Renée Trafton

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BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND: Sitka Kitch to host fundraiser featuring a take-out vegetarian Indian food dinner from Beak Restaurant

Join us for a special fundraising take-out dinner for the Sitka Kitch, where people pick up their food any time from 4-6 p.m. on Tuesday, May 4, at Beak Restaurant to take home.

This event will feature a variety of take-out vegetarian Indian dishes cooked by Beak chef/owner Renée Jakaitis Trafton and her crew.

Renée’s planned menu includes:

  • Coconut Tumeric Chickpea Curry / Tender chickpeas simmered in a rich coconut broth with carrot, potato, kale
  • Chai Spiced Red Lentil Daal / Red lentils with chai spices- ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, clove, black pepper, bay leaf
  • Spiced Basmati Rice / Cinnamon, cardamom, clove
  • Samosa / Crispy spiced potato and green pea mix in dough
  • Tamarind Dipping Sauce
  • Naan
  • House-Made Chai / Ginger, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, black pepper, bay leaf

The cost is $50 per person, and the registration deadline is 11:30 p.m. on Sunday, May 2. All proceeds benefit the Sitka Kitch community rental commercial kitchen, which provides cooking and food preservation classes to Sitka residents. It also provides kitchen rentals on a limited basis for food businesses.

Please let us know if there are other people from your household participating so we can group your food when we package it for pick-up.

You can reserve your spot at this event with PayPal or a credit/debit card by going to our online registration page, http://sitkakitch.eventsmart.com, and clicking on the event title and following the instructions from there. If you prefer to use cash or check to reserve your spot, please call Chandler or Clarice at Sitka Conservation Society (747-7509) or email chandler@sitkawild.org.

Also, since this is a fundraiser, if you want to donate to help us continue to provide cooking and food preservation classes and occasionally serve as a maker-space for local food businesses, click this link to donate through PayPal, https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=5XLWYLLKETNT6. You also can use this link if you want to support the Sitka Kitch, but aren’t able to participate in the dinner.

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Sitka Kitch to host virtual two-part doughnut workshop with chef Renée Trafton

It’s time to make the doughnuts. It’s time to make the doughnuts. Or at least it’s time to learn how to make the doughnuts.

The Sitka Kitch community rental commercial kitchen will teach a two-part online class on how to make doughnuts at home. This family oriented class will be taught by Beak restaurant chef-owner Renée Jakaitis Trafton and takes place from 7-7:30 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 28, and from 8:30-10 a.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 29, using Zoom. This class is a fundraiser for the Sitka Kitch.

During this class, students will learn to make a delicious and special treat you can share with your family over the holiday break. On Monday evening, participants will make the dough and let it sit overnight. On Tuesday morning, the workshop will continue with completing the donuts and making three different icings for a variety of flavors  (simple glaze, cinnamon sugar, and chocolate buttercream).

This is a virtual class taught from the comfort of your own kitchen via Zoom. The class cost is $40 for each household, and families are encouraged to participate together. Ingredients are not provided; however a list of ingredients and equipment needed will be sent to all who are registered on Saturday, Dec. 26. The recipe used in class will make about 14 donuts.

Renee Jakaitis Trafton is the chef and owner at Beak Restaurant, and a frequent teacher of Sitka Kitch cooking classes. She stumbled into making donuts as a special for Alaska Day in 2017, and has been making them for Sunday brunch at Beak ever since.

Current (paid) members of the Sitka Food Co-Op are now able to attend the online classes for $30 each (the co-op will cover the other $10 of your class fee). Please use the Sitka Food Co-Op ticket when you register and send an email to sitkafoodcoop@gmail.com letting them know you’re in the class. (NOTE, Only one person per Co-op household may use the Co-op discount per class. Please name that person when you register so the name can be checked against the Co-op membership list.)

The registration deadline is 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, Dec. 26. Space is limited, so register early to secure your place in the class. You can register and pre-pay using credit/debit cards or PayPal on the Sitka Kitch EventSmart online registration 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 the class, contact Jasmine Shaw at 747-9440. We occasionally offer scholarship spot(s) per class for people with limited incomes, provided we have enough students registered to make the class happen. Contact Chandler at SCS for more details about the scholarship.

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 the week before 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 fundraiser featuring a take-out vegetarian Indian food dinner from Beak Restaurant rescheduled for Aug. 19

Join us for a special fundraising take-out dinner for the Sitka Kitch, where people pick up their food any time from 4:30-6 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 19, at Beak Restaurant to take home. Then they will join us for an online event that starts at 7 p.m. This event originally was scheduled for March, but was rescheduled due to the pandemic.

This event will feature a variety of take-out vegetarian Indian dishes cooked by Beak chef/owner Renée Jakaitis Trafton and her crew. In addition to the dinner, there will be an online trivia contest, door prizes, and an online auction starting at 7 p.m. using Zoom (link will be provided to participants after they register).

Renée’s planned menu includes:

  • Samosas, filled with potato, peas, onion. Tamarind dipping sauce, mango or rhubarb chutney
  • Naan
  • Spiced basmati rice with cinnamon, cardamon, clove
  • Saag paneer, spinach, paneer
  • Red lentil daal
  • Chana masala, chickpeas
  • Rice pudding for dessert (not confirmed)
  • The meal comes with chai (tea).

The cost is $40 per person, and the registration deadline is 11:30 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 8. All proceeds benefit the Sitka Kitch community rental commercial kitchen, which provides cooking and food preservation classes to Sitka residents. It also provides kitchen rentals on a limited basis for food businesses.

You can reserve your spot at this event with PayPal or a credit/debit card by going to our online registration page, http://sitkakitch.eventsmart.com, and clicking on the event title and following the instructions from there. If you prefer to use cash or check to reserve your spot, please call Chandler or Clarice at Sitka Conservation Society (747-7509) or email chandler@sitkawild.org.

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Sitka Kitch to host vegetarian Indian food buffet dinner and silent auction fundraiser on March 18

Join us for a special fundraising buffet dinner and silent auction for the Sitka Kitch from 5:30-8 p.m. on Wednesday, March 18, at Beak Restaurant.

This event will feature a variety of vegetarian Indian dishes cooked by Beak chef/owner Renée Jakaitis Trafton and her crew. In addition to the dinner, there will be a silent auction, door prizes, fun and games. Doors open at 5:30 p.m., and the silent auction closes at 7:30 p.m.

Renée’s tentative menu (subject to change due to ingredient availability) includes:

  • Samosas, filled with potato, peas, onion. Tamarind dipping sauce, mango or rhubarb chutney
  • Naan
  • Spiced basmati rice, cinnamon, cardamon, clove
  • Saag paneer, spinach, paneer
  • Red lentil daal
  • Chana masala, chickpeas

Seating is limited for this event, so register early. The cost is $40 per person, and the registration deadline is 11:30 p.m. on Monday, March 16. All proceeds benefit the Sitka Kitch community rental commercial kitchen, which provides cooking and food preservation classes to Sitka residents. It also provides kitchen rentals on a limited basis for food businesses.

You can reserve your spot at this event with PayPal or a credit/debit card by going to our online registration page, http://sitkakitch.eventsmart.com, and clicking on the event title and following the instructions from there. If you prefer to use cash or check to reserve your spot, please call Chandler or Clarice at Sitka Conservation Society (747-7509) or email chandler@sitkawild.org.

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Scenes from the Sitka Kitch class Oyster Shucking 101 with Renée Jakaitis Trafton

Students learned how to safely shuck an oyster without poking a hole in your hand, and they sampled a couple of sauces and made Oysters Rockefeller during the Sitka Kitch class “Oyster Shucking 101 with Renée Jakaitis Trafton” on Tuesday, Dec. 3, at the Sitka Kitch community rental commercial kitchen.

Renée, who is chef-owner of Beak Restaurant, showed students the proper way to shuck an oyster, using oysters from Shikat Bay Oysters on Prince of Wales Island. She also provided recipes for making a cocktail sauce and a mignonette sauce. In addition, she showed students how to prepare Oysters Rockefeller, which adds garlic, wilted spinach, parmesan cheese and Pernod to the oysters before heating them in the oven.

In the next Sitka Kitch class offering, Kate DesRosiers will teach her Rainforest Recipes AIP Pizza class, using the auto-immune protocol (AIP) for people with auto-immune diseases such as celiac’s disease or diabetes, at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 12, and/or 3 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 14, at the Sitka Kitch. These classes cost $40, and the registration deadline is 11:30 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 9, for the Dec. 12 class, and 11:30 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 12, for the Dec. 14 class. Space is limited, so register early. We need at least eight students to make each class happen.

Some scenes from the Oyster Shucking 101 class are in a photo slideshow below.

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Sitka Kitch to host Oyster Shucking 101 class with Renée Trafton on Dec. 3

Have you harvested some fresh oysters in Southeast Alaska, but don’t know how to shuck them? Did you buy some fresh oysters, but want to learn new ways to prepare them?

Join Beak restaurant chef/owner Renée Jakaitis Trafton for the Sitka Kitch‘s Oyster Shucking 101 class from 6-8:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 3, at the Sitka Kitch community rental commercial kitchen (located at the Sitka Lutheran Church kitchen, 224 Lincoln Street, enter back door through alley off of Harbor Drive).

In this class, Renée will teach basic oyster shucking technique, safety precautions, accompanying sauces, and cooking with oysters. She will discuss various aspects of this tasty bivalve and then demonstrate how to safely shuck an oyster. After shucking, participants will eat some raw oysters to taste with cocktail sauce and mignonette, and then participants will learn to make Oyster Rockefeller.

The $40 class price includes an oyster knife, eight oysters, sauces, recipes, and ingredients for Oyster Rockefeller. The registration deadline is 11:30 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 1. Space is limited, so register early to secure your place in the class.

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 Chandler O’Connell or Clarice Johnson at Sitka Conservation Society (747-7509) to arrange a payment.

For more information about the class, 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. This class is a fundraiser 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 the week before 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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Scenes from the Sitka Kitch’s ‘Cooking With Wild Mushrooms’ class on Sept. 13

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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Sitka Kitch to host ‘Cooking With Mushrooms’ class Sept. 13 with Renée Trafton and Kitty LaBounty

Have you harvested some edible mushrooms in Southeast Alaska, but don’t know how to cook them?

Join Beak restaurant chef/owner Renée Jakaitis Trafton and University of Alaska Southeast Sitka Campus Assistant Professor Kitty LaBounty for the Sitka Kitch‘s Cooking With Mushrooms class from 6-8:30 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 13, at the Sitka Kitch community rental commercial kitchen (located at the Sitka Lutheran Church kitchen, 224 Lincoln Street, enter back door through alley off of Harbor Drive).

The menu is to be determined, but it also will involve a discussion on how to properly cook mushrooms in general. Renée will teach students a variety of methods of cooking wild edible mushrooms, while Kitty will help students identify which mushrooms are edible and which are poisonous.

Beak restaurant owner Renée Jakaitis Trafton

This class is being held in conjunction with Kitty’s annual mushroom identification class at UAS Sitka Campus, and it costs $40 (the UAS class costs $50 and is a separate fee). The registration deadline is 11:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 10. Space is limited, so register early to secure your place in the class.

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 Chandler O’Connell or Clarice Johnson at Sitka Conservation Society (747-7509) to arrange a payment.

Kitty LaBounty

For more information about the class, 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. This class is a fundraiser 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 the week before 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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Celebrate the Fourth Annual Wild Alaska Salmon Day on Saturday, Aug. 10, in Sitka

The Fourth Annual Wild Alaska Salmon Day(s) are Aug. 8-11 this year around the state, and Sitka can celebrate Wild Alaska Salmon Day from 5-8:30 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 10, at Beak Restaurant. This event is co-sponsored by the Sitka Conservation Society and Beak Restaurant.

“Salmon bring us together. Catching them, cleaning them, smoking them, and eating them,” event organizer Carly Dennis wrote on the Facebook event page. “Join us Saturday, August 10th at Beak Restaurant for a Wild Alaska Salmon Day celebration. There will be a Wild Alaska Salmon Day special, information, art, and opportunities to learn and take action to protect this resource we all love. Thank you to Renee (Trafton) and Beak Restaurant for co-hosting this event.”

There are a variety of Wild Alaska Salmon Day events around the state this week, including Aug. 8 in Anchorage; Aug. 10 in Sitka, Juneau, Homer, and Fairbanks; and Aug. 11 in Palmer. More events may be added to the slate. Remember, friends don’t let friends eat farmed salmon. We like our salmon wild.

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Scenes from the Sitka Kitch classes on filleting and canning salmon for the Sitka Seafood Festival

As part of the rekindled Sitka Seafood Festival, the Sitka Kitch community rental commercial kitchen hosted two classes this week — Tuesday, Aug. 15, on how to fillet a salmon, and Wednesday, Aug. 16, on how to can salmon.

The Tuesday class was taught by Renée Jakaitis Trafton, chef-owner of Beak Restaurant. Renée taught students the basics of filleting a salmon (using freshly caught, ungutted salmon), and she taught them how to pull pinbones and how to skin the fillet.

The Wednesday class was led by Jasmine Shaw, who works for the University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service‘s Sitka District Office. In addition to teaching students how to can salmon, Jasmine also taught them how to make a simple raspberry-currant jam while the salmon was processing.

Slideshows from both classes are posted below, with the Tuesday class slideshow on top of the Wednesday class. In the Wednesday class slideshow there are photos of several UAF Cooperative Extension Service publications, including several free handouts that can be downloaded off the UAF CES website and a couple of books that can be purchased from Jasmine at her office (contact her at 747-9440 or jdshaw2@alaska.edu to set up a time to get them).

Also, don’t forget the Sitka Kitch still has openings in its Ring Around The Rose Hip class from its Preserving The Harvest class series. You can learn more about our upcoming classes by going to http://sitkakitch.eventsmart.com and clicking on the class title to register.

Tuesday class slideshow

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Wednesday class slideshow

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