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Salmonberry Contest 2022 Saturday evening and a Special Cooking Class with Kirsten Dixon Sunday morning! A 2-Day Event!

SeldoviaGal | August 6, 2022 | 0 Comments

by Jenny Chissus

So exciting to be welcoming Kirsten and Mandy Dixon and Valerie Granath as our judges for the competition this year! Seldovia is known for great salmonberries, and many folks have never tried anything but jams or cakes – and our competition has brought amazing talent out of the woodwork! From Sunni’s salmonberry cake and Peggy & Jen’s ice cream, Marcia’s wine to Liane’s chipotle, we have had some incredibly inventive and delicious entries!

The berries are here – so you have a week to pick, plan, prepare and get ready to present your entry by 6pm at the Boardwalk Hotel Saturday night! Besides being a lot of fun, there are prizes for each category as well as a People’s Choice award!

The basic rules:
* Bring your entry to The Boardwalk Hotel restaurant between 6:00pm and 6:30pm
* Recipe MUST include salmonberries
* Please present your entry with a NAME
* You may enter more than one item
* Each entry must have enough to share with 3 judges. It is nice to have extra as we will open a table for public sampling after the judges have tasted each entry. Folks in the audience get to taste these treats and we will have a People’s Choice award!
* You must pick either SWEET or SAVORY category for each entry
* The judges will be rating the entries on appearance/presentation, texture & taste (scale of 1-10)

Check-in your entries and grab a seat and enjoy dinner at the Boardwalk! This is a fun evening, and we thank the Boardwalk Hotel and their entire staff for helping to make the event a success! A lot is going on and it is a great time!

Foraged and Gathered Course Sunday Morning

Sunday morning August 14, 2022, from 9:00am to 10:30am

This is a very special event added this year! A COOKING COURSE with Kirsten Dixon!

If you have ever had the pleasure of taking a cooking class at Tutka Bay Lodge with Kirsten or Mandy and their staff – you know what a treat this is, that they are offering this intimate class right here in Seldovia!

Featured Dish: Seafood tagine prepared with wild edibles from Alaska and spices from Morocco!

You’ll have the opportunity to meet Hicham Hnini, chef at Tutka Bay Lodge, and Timothy Crockett, Executive Chef, and forager for Within the Wild Adventure Company. They will share with you, along with Kirsten Dixon, secrets of their rustic and refined regional cuisine.

Learn how to cook with tagine over a live fire or portable stove and hear the story of how Hicham and Kirsten met on a desert camel farm in Morocco and how he came to live in Alaska.

Kirsten will prepare her version of salmorejo – a cold Spanish tomato soup that is a lodge summer favorite. Tomatoes, cider vinegar, croutons, and smoked salmon make a simple and delicious soup.

The team will also have their cookbooks available for sale.

The cost for this course will be $25.00 per person – all fees are being generously donated to the Seldovia Fire and EMS Department! Thank you Kirsten, Hicham and Timothy! Space is limited and so please contact/text Jenny Chissus at 907-406-0044 to reserve your seat! The class will begin promptly at 9:00am, so please honor this very special event by showing up a few minutes early to settle in and be ready to begin! So thrilled that Kirsten and her team are willing to share their time and expertise with us!

Sweet & Savory Contest was a Delight!

SeldoviaGal | August 13, 2018 | 0 Comments

by Jenny Chissus

Event Flier

In spite of the blustery and rainy weather, the evening was a huge success! Thanks to Jeremiah and Angela at the Boardwalk Hotel who in addition to hosting this fun event, entertained us with great music from Keeley, Nelson and Kelsey all evening!

We had delicious entries in the competition, this year in both Sweet and Savory categories as well as a People’s Choice category!

Savory …

First, let’s talk about the SAVORY entries! It was so interesting as this category truly opened the door to some exciting and unexpected entries! We love to challenge our Seldovia chefs!

In the Savory category, we had fried chicken wings in a crystalized ginger salmonberry sauce, steak and sausage bites with BBQ salmonberry dipping sauces, caramelized onion and salmonberry cream cheese spread, salmonberry wine and even a salmonberry relish!

Thanks to Marcia, Liane, Ginny, Chris, Karen and MaryJo, we had some amazing entries in the new category this year!

Sweet…

In the SWEET category, we had a wide variety of treats as well! From fresh salmonberry pie, salmonberry cream cheesecake, salmonberry zinger cake, salmonberry jello cheesecake, salmonberry glazed cheesecake, salmonberry kookaberry cake, salmonberry mascarpone shortcake, salmonberry cupcake bites to another salmonberry ice cream!

People’s Choice…

We had another fun category this year, based on last year’s success of sharing the remaining entries with the crowd! So after each sampling was taken by the judges, then the remainder went to our tasting table – where the spectators at the event could sample the treats! Everyone at the event had a ticket and were given the opportunity to pick ONE favorite! It was interesting as 71% of the votes were cast for entries in the SWEET category! And, in the end all three PEOPLES CHOICE winners were in the Sweet category!

And our 3 Judges…

Angela Peggy and Melissa - Our 2018 Judges We want to acknowledge and thank our three judges this year! All three were winners in last year’s competition! Angela Campbell who owns, operates and cooks at the Boardwalk Hotel Pub and Grill, Melissa Pederson who owns, operates and cooks at the Harbor Inn Coffee & Gifts and Peggy Cloninger who has retired from almost 30 years running a successful fishing charter and B&B here in Seldovia!

All three of these ladies are amazing cooks who have owned and cooked in restaurants and B&Bs, so they understand the importance of tasty dishes and presentation!

Peggy actually wasn’t able to participate last year as she was headed out of town, so she gave her recipe to Jen Swick, who brought home 1st place last year making & submitting Peggy’s delicious Salmonberry Ice Cream! Crazy – that this year’s winner was also an ice cream!

Thank You … Thank You … Thank You

Awesome Glass Etching by Ecola Collier

Thank you to all the participants who submitted their delicious treats! Obviously, there would be no competition without you!

In addition to thanking again the Boardwalk Hotel Pub and Grill and the entire staff who ran and ran all night to keep food and drinks coming, during the music and the competition, I also want to thank Bovey Trophies for a fantastic job on the ribbon awards! They always do a great job, quickly and at a great price!

Thank you to Alaska Air Taxi who made sure that the awards made it down to Seldovia, and Jeremiah Campbell who packed them in his suitcase!

I also want to acknowledge Ecola Collier who did a fantastic job with the etching on the award jars, creating the artwork and etching the glass so beautifully!

Thanks to Seldovia Property, who sponsored awards, commissioned artwork and planned and organized the event.