photo by huge galdones

cochon 555 all star event in VEGAS!!! ...the good thing is i made it back alive.  well pretty much:)  what happens when you bring ten chefs and five butchers to vegas for an all-out pig event? awesome food, a great event, and mucho debauchery. 

i got into vegas on friday afternoon and had just enough time to hit the pool for a bit before the eating and drinking commenced. what’s great about hanging out with brady, the crew of cochon, and a big group of chefs is that we dine in the same crazy, overindulgent way. pretty sure most people do not go out to multiple dinners in one night, each involving an abundance of food.  but we did.  and it was awesome.

best food of the trip by far was at lotus of siam. if you go to vegas, you have to hop off the strip to this seemingly randomly in the middle of a strip mall location to get the best thai food around. this year’s beard award won by saipin chutima was well deserved indeed. started with the best beef jerky ever, ended with noodles and garlic shrimp and duck and more… all of us left full and happy and impressed with the amazing bold and balanced flavors. i think jamie bissonnette and i (both on team southeast asia) were feeling slightly nervous about our cochon dishes for the next day after that meal… photos of our trip to lotus of siam:

sunday morning comes (after a couple hours of sleep) and we hit the kitchen to get final prep done for the event. first we brought some tasty peanut-pork ragout that we seasoned up with coconut milk, fish sauce, some spice and a little lime then topped with spicy-as-can-be green thai chilies and shrimp. i’ve decided that from this point on, i will always make soups and ragus in two days: make it once, chill it.  start again with more aromatics and spices, then bring back up again and season. the of it gist is that if you take it slow, and really take the time to create layers of flavor, it will be well worth your time.

i also decided to bust out some crumpets cooked in pork fat (mainly because i like to say crumpets in my sweet british accent) to go under some pig face for our version of a vietnamese banh mi. pretty sure this is the only time i’ve made batter in a bowl big enough to swim in, but that’s what happens when you cook in awesome huge kitchens at a hotel the size of a small country. i also was quite jealous of the giant steam kettles for making stock and the multiple dozens of ovens, but i digress. 

the coolest part of the event was that each chef teamed up with a butcher to demonstrate one of the techniques they used to create their dishes. we wanted to show off the fun-filled pig face, and mike sullivan of blackberry farms, a.k.a. “the reverend of pork,” and one of the most bad ass butchers around (and a total sweetheart), was all over it. he feels that all a woman needs to say to a man to get him excited is “crispy pig face, crispy pig face…” and he will melt. i’ll have to try it as my new pickup line. i let the reverend know that our butcher had gotten the process of removing all of the flesh and skin from the pig skull (in one piece) down to just over 2 minutes. he claims to have beaten the time… we’ll see if i can find the video to prove it. until then, we have the video to prove norbert’s record time at girl & the goat:

all in all, a great time in vegas. as they say, what happens in vegas stays in vegas, so i’ll leave out most of the late night details but i will say that chefs and butchers know how to have a good time.  but i was a good girl and did not gamble!!  much better than my one night in the bahamas while filming top chef when i lost 1K after drunk dialing my bank to release more funds. they need to make breathalizer dialing mechanisms for iphones: a new app to invent for someone much more tech savvy than me. 

i’m already looking forward to the next cochon event that i can play in!  until then, we are going to be cooking with a few chefs from around the country who also participated in cochon during my upcoming tour benefiting share our strength! check back in a couple weeks for the full schedule!!  thank you to brady and the rev and everyone else at cochon!! love you guys!

check out more photos at our goat adventures shutterfly site!