The Swinery at 3207 California Ave. S.W. not only has a new Operations Manager, in the person of Chef Joseph Jimenez but they have formed an agreement with South and Seattle Central Community Colleges to help educate their culinary students on butchery and animal breakdown techniques and practices. The program is called the Seattle Central Culinary Academy.

"I personally learn more every time I instruct other people in how to do this. It gives me a chance to really look deeper at the whole process," said butcher Joey Brewer.

Through Head Chef Garrett Daugherty's connections (he's a graduate of the SCCC program) he arranged to bring in the students to gain some real world experiential training. "When we took over the shop, Sarah Wong, who is a fifth quarter instructor at the school, decided to come over here on Friday's and help us out. We said we were going get a cow and she rallied up some troops to help us break it down, "
Daugherty said.

An instructor since 2004, Wong, will head to Gascony in France next spring for a three week internship to learn special european butchery techniques and will bring that education back to pass along to others. Camont a culinary retreat is in touch with a family there that has a pig farm. "They do all their own charcuterie (the end stages of pig butchery that includes all the dried meats). and they are opening their doors for Americans to learn," Wong said.

The students are all part of the "Chef of the Day" (COD) component of the culinary academy in which they " do a menu of their own design, they develop it, they cost it, they present it, and then they critique not only their performance but the meal itself," said Wong. She likes what the Swinery is doing and believes it's a useful form of education. "I think that the old school artisan model of working directly with a tradesmen who is out there doing it for the public is one of the best models. The reason it's so successful is that it's been cultivated and perpetuated for hundreds of years."

Jimenez is the former owner and chef of the Harvest Vine on East Madison Street. After working as a consultant and opening restaurants in Singapore and the Philippines he was asked to take over the Swinery after the sudden departure of Gabriel Claycamp. "They are learning how to butcher the product. We buy the full animal (...) and they learn how to prepare all the different cuts that we present in the case."

"Chef Joseph is one of the most well respected chefs that I know of and am familiar with," said Wong. "He's been showing these students more of the european 'seam' butchery(...) Where you cut with the muscle meat(...) I really think there's going to be resurgence of that in the next 2 to 5 years."