This Autumn & Winter I am proud to announce a series of workshops on food & farming skills. These have been all summer in the making and I am really excited to be able to host these events for you.
We’re going to kick things off simply on October 10th with a Poultry Processing Workshop. Come to the farm to learn humane chicken slaughter methods, plucking, eviscerating & processing. This course will be great for beginners, chefs & cooks who want to know where there food comes from. A variety of topics will be covered in this one day course & and a light lunch will be served.
Next, on October 17th, I will be hosting a rabbit processing & sausage making workshop. Come and learn about keeping rabbits for meat, processing rabbit & turning them into common cuts or sausage. We will also be discussing sausage
making techniques & making sausages. This is a one day workshop & a light lunch will be offered. You will also get to bring home some fresh rabbit or any sausages you make.
At the end of October we will be offering a two day split workshop on all things Pig & Pork. Our annual Porkshop is the culmination of an almost year long project each Autumn of raising Artisanal Pastured Pork. Join me on October 27th for Part One as I kill, scald, de-hair & process our annual pig using traditional on-farm techniques. This is a one day Hands-On Workshop 
including making blood sausage, pat?© & headcheese. A light lunch & snacks will be served. For those spending the night before, a simple breakfast will be available the morning of.
Part Two begins on October 31st, after the carcass has hung for a few days. This course ia all about sustainable pork production, pig rearing, & Home Butchery techniques. We will also cover 
Bacon Curing & Simple Charcuterie.
After a brief tour of the pig park and talk on raising pigs, we will return to the kitchen where I will demonstrate how to cut up a half-pig, pointing out the many options and cuts along the way. We can also discuss cooking methods and recipes as we come to each cut.
Once the belly is freed from the carcass I will discuss & show how I made dry-cured bacon for both long-term traditional non-refrigerated storage and the more common sweet bacon we are all familiar with. Afterward we will adjourn to sample a selection of rustic, farmhouse porky delights made with the whole beast.
The space for the Porkshop is limited to 15 participants for each day. Book early! Lunch is included. Extra meals & Accomodation options are available upon request for those wishing to come early, stay late or remain on the island for the week. Please contact for details.
Finally, to cap off the production year and to ring in the New Year right–a New Year’s Duckfest! Join us on the farm from January 1st to 3rd, 2010 for a very special event.
Chef Kate Hill will be joining me in “kitchen studio” for three days of Duck! Kate is a renown authority on duck cookery, especially Duck Confit & Cassoulet. On New Year’s day we will meet & cook a fabulous authentic Cassoulet. This is slow food at its finest. The ingredients will be sourced locally & we will be cooking with my own farm-raised Rouen Ducks.
Although just ducklings now, by New Years these beauties will be ready for cooking, having lived an Autumn on local grains, garden bounty and as authentic a French diet for ducks as I can follow here in the Pacific Northwest. I can’t wait!
On the 2nd & 3rd we will be exploring, with Kate, the wonders of the duck, including how to make Confit, use duck fat, and talk about the ducks themselves, the Rouen breed and how to process them. I am sure it will be a food filled extravaganza to ring in the New Year right!
Details to follow.
For more information on any of these workshops please contact me via email (podchef at gmail dot com) or via Twitter–@podchef From there we can make further arrangements & discuss details.
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