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Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Chow The Swinery Lives!

Posted by Jonah Spangenthal-Lee on Tue, May 12, 2009 at 12:33 PM

Guerilla chef Gabriel Claycamp cannot be stopped.

0fa3/1242156179-chowlead-570.jpg Just two weeks after Claycamp's Culinary Communion cooking school on Beacon Hill went under—following a series of disputes with the health department, liquor board, Fire Marshall and his landlord—Claycamp has moved to Vashon Island and has rented kitchen space near the West Seattle Golf Course, where he intends to reopen his bacon and meat-curing business, The Swinery.

"We’ve officially, legally leased a kitchen in West Seattle," Claycamp says. "I’m supposed to get the health department on the phone today and organize the site inspection."

Claycamp hopes he'll be able to start producing "two to three hundred pounds of meat" every week to sell at local farmers markets. Right now, he's waiting for the health department to give him a "bacon variance" so he can get back to making bacon. "If I wanted to I could be making bratwurst or something, [but it] seems a little anticlimactic to go to a market without bacon."

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Does he get is pork from local pig farmers or is he just another ship-it-in-from-wherever-and-sell-it-as-local kind of butcher? I'm always on the lookout for locally farmed meats. Heh.

Posted by Carollani

on May 12, 2009 at 12:51 PM

Is the square root of a bacon variance a bacon deviation?

Posted by kinaidos on May 12, 2009 at 1:11 PM

@1 - At least when he was over on Beacon Hill, he was sourcing his meats, as much as he could, from a provider on Vashon.

Posted by Collin on May 12, 2009 at 1:22 PM

ooh i live near west seattle golf course! i want neighbors who make bacon!!

Posted by spoiler alert on May 12, 2009 at 1:35 PM

I want a Swinery T-shirt.

Posted by Roscoe on May 12, 2009 at 1:38 PM

Sweet, I would eat his meat.

Posted by NumberOne on May 12, 2009 at 1:45 PM

@2
I can't believe someone beat me to an obscure and nerdy stats/bacon variance joke!

Posted by Urgutha Forka on May 12, 2009 at 2:23 PM

YES YES YES YES! Gabe's bacon is the most delicious bacon in the whole wild world of wonder. I just used some that I had in my freezer last night for a quick bok choy bacon stir fry. So delicious!

Posted by zephsright on May 12, 2009 at 3:22 PM

meat porn meat meat meat stuff my face with animal carcass drool and jerk off all day over meat meat meat porn dead animals and rotten stinking flesh shove tons of it into my mouth and down my gullet, pounds of fetid rotten animal flesh, more than i can possibly eat, and make my liver gigantic so that some other creature can chop off my head and eat my organs because on the stranger it's meat porn, all meat, all the time.

Posted by dead animal meat porn on May 12, 2009 at 9:52 PM

9, It's good to be at the top of the food chain!

Posted by Rob in Baltimore

on May 13, 2009 at 9:43 AM

Too bad he screwed up the Napa interview, now it seems we're stuck with him. *sigh* Let's hope he finally does something legally.

Posted by mimi on May 13, 2009 at 11:33 AM

I wonder what he's going to do with that (new as of last summer) bread oven. :(

Posted by Beetlecat on May 14, 2009 at 11:03 AM

Wow, I'm surprised he got this together so quickly. And happy too as this is some of the best bacon I've tasted. Actually, the pigs he uses for the bacon are sourced from a farm in Port Orchard. I've been there and it really is a model farm. Clean, humane, organic-feed, etc. The pigs are heirloom Berkshire and it makes a tremendous difference in the rich flavor.

Posted by cjboffoli on May 14, 2009 at 2:45 PM

For bacon even better than The Swinery you should totally try Thundering Hooves Ranch. They deliver to Seattle neighborhoods from their ranch full of happy animals in Walla Walla pretty much every weekend. You can order on their website as much or as little as you like and I have not been disappointed with any of what we have bought. IMHO better than Gabes, and the bonus is you can always get it and there is no drama!

Posted by milo minderbinder on May 14, 2009 at 8:42 PM

Go away, no one wants your shitty excuses for cured meat.

Posted by Mcgeer on May 15, 2009 at 2:17 AM

Some of us like drama with our bacon! Glad to have him in West Seattle!

Posted by deena on May 15, 2009 at 6:45 AM

Clearly, he was planning this for a while, hence the most recent bacon sale. I'm just wondering how he's paying off his debts to former students, construction costs, etc.

Posted by cashout on May 15, 2009 at 11:49 AM

DON'T SUPPORT THESE PEOPLE!!

THEY TOOK AMPLE AMOUNTS OF MONEY, from even people that hadn't took a class at Culinary Communion, and then folded - knowing very well the whole time that they were going down. They promised at least some refund and without ever intending.

VERY UNETHICAL PEOPLE and are now opening a new deli with former clients money.

Posted by asd on June 24, 2009 at 11:12 AM