CONGRATS TO JOHN. SEE YOU THERE!
Oh, for the love of pork, it’s Cochon 555. Roasting it up Napa style.
For the third year, organizers of this national porcine-centric tour bring together five local chefs, five local vintners and five 175 pound heritage breed pigs for a whole hog experience on March 6, 2011 at the Culinary Institute at Greystone. And everyone worth their trotters will be there.
The idea: Each of the chef-teams gets a pig to prepare head-to-toe to be judged on presentation, utilization and flavor. Twenty local judges (including chefs, farmers, writers and food dorks like BiteClub) get to crown the local Prince or Princess of Porc who travels to the Food and Wine Classic in Aspen and competes in the final for King or Queen.
Local chefs competing in Napa include our own Duskie Estes and John Stewart of Zazu and Black Pig Meats, Curtis de Fede and Tyler Rodde of Napa’s Oenotri, Charlie Parker of Oakland’s Plum, Dave Cruc of ad hoc in Yountville and Brandon Sharp of Solbar in Calistoga. The pigs: Red Wattle from Walnut Keep Farm and vineyard, Mangalista from Suisun Valley Farm, Berkshire from Newman Farm, Yorkshire from Christian Brothers Ranch and Durco/Berkshire from Devils’ Gulch Ranch. Portions of the proceeds will benefit sustainable farming of heritage-breed pigs.
Getting hungry? Everyone gets a place at the table as diners feast off a whole roasted pig, sample wines, taste a variety of unique piggy products, along with local cheese and Hog Island oysters and rub elbows with local piggerati. Chef John Fink of The Whole Beast will cook three milk-fed suckling pigs brined in an apple Chardonnay fennel bath.
Think you need to be there? BiteClub’s got the hook-up. Just convince me why you and a friend should get the TWO tickets I’m holding in my hot little hands. Pig tattoos are inspiring, as are demonstrated commitments to chicharones and bacon. Add your comment below to convince me!
One winner will receive 2 tickets (value $125 each) to the event. Please make sure to use a REAL email address (which only I can see) so I can contact you if you win. Winner will be notified Thursday night, March 3 and have until noon on Friday to respond. Full rules. Good luck!