50 Shades of Delicious: 2 Chewsy for the Catwalk

Cochon is the French word for pig and or the sound a little piglet makes. Cochon 555  is a story of pigs and 5's.  This year marks the fifth anniversary of this traveling culinary circus (although our first to attend) which strives to promote the sustainable farming of heritage breed pigs.  The event was held at the Cedarbrook Lodge  which is an urban oasis hidden right by Seatac airport.  It used to be owned by WaMu back in their heyday and used as a corporate conference center.  Now, it is owned by the Wright family (owners of the Space Needle). The competition pits chefs cooking five different heritage (more on that below) breeds of pigs with the goal to use the entire 200 pound pig snout to tail and everything in between to create their menus.  The Seattle St. Patrick's day stop on the circus tour had bonus action though- a sixth chef was added along with Mark Bodinet from Cedarbrook Lodge's Copperleaf Restaurant who cooked another pig BBQ...

Happy St. Patrick's Day!  We've been celebrating this Irish holiday all weekend.  St. Pat was the most well known patron saint in Ireland and given credit for championing Christianity in Ireland.  He was born in Roman England and lived in the fourth century.   Not much is known about Pat, but legend has it that he taught Irishmen about the Holy Trinity by using a shamrock.  Also, the original color associated with St. Patrick was blue, but it morphed into green over the years perhaps to match the shamrock. St. Patrick's Day is an official holiday in Ireland and an unofficial one everywhere else.  Guinness beer coined a marketing campaign years back stating, "Everyone's Irish on March 17th."  Indeed some interesting traditions have been created outside of Ireland for example drinking green beer, pinching someone if they don't wear green, a lot of merriment and raising of glasses and participating in parades.  The city of Chicago even dyes ...