Speaker Bios
Quinn Aboudara
Quinn is the resident blacksmith for Beaver Brothers Trading Company; a small Prince of Wales Island based business. Raised on Prince of Wales Island, Quinn’s passion for the outdoors is reflected in their hand-forged knives and metal-works. Quinn’s one of a kind works feature locally sourced materials, from steel salvaged from local salvage yards to carefully selected and fitted handles made of locally sourced materials. Their experience of growing up and being an active hunter, fisher, and forager in Southeast Alaska has provided them a lifetime of knowledge on knife use and care as well as an understanding of the right tool for the job.
Recorded Presentation:
Knife Sharpening Skills: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fGVxhcKNn4&t=4s
Mary & Lucas Goddard
Mary and Lucas Goddard are the culinary duo that make up Forest Fresh Alaska, a forest-to-table cooking blog. Tlingit from Yakutat and Sitka, they both grew up accustomed to eating from the bounty of Southeast Alaska’s oceans and forests. They met as co-workers in a local Sitka restaurant and have been serving up unique crave-worthy dishes for their families and friends ever since.
Lucas, a former chef, takes to fishing and hunting, bringing home all kinds of wonderfully fresh meal options. Mary has spent the past eleven years studying hands-on the foraging and harvesting of indigenous plants. The two come together in the kitchen to create unique recipes utilizing fresh ingredients from the ocean and rainforests.
Forest Fresh Alaska has been a natural extension of their everyday lives and a labor of love for the Goddards, as they have been passionately sharing ways to make indigenous plants and foods more accessible to all Southeast residents, arming them with a little knowledge of how to forage and inspiring them with creative menu ideas.
This year the Goddards were featured in Edible Alaska Magazine, created a Valentine’s Day Menu for Sustainable Southeast Partnership, taught Virtual Urban Harvest: Foraging from the Forest in partnership with the Anchorage Museum and crafted unique salmon recipes for Feast and Field on-line magazine.
Sarah Lewis
Sarah is an Associate Professor of Extension for the Southeast Districts of the UAF Cooperative Extension Service. Home based in Juneau, she has been teaching home skills and local food workshops throughout Southeast Alaska since 2013. In addition, Sarah is the author and editor of several UAF Extension publications, and considers herself lucky to teach practical and interesting classes to friends, neighbors, and families throughout Southeast Alaska.
Melanie Brown
Melanie was born in Sitka to parents from the Bristol Bay and Norton Sound regions and raised to fish the Naknek River District where her mother is from. Her mother gave her enough skills to get her started on cooking salmon as many ways as possible and when she got comfortable cutting fish the possibilities multiplied exponentially. There is much to be done with all the parts of the fish and Melanie grew up learning that this is true of game animals as well, especially with the bones of the legs, ribs and back. Having returned to Southeast Alaska as an adult has connected Melanie with the bio-diverse land and sea and all of the possibilities it has to offer. To her this represents the true meaning of wealth.
Recorded Presentations:
Using the Whole Fish: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hrVq95ICDE&t=2s