Adventure - Tutka Bay Cooking Class

Tutka Bay Lodge

Stats

Difficulty: Easy                                                                                                   Time:  Half-day

Summary

There is no shortage of activities available on the Kenai Peninsula.  One of the more unexpected is a cooking lesson at the Tutka Bay Cooking School.  This half-day trip starts with a ride from the Homer docks (unless you are already staying at the Tutka Bay Lodge).  For there you take a water taxi to Tutka Bay Lodge where you are met and escorted to the long house where the cooking lessons are taught.

Opinion

This was a blast.  Not only do you learn to cook a dish on the style for the weekend (Italian, French, Alaskan), you get a full multi-course meal and the all the recipes for the meal.  Not only that,
the lodge is in a truly beautiful location, surrounded by ocean and mountains.  Plus, on the trip over, you have good odds of seeing sea otters.

Advice

As is normal for this advice section, dress in layers.  The boat rid over can be cold, and, when we were there, the temperature in the cooking school was a bit cool at first.  Then it warmed up and was quite comfortable.

Suitability

This tour is suitable for all ages.  The water taxi is not equipped for wheelchairs and you will need to climb a flight of steep stairs.  But if you can climb in and out of a boat up up a flight of stairs, you do this activity.

Lesson Access

Contact the Tutka Bay Cooking School to schedule your class.  Read the web site for a list of what regional cuisine will be offered during your times of availability.  The school will arrange for a water taxi to get you across the bay to the Lodge.  Alternatively, you can schedule all or part of your trip to include a stay at the lodge.  We didn't do that, but I'm confident you won't be disappointed.

The Adventure

As mentioned our trip started at the Homer Spit at the Mako Water Taxi office.  We had paid for the ride across the bay as part of the fee we paid for the cooking class, so after we checked in at the office, we headed down to the docks to get on board their boat.

Otters in a row

It is a reasonably short trip across the bay to the Tutka Bay Lodge, but we were delayed slightly when the boat driver spotted a raft of otters on the route and stopped to let us take pictures.  There must have been 20 otters and many were females with pups: very cool!

Arriving at the lodge

The staff was lined up waiting for us as we pulled up to the Tutka Bay Lodge's dock.  We were escorted up the ramp to their enormous deck and encouraged to make use of the restrooms while we took in the view and were given a quick history of the lodge.  The deck was so large it had a hot tub, deck chairs, and was fully capable (or so they said) of landing 3 helicopters at once.  The lodge itself is on the side of Tutka Bay that was settled, but it has a 180-degree view opposite the bay that is all state and national park without a building in sight.  The lodge also has access to many hiking trails into the park land.

Lodge boardwalk

Once everyone was ready, we were escorted along a beautifully crafted raised boardwalk through through the tidal marsh to one of the original buildings of the lodge.  The resort is sculpted to conform to the shallow tidal water inlets in the area.  It was amazing how clear the water was.  The cooking school is located in a converted wooden fishing boat the original owner was converted into a long house.  The cooling school was on the top floor.  This was an interesting setup; the burners for cooking were portable propane burners and there were no stoves or running water.

We signed up for the Northern Italian cooking class.  The menu for the day was homemade ricotta, risotto Milanese, tiramisu panna cotta, and chocolate cherry biscotti.  But before we started cooking or eating, the class started with the instructor, Kirsten Dixon, telling us about her cooking career, how she and her husband bought and grew their lodges, and the background on her cooking classes.  

Then she started with a couple of tasting sessions.  The first was a salt tasting.  She provided us with a high quality French salt called Esprit de Sel and classic Morton salt.  There was a surprising difference between the two.  I would definitely prefer the Esprit de Sel if I was putting salt directly on food, but Morton salt would still be fine mixed in with other spices.  The next tasting was olive oil.  All were good, but once again there was a surprising difference in flavor to each one.

After the tasting, Kirsten's assistant, Jamie Donovan, demonstrated the making of Risotto Milanese.  She also gave us some good tips for make ahead steps to use if we wanted to prep it for a party.  Even more useful to me was her tips on what to do with the leftovers.

At this point, it was our turn to cook.  They took us over to a long table set up with propane cooking stations and taught us how to make herbed ricotta.  First we selected our herbs and chopped them up.  The we started the ricotta.  It turns out to be very simple and tastes far better than store bought.  I took mine home and used it in a lasagna, but they recommended eating it on crackers or bread.

Fabulous appetizers

After the risotto was finished we moved to the table and started lunch.  The first course was appetizers including several gourmet cheeses, specialty sausages and meats, several types of tapenade, and three small glasses of liquor and wine.  It was delicious!  The next course was the risotto we had seen demonstrated.  The desert course was Tiramisu Panna Cotta with Chocolate Cherry Biscotti.  It was all truly delicious and we came home with the recipes :)

Beach walk

After lunch we headed back to the dock, but it turned out our ride back had another stop to make, so we had an extra half-hour to kill.  One of the Lodge staff took us out for a very short guided hike into the spruce forest and along the beach.  It was a great hike and I would happily have gone much farther.

Time to go

Unfortunately, our water taxi had arrived so we had to leave.  Overall this was a great adventure, great food, good stories, interesting company, and a nice walk to work off lunch.