Taylor Market butcher Danny Johnson confidently surveyed half of a 160-pound pig as it was laid out before him and some 30 participants at the market’s “Butchering - 101” class. “Here’s Wilbur,” Johnson said jokingly, as he realigned the edges on his 10-inch knife. Johnson clarified that when steeling a blade, you aren’t actually sharpening it, but rather bringing the tiny bent edges upright — little facts like this kept participants’ heads nodding and eyebrows raised. Each participant received a diagram displaying common retail cuts of pork with lines pointing to their origins on the pig in its undivided form. People perused the sheet, easily identifying most of the cuts. Meanwhile, J

Slicing off the side of a 28-pound halibut is just another day at the office for Danny Johnson, co-owner and butcher at Taylor's Market in Land Park. It’s a skill he was happy to share with a dozen Sacramentans on Saturday for one of several Butchering 101 workshops his store has held since January. The class members bombarded Johnson with their seafood, poultry and butchering questions. He didn't let them down. "Everything I tell you, it's how it works (at Taylor's)," Johnson told the class. They started with poultry. Johnson explained where dark spots on chickens and turkeys come from, the current controversies with organic labeling, and good handling and knifing technique. He showe

"Know Your Cuts of Meat" took the form of more than an audience participation game on the "David Letterman Show" Saturday morning. It was a the principle that guided Butchering 101, a class taught by Taylor's Market owner and butcher Danny Johnson at the adjacent Taylor's Kitchen on Freeport Boulevard. Having wanted to teach it for years, Johnson was only able to make the class a reality this January, because Taylor's Kitchen opened early last year. The monthly class has consistently sold out, and it even received national press when Johnson was featured in Time Magazine. Saturday's class was again sold out, and 25 people surrounded the butchering school graduate to see him de-bone, sl