Scott Burton, KTOO

The University of Alaska Southeast will be hosting the Native Olympics this Saturday at the UAS Recreation Center. Yesterday, as preparation for the competition, representatives from the University and the community organized a demonstration of the events.

One of the demonstration’s leaders and UAS academic advisor Quentin Simeon says students will participate in several of the native games.

“The Eskimo stick pull, the Indian stick pull, the wrist carry, the scissor broad jump, the one foot high kick, the two foot high kick, the Alaskan high kick, leg wrestling, Indian leg wrestling, so those are the main ones we’re going to be highlighting on Saturday.”

Fellow demonstration leader Ricardo Worl hopes people will attend so they can learn about the games’ significance.

“They originated from the northern part of Alaska probably more than 2,000 years ago. The Eskimo and Indian people from the interior of Alaska created a series of games to teach their kids important survival skills.”

Simeon says onlookers will see a unique kind of contest.

“They help each other. It’s a different flavor of competition and so even if you’re like running head to head with somebody you will see that they will share their experiences, they will give each other advice, they will say you were running too fast when you were going up for that kick so you’re floating. You can see that competition, but it’s camaraderie at the same time, and it’s just a beautiful thing to see with the kids.”

The games begin at 5 p.m. on Saturday at the UAS Recreation Center.

The popularity of cooking shows like PBS’s The Mind of a Chef might suggest that Americans are interested in becoming better cooks. If your culinary learning curve has plateaued, you may want to try a new approach. Rookery head-chef and co-owner Beau Schooler is gaining a reputation for seasonally creative cuisine. I joined Schooler in the kitchen one afternoon and he describes one of the restaurant’s special menus.

“We pickled some grapes with chai tea, and we’re doing that with corn flakes and blue cheese. And we got that bacon panna cotta, we’re doing that with passion fruit and avocado,” says Schooler.

Schooler looks at home in the kitchen. Among his many tattoos is a diagram of a pig that shows the name of each cut as “good” and “very good,” and a large knife with the words “mis en place”—French for “everything in its place.”

“And then we’re doing a pork schnitzel that’s encrusted with corn pops with a corn pop ice cream,” Schooler continues. “That one is getting paired with this Octoberfest kind of style beer which has this kind of honey-sweet corn notes, which is why we went with the corn pop crusted pork schnitzel kind of idea.”

Schooler says his eyes were opened to thoughtfully produced cuisine when he was a teenager. He was working at Anchorage’s Glacier Brew House and tried the seared salmon with coconut rice.

“Sometimes food’s a necessity and you’re just eating it because you need to eat, and other times you’re eating you’re getting enjoyment out of it. And that was when it dawned on me that you could have this food that would bring you so much joy and happiness was this piece of seared salmon.”

Since then he’s worked as a prep cook, a line cook, a sous-chef, and studied in southern Italy. But keeping things fresh takes more than that.

“Everybody that works here tends to be big on reading cookbooks, or reading on-line, or checking out what other restaurants are doing. We find these ideas that we like to try them ourselves. I think a big part of it is not being afraid to mess things up. We want to try things and see how they turn out,” Schooler says.

Part of the team that helps keep things fresh is cook Rachel Barril. She stands at an industrial stove searing duck livers for a duck liver whipped cream to top a gruyere cupcake. This is the kind of dish Schooler promotes.

“He pushes you to be more creative, to up your level technique-wise, creatively–that’s just the kind of chef he inspires us to be,” says Barril.

Downstairs in the Seward Street restaurant I run into Stefani Marnon, who just finished lunch. Also known as “Chef Stef,” Marnon has cooked professionally in Juneau for some 16 years and frequents the restaurant.

“The things that I love about his menus is they reflect the seasons,” says Marnon.

I am surprised she doesn’t mention the menu’s diversity. When I ask her if Schooler’s style is considered “fusion,” she cringes. The word fusion is a label and is “90s,” she says, and should be avoided. While his menus might include kimchee, fondue, ramen, and Cheez-its, it also benefits from using locally sourced food like prawns whenever possible.

“I just have Beau make me his prawn dish because I know where the prawns are coming from and I know that they’re great. So you know the stuff is fresh, and I know we hear that all the time, ‘oh it’s in season,’ but it truly is a marker of time looking at Beau’s menu,” says Marnon.

Chef Stef also likes the Rookery’s optional communal-style seating, the affordability, and that among all the creative dishes, there is also a delicious burger for those times when you just want a burger. Speaking of meat, when I ask Schooler what’s next on the menu, he says he’s excited about their home-made charcuterie.

“Terrines and cooked sausages and stuff, and that’s been really fun just because it’s really kind of scientific–like understanding the whole process and proteins and lactic acid and all that, and growing this like beneficial bacteria and creating these cured meats,” Schooler says.

And when the charcuterie becomes routine, Schooler will try something else new. He says that when something becomes repetitive, we stop paying attention to the details.

What do Dolly Parton, the Juneau Public Library, and Alaska’s First Lady Sandy Parnell have in common? Children’s Books, and lots of them. On Wednesday morning, library programs coordinator Beth Weigel and Mrs. Parnell read to an attentive group of kids at the downtown Library.

Since 1928, Juneauites have enjoyed the reverberating sound of the historic Kimball Theatre Organ. After a handful of moves from its original home at the Coliseum Theatre on South Franklin Street, the organ now lives on the 8th floor of the State Office Building where it’s been since 1977. Thanks to a cadre of dedicated volunteers, the organ continues to entertain almost every Friday at noon. KTOO’s Scott Burton attended Friday’s concert with T.J. Duffy and brings us this Halloween–inspired audio postcard.

The folks at Juneau’s Alaska Robotics just sent us Alaskan artist Marian Call’s new video “Good Morning Moon.” The video features footage shot in the Netherlands at Space Expo Noordwijk, which she visited on her European Tour. The high-resolution time-lapse photography comes from the International Space Station and the archive footage was thanks to NASA. All footage was chopped together right here in Juneau.

Photo of Marian Call by Frank “Alaskan Dude” Kovalchek

Since 2010, Juneau poets have been taking the stage at open mics and poetry slams hosted by the Woosh Kinaadeiyi arts non-profit organization. Here’s an audio postcard from this year’s grand slam event on Friday, Oct. 18th. Among a multitude of volunteers and talented performers, we’ll hear voices from poets Ziggy, Jacqueline Boucher, Nathan Block, Woosh Kinaadeiyi president and co-founder Christy Namee Eriksen, and co-host Dee Jay Derego.

Open mics and poetry slams happen every third Friday at 6:30 p.m. Locations vary.