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 19, 2009 by Charles Bingham

• This week’s e-newsletter (Sept. 19)

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. Please note that the newsletter will switch to monthly for the winter.

September 15, 2009 by Charles Bingham

• This week’s e-newsletter (Sept. 14)

September 14, 2009 by Charles Bingham

• Baranof Elementary students dig up potatoes and other local food stories in the news

Daily Sitka Sentinel screenshot of Baranof Elementary School student picking potatoes

Monday’s edition of the Daily Sitka Sentinel features a photo of Baranof Elementary School first-grader Keaton Kelling, 7, holding up a couple of potatoes he dug up from the Russian Bishop’s House garden on Thursday. First-grade students from Baranof Elementary harvested crops of peas, potatoes, carrots and other vegetables they planted last spring when they were kindergarten students. Most crops did well this year. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)

Monday's picking potatoes photo from the Daily Sitka Sentinel

There were several other local food stories in Alaska newspapers over the weekend. Here’s a quick rundown.

Click here to read a story from Sunday’s Juneau Empire that features an Alaskanized version of a recipe for “salmon maritako,” a stew made by Spanish fishermen. The article is by Ginny Mahar, a chef at Rainbow Foods who also writes the Food-G blog. Many of the recipes Ginny posts on her blog include local, Southeast Alaska ingredients.

Click here to read an article from Sunday’s Fairbanks Daily News-Miner about a University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service project at the Fairbanks Experimental Farm where they are using high-tunnel greenhouses to grow more apples and berries in northern climates. Click here to go directly to the UAF Cooperative Extension Service project page.

Click here to read Wednesday’s Anchorage Daily News gardening column by Jeff Lowenfels about now being the time to prepare plants for winter. Most of the column deals with flowers, but he does have some info about preparing tomato plants for the winter at the end of the column.

Click here to read an Associated Press story posted on the Anchorage Daily News Web site on Monday about how hoop houses (a low-cost type of greenhouse that uses plastic on a frame) are extending the growing season for urban farmers in northern climates. The version of the story on the ADN site didn’t have any photos of the hoop houses, so click here to see a version with photos.

Click here to read a transcript from National Public Radio of a story about two Walmart truckers who drive 2,600 miles one way from an Oregon warehouse to Alaska each week to deliver produce to Alaska stores. That’s a long way to transport a piece of lettuce or a carrot we can grow in Alaska, and that distance doesn’t include how far the produce had to travel to get to the Oregon warehouse before being trucked to Alaska. The story originated from the Alaska Public Radio Network, which has the story in streaming audio on its site.

Finally, click here for a humorous column from the July 2009 Field and Stream by Scott Bestul comparing the taste of Grade A Choice Holstein beef vs. wild venison when both are prepared the same way. This isn’t really a local story, but deer hunting season is coming soon in Southeast Alaska.

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 8, 2009 by Charles Bingham

• Local food news from Juneau: Virus infects Tlingít potato crop; Glory Hole to get community garden

(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 borage plant flowers.

Click here to read an article in Tuesday’s Juneau Empire about a virus that has infected the crop of Tlingít potatoes at Juneau’s Jensen-Olson Arboretum. According to the article, the potatoes still are safe to eat, despite the virus. But the virus means they won’t be used as seed potatoes for other community gardens in Southeast Alaska, as previously planned. Officials from the University of Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service office in Juneau are doing what they can to remove the virus so they can guarantee clean seed, but it might take a few years.

Click here to read an article from Monday’s Juneau Empire about plans to build a community garden at the Glory Hole homeless shelter and soup kitchen in downtown Juneau. The community garden is expected to provide fresh vegetables and fruit for the soup kitchen, as well as giving Glory Hole patrons a project they can work on at the shelter. Plans are to put garden beds on the roof and terraced garden beds on the hill behind the Glory Hole’s back door.

August 30, 2009 by Charles Bingham

• SEARHC, Cooperative Extension hosts free garden workshop on Sept. 9

Master gardener Bob Gorman shows off seed starts in wet paper towels during a March garden workshop

Do you want to grow some of your own food this summer, so you can have more fresh food choices and eat healthier dinners? Then the fourth and final installment in a continuing series of garden workshops is for you.

The SEARHC Diabetes and Health Promotion programs have teamed up with master gardener Bob Gorman of the Sitka office of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service to offer a series of four free garden workshops during the summer of 2009. The last workshop of the series takes place from 1:30 to 3 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 9.

The class will be hosted at the SEARHC Community Health Services Building third-floor conference room in Sitka (1212 Seward Dr.). But participants in other communities will join by video or audioconference from the SEARHC Juneau Administration Building Conference Room, the SEARHC Jessie Norma Jim Health Center in Angoon, the Haines Borough Library, the SEARHC Kake Health Center and the SEARHC Alicia Roberts Medical Center in Klawock.

“Even though summer is winding down, people still have a lot they can do in this year’s growing season,” said Maybelle Filler, SEARHC Diabetes Grant Coordinator. “Southeast Alaska is unique in its growing conditions, and it’s great that the SEARHC Diabetes and Health Promotion programs can partner with the Sitka office of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service to provide information on growing things in our area.”

The first three workshops in the four-workshop series were March 11, May 6 and July 8. The topics for the remaining workshop are:

* Sept. 9 — Late-winter plantings; trees and shrubs; house plants and indoor gardening; and winterizing your garden.

For more information about this series of free workshops, contact SEARHC Diabetes Grant Coordinator Maybelle Filler at 966-8739 or maybelle.filler@searhc.org. People who aren’t able to attend at one of the listed video or audioconferencing sites, should contact Maybelle for other options. Maybelle also has extra copies of the handouts for those who miss any of the garden workshops.

August 26, 2009 by Charles Bingham

• Capital City Weekly features Sitka Farmers Market, and other local food stories in the news

Screenshot of Capital City Weekly site with the Table of the Day Winners from the third Sitka Farmers Market

Click here to see a photo in this week’s issue of Capital City Weekly that shows Table of the Day Award-winners Hope Merritt and Judy Johnstone of Gimbal Botanicals and Sprucecot Gardens receiving their award from Ellen Frankenstein at the third Sitka Farmers Market of the season on Aug. 15. We host the fourth Sitka Farmers Market of the summer from 10 a.m. to 20 p.m. this Saturday (Aug. 29) at Alaska Native Brotherhood Hall, 235 Katlian St.

In addition to the Sitka Farmers Market photo, there were several other local foods stories in statewide news the last few days.

Click here to read a Capital City Weekly story about the second annual Juneau Farmers Market and Local Foods Fair that takes place on Saturday, Aug. 29, at the Juneau Arts and Culture Center.

Click here to read a Capital City Weekly story about using and preserving healthy, delicious rose hips (by Dr. Sonja Koukel of the Juneau office of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service, article includes a recipe).

Click here to read a story from Thursday’s Juneau Empire previewing this Saturday’s second annual Juneau Farmers Market and Local Foods Festival.

Click here to read a Fairbanks Daily News-Miner story about the history of sourdough bread in Alaska (article includes a couple of recipes).

Click here to read a roundup from the Anchorage Daily News about what’s available this week in local farmers markets.

Finally, click here to read an article from the Canadian magazine “Up Here” about a Yukon Territory resident’s attempt to eat a 100-mile diet (eg, a locavore diet).

August 24, 2009 by Charles Bingham

• Juneau Empire spotlights harvest of Tlingít potatoes

(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 borage plant flowers.

The Juneau Empire on Monday (click here) ran a nice photo package of a sustainable harvest camp at the Jensen-Olson Arboretum in Juneau that was hosted by the 4-H program run by UAF Cooperative Extension Service and the Alaska Department of Fish & Game. The photos feature several children harvesting “Maria’s Potatoes,” a type of Tlingít potato grown from seed potatoes that originally came from deceased Tlingít elder Maria Miller’s garden in Klukwan. These fingerling potatoes do well in Southeast Alaska’s rainy climate and have been around for hundreds of years. The story link above has a link to an audio slideshow by Juneau Empire photographer Michael Penn. The slideshow is worth watching.

By the way, click here to read more about the Tlingít potato posted on the Sitka Local Foods Network site about three weeks ago. Elizabeth Kunibe did want to clarify that in the link to the Chilkat Valley News story she is misquoted so it appears that she “discovered” the Ozette potato (another Native American variety). She said she is not the discoverer.

Kunibe also said the Tlingít potatoes can be sold, but for food only and not for seed. Some of them contain potato viruses, transmitted by vectors, that can affect the soil and other varieties of potatoes. She said when people buy seed potatoes, they need to make sure they have “clean seed” or “virus-free seed” before they plant. She said potato viruses do not affect humans who eat the potatoes, but we need to use clean seed to keep the viruses from destroying crops (like what happened in the Irish potato famine). She said the UAF Cooperative Extension Service, which has offices in Sitka and Juneau, may have more information on how to find virus-free seed potatoes.

Kunibe, who made a presentation on Tlingít potatoes and traditional gardening in Sitka last year, is hoping to schedule another trip to Sitka for a future presentation. Kunibe also wanted share this link from the USDA Agricultural Research Service about newly discovered nutritional benefits of potatoes, especially in regards to phytochemicals and cancer prevention.

August 18, 2009 by Charles Bingham

• Hope Merritt, Judy Johnstone win Table of the Day Award from third Sitka Farmers Market

Hope Merritt, left, and Judy Johnstone, right, of Gimbal Botanicals and Sprucecot Gardens receive the Table of the Day Award from Ellen Frankenstein during the third Sitka Farmers Market of the season on Aug. 15.

Hope Merritt and Judy Johnstone of Gimbal Botanicals and Sprucecot Gardens won the “Table of the Day Award” for the third Sitka Farmers Market of the season on Aug. 15.

The Sitka Local Foods Network selected the shared table — which featured a variety of fresh produce, herbal teas and ornamental plants — to receive the $25 cash prize, an Alaska Farmers Market Association tote bag, a DVD of “Eating Alaska” and a certificate of appreciation. A similar prize package will be awarded to a deserving vendor at each of the four remaining Sitka Farmers Markets.

The fourth market of the season takes place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 29, at Alaska Native Brotherhood Hall. Keep your eye on this site for more information.

Also, a new photo gallery from the third Sitka Farmers Market on Aug. 15 has been posted on Shutterfly (an online photo-sharing site). Click this link to check out the photos.