitka Farmers Market is the only farmers market in Southeast Alaska authorized to accept WIC (Women, Infants, Children nutrition program) vouchers, which can be used by WIC-eligible families to purchase produce.

The non-profit Sitka Local Foods Network accepts donations of garden vegetables for its corner stand. Proceeds from the Sitka Local Foods Network booth go to future markets and to local food projects. Volunteers willing to help set up and take down the booths on Saturday before and after the market are greatly appreciated. We also appreciate volunteers who can help harvest produce from the St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm community garden (behind St. Peter’s By The Sea Episcopal Church) early on Saturday so it can be sold at the market.

Vendor booths are available for this Saturday’s market at $5 a table. Vendors are encouraged to be set up by 9:30 a.m., and all vendors selling processed food need to complete the state’s online food safety course before bringing the food (and completion certificate) to market, http://alaska.state.gegov.com/foodworker/.

For more information about this week’s market or to sign up as a volunteer, contact Linda Wilson at 747-3096 (nights) or lawilson87@hotmail.com.