September 7, 2010 by Charles Bingham

• Running of the Boots on Saturday, Sept. 25, raises funds for Sitka Local Foods Network

High school exchange students dressed as aliens won the best group costume category in the 2009 costume contest

It’s time to dig your XtraTufs out of the closet and paint them up. The 16th annual Running of the Boots takes place at 11 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 25, at the Crescent Harbor shelter.

The Running of the Boots is part of the thid annual Season’s End Celebration, an event sponsored by the Greater Sitka Chamber of Commerce and the Alaska Cruise Association that includes a free lunch for Sitka residents. The Chamber’s board donates money raised by the Running of the Boots to the Sitka Local Foods Network, the non-profit group that hosts the Sitka Farmers Market and advocates for community gardens, a community greenhouse, sustainable uses of traditional subsistence foods and education for Sitka gardeners.

The 2008 winner of the fastest boots award

So what is the Running of the Boots? It’s Southeast Alaska’s answer to Spain’s “Running of the Bulls.” But unlike the Pamplona spectacle, humans do the running in Sitka and they wear zany costumes and XtraTufs — Southeast Alaska’s distinctive rubber boots (aka, Sitka Sneakers). The entry fee for the Running of the Boots is $5 per person and $20 per family, and people can register for the race starting at 10 a.m. There is a lip synch contest after the race, which costs $10 to enter.

The Running of the Boots is a short race for fun and not for speed, even though one of the many prize categories is for the fastest boots. Categories include best dressed boots, zaniest costume, best couple, best kids group and many others. The course includes a loop around St. Michael’s Russian Orthodox Cathedral before returning to Crescent Harbor for families with children, or a run from Crescent Harbor to the corner of Katlian and Lincoln streets and back for Sitka’s hardier souls.

“This event is the highlight of our Season’s End Celebration, after which Sitkans can partake of the Alaska Cruise Association’s free lunch,” said Sheila Finkenbinder, executive director of the Greater Sitka Chamber of Commerce. Finkenbinder started the ‘run’ 16 years ago, inspired by an idea from KCAW-Raven Radio general manager Ken Fate.

“This is a really fun way to advance the Sitka Farmers Market and our other Sitka Local Foods Network projects,” Sitka Local Foods Network President Kerry MacLane said. “And just like at the market, there will be live music by the Sitka Blues Band.”

To learn more about the Running of the Boots, contact Kerry MacLane at 752-0654 or by e-mail at maclanekerry@yahoo.com. Historical information about the race (through 2005) can be found online at http://www.runningoftheboots.org/. Info about the Sitka Local Foods Network and more recent Running of the Boots events (2008-09) is on this site (either click “Running of the Boots” under Categories in the right-hand column, or type “Running of the Boots” into the search engine at the very top of the page).

September 1, 2010 by Charles Bingham

• Bridget Kauffman wins Table of the Day Award for her baked goods during fourth Sitka Farmers Market of the summer

Sitka Local Foods Network board members Linda Wilson, left, and Lynnda Strong, right, present home baker Bridget Kauffman with the Table of the Day Award for the fourth Sitka Farmers Market of the summer on Aug. 28, 2010.

Bridget Kauffman won the Table of the Day award at the fourth Sitka Farmers Market of the summer on Saturday, Aug. 28, at Alaska Native Brotherhood Hall.

The local home baker was presented with a certificate, $25 cash and a farmers market cookbook by Sitka Local Foods Network board secretary/treasurer Linda Wilson and board member Lynnda Strong. Bridget has been at every market this year, one of many new bakers who have signed up to be vendors at the markets. Bridget bakes a variety of breads, from whole wheat and rye to specialty breads with nuts, seeds and other flavors. She made 40 loaves to sell at the first market, and sold out of them before the first hour was over. She has doubled her production, and still sells out before the market ends.

One vendor at each of the five scheduled Sitka Farmers Markets this season will receive a similar prize. The last big market of the summer is from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 11, at historic ANB Hall. We look forward to seeing you there.

Also, don’t forget the 16th annual Running of the Boots fundraiser for the Sitka Local Foods Network takes place at 11 a.m. (registration opens at 10 a.m.) on Saturday, Sept. 25, as part of the third annual Summer’s End Celebration hosted by the Greater Sitka Chamber of Commerce and the Alaska Cruise Association. This fun run for people sporting XtraTufs rubber boots features a run from the Crescent Harbor shelter through downtown Sitka and around St. Michael’s Russian Orthodox Cathedral. There usually are one or two small tables with late produce, but not as many vendors as a regular market. More details on the Running of the Boots will be available later this month.

A slideshow of photos from the fourth Sitka Farmers Market is posted below, and a similar slideshow can be found on our Shutterfly site.

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April 30, 2010 by Charles Bingham

• Sitka Local Foods Network board meeting time and location changed for Monday, May 3

The 2009-10 Sitka Local Foods Network board of directors. Back row, from left, Doug Osborne, Linda Wilson, Lisa Sadleir-Hart, Natalie Sattler, Peggy Reeves and Maybelle Filler. Front row, from left, Lynnda Strong, Kerry MacLane and Suzan Brawnlyn. Not pictured, Tom Crane.

The time and location have been changed for this month’s meeting Sitka Local Foods Network Board of Directors. The meeting now will take place at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, May 3, at the Sitka Economic Development Association (SEDA)/Greater Sitka Chamber of Commerce conference room on the second floor of the Troutte Center Building on Lincoln Street (above Seasons card store).

Some of the agenda items for this meeting include Sitka Farmers Market planning, an update from the St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm communal garden, information about a new garden at U.S. Coast Guard-Air Station Sitka, an update on the 2010 farmers market vendor requirements for the WIC (Women, Infants, Children) supplemental food program, an update on the two presentations by nationally known gardener/author Ed Hume on Monday, May 31, and information about the state response to a request to lease some empty Mt. Edgecumbe High School land for a community greenhouse.

The Sitka Local Foods Network board meetings are open to the public and we welcome new volunteers who want to help with our projects. For more information, contact Kerry MacLane at 752-0654 or maclanekerry@yahoo.com, or Linda Wilson at 747-3096 (evenings or weekends only) or lawilson87@hotmail.com.

March 24, 2010 by Charles Bingham

• Group to meet about organizing a Sitka Seafood Festival this summer

Black cod (aka sablefish) on the grill from the Alaska Longline Fisherman's Association booth at the Sitka Farmers Market

A group in Sitka will meet at 6 p.m. tonight, Wednesday, March 24, at the Sitka Economic Development Association’s conference room (second floor of the Troutte Center building on Lincoln Street, the Sitka Chamber of Commerce office above Seasons card store) to plan the inaugural Sitka Seafood Festival.

The group first met on Saturday afternoon, March 20, to brainstorm ideas for the event. The group discussed the event’s mission, name, slogan location, music, the scope of the event (just salmon or multi species, very local or grander scale, etc.), committees, funding, event partners and other organizational aspects. Suggestions from the first meeting included having local and/or regional chefs provide cooking demonstrations, honoring the life cycle of the salmon (or featured species of the year), etc. The tentative dates for the first Sitka Seafood Festival are Aug. 6-8, 2010.

If you have any questions about the Sitka Seafood Festival, contact Alicia Peavey at alaska_al33@yahoo.com. (Editor’s note: The next Sitka Seafood Festival steering committee meeting will be at 6 p.m. on Thursday, April 1, at the Sitka Economic Development Association office in the Troutte Center building on Lincoln Street.)

Sitka Seafood Festival steering committee meeting notes from March 20, 2010

Sitka Seafood Festival steering committee meeting agenda, March 24, 2010

Chohla Moll grabs some sockeye salmon out of the brine mixture so she can hang it in the smoker.

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 28, 2009 by Charles Bingham

• Big crowd joins Running of the Boots to support Sitka Local Foods Network

High school exchange students dressed as aliens won the best group costume category in the costume contest

Despite a heavy downpour before the race, about 200 people showed up the Crescent Harbor Shelter on Saturday, Sept. 26, 2009, for the 15th annual Running of the Boots, a fundraiser for the Sitka Local Foods Network. The event was part of the second annual Summer’s End Celebration hosted by the Greater Sitka Chamber of Commerce and the Alaska Cruiseline Association.

Many of the runners showed up in costume, including green-headed aliens, pirates, fairy princesses and even a young frog. Others wore enough heavy rain gear so they looked more like ancient mariners than runners. While there was a little bit of a race, the event was all about fun, with a lip-synch event and blues band to spice things up. And we even had a table to sell Sitka Farmers Market produce, and Keri Fish brought along her crepe-making booth.

Click here to view a photo gallery from the 15th annual Running of the Boots. The Sitka Local Foods Network appreciates everybody who participated in this fundraiser. Our next event will be to host an informational table at the Wild and Scenic Film Festival on Saturday, Oct. 24, at the Sitka Performing Arts Center and hosted by the Sitka Conservation Society. Booths open at 6 p.m. and the movies start at 6:30 p.m. We look forward to seeing you there.

A pack of kids takes off at the start of the 2009 Running of the Boots on Sept. 26

Sitka sunbathers huddle up before the race

The Three Moo-sketeers

Young runners all dressed up and ready to run. The boy on the left had the fastest boots on Saturday

September 19, 2009 by Charles Bingham

• Just a reminder, the Running of the Boots fundraiser for the Sitka Local Foods Network is this Saturday

The 15th annual Running of the Boots takes place at 11 a.m. this Saturday, Sept. 26 (registration opens at 10 a.m.). In this fundraiser for the Sitka Local Foods Network, runners don their XtraTufs as they run from the Crescent Harbor shelter and around St. Michael’s Russian Orthodox Cathedral downtown and back (more ambitious runners can run to the corner of Lincoln and Katlian streets and back to Crescent Harbor).

For the second straight year, the Running of the Boots is part of the Season’s End Celebration, sponsored by the Greater Sitka Chamber of Commerce and the Alaska Cruise Association. After the run and lip-synch contest, participants can join the rest of the Sitka community for a free lunch with fish and chips near Harry Race/White’s Pharmacy and burgers and hot dogs near the Coliseum Theatre.

The entry fee for the Running of the Boots is $5 per person and $20 per family, and people can register for the race starting at 10 a.m. There is a lip synch contest after the race, which costs $10 to enter. There also are several contest categories for costumes, painted boots and other awards.

Click here for complete details.

The 2008 winner of the fastest boots award

XtraTufs and togas are high fashion at the 2008 Running of the Boots

September 12, 2009 by Charles Bingham

• Running of the Boots raises funds for Sitka Local Foods Network

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

It’s time to dig your XtraTufs out of the closet and get them painted up. The 15th annual Running of the Boots takes place at 11 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 26, at the Crescent Harbor shelter.

The Running of the Boots is part of the second annual Season’s End Celebration, an event sponsored by the Greater Sitka Chamber of Commerce and the Alaska Cruise Association that includes a free lunch for Sitka residents. The chamber’s board donates money raised by the Running of the Boots to the Sitka Local Foods Network, the non-profit group that hosts the Sitka Farmers Market and advocates for community gardens, a community greenhouse, sustainable uses of traditional subsistence foods and education for Sitka gardeners.

The Running of the Boots is a short race for fun and not for speed, even though one of the many prize categories is for the fastest boots. Categories include best dressed boots, zaniest costume, best couple, best kids group and many others. The course includes a loop around St. Michael’s Cathedral before returning to Crescent Harbor for families with children, or a run from Crescent Harbor to the corner of Katlian and Lincoln streets and back for Sitka’s hardier souls.

“This event will be one of the highlights of our Season’s End Celebration, after which Sitkans can partake of the Alaska Cruise Association’s free lunch,” said Sheila Finkenbinder, executive director of the Greater Sitka Chamber of Commerce. Finkenbinder started the ‘run’ 15 years ago, inspired by an idea from KCAW-Raven Radio general manager Ken Fate.

To learn more about the Running of the Boots, contact Kerry MacLane at 752-0654 or by e-mail at maclanekerry@yahoo.com. More information about the race can be found online at http://www.runningoftheboots.org/ and photos from the 2008 Running of the Boots can be found online at
http://sitkalocalfoodsnetwork.shutterfly.com/80?startIndex=100 (scroll down to find Running of the Boots photos).