Preparing for pork

For a pork lover like me, this weekend is going to be a little slice of heavenly white meat—and then some. I’m off to the Napa Valley and The Culinary Institute of America’s Greystone campus for Pork Summit 2013, an annual event sponsored by the National Pork Board.

The weekend brings together chefs and trade media editors for an education into the world of pork. We will delve into meat science, pork production, hog butchering, wine and pork pairings and pork cooking methods, including barbecue.

In fact, Friday is devoted to ways to create a barbecue style all your own, based on your region of the country. Chef instructors will discuss, and demonstrate, their interpretations of Mid-Atlantic, Southern, Northern Californian and Southeast Asian barbecue. Of course, since there is no reason to demonstrate if no one can judge you, the day will conclude with a barbecue dinner.

The kind folks at the CIA are even going to trust us editors in one of their kitchens, on Sunday, when the chef instructors work with us on a market basket cooking exercise. (Let’s hope only the hogs—and no recipes—get butchered on this day.)

You can follow along with me all weekend, as I plan to tweet frequently from the event. It should prove to be an interesting time. I expect to return Monday more enlightened, if not exactly lighter, than when I arrived.