Brother/sister chefs Evan and Marcie Turney learning the ins and outs of animals through Butchery 101

ASK MOST siblings what they like to do together, and breaking down a 200-pound hog isn't usually at the top of the list.

Unless the siblings in question are brother/sister chefs Evan and Marcie Turney. The Turneys share a passion for food: Evan is executive chef at Mercato and Varga Bar, which he co-owns; Marcie, along with partner Val Safran, owns Barbuzzo, Lolita and the new Jamonera on 13th Street, among other businesses.

So it's not too surprising that the Turneys' idea of a fab brother-sister bonding experience was to enroll in Fleisher's Meats' Butchery 101, a knives-on, five-day artisanal butchering course offered at the well-regarded, family-owned Hudson Valley shop. Founded in 1901 by Wolf Fleisher as a kosher butcher, Fleisher's Meats now trades in only grass-fed and organic meats, selling to New York restaurants, online and from its second retail location in Brooklyn, N.Y. Run by Josh Applestone, a former vegan, and his wife, Jessica, Fleisher's sells only meat raised within a 100-mile radius of its main location in Kingston, N.Y.

"That was all really important to us," said Marcie, who while not intent on becoming a butcher, finds all things related to food preparation interesting. She and her brother were hoping to snag a spot on Top Chef (a goal they still have) and figured being able to do their own carving could only be an asset.

At a time when old-fashioned butcher shops are on the endangered-species list, growing interest in locally raised meat and more obscure cuts - driven first by chefs and then by consumers - is bringing butcher shops back in vogue.

Philadelphia has a tradition of family-owned, service-oriented shops, including Rieker's Prime Meats in the Northeast, a handful of meat emporiums in the Italian Market and G&M in South Jersey. Consumers committed to organic and pastured meats can buy from the Fair Food Farmstand and Giunta's Prime in the Reading Terminal, as well as area farmers markets. They can order their grass-fed beef in bulk from Philly CowShare.

But the art of cutting meat is another story. Unlike wholesale meat cutting, which employs a band saw to chop animals into salable quadrants, a master butcher does everything with a 5-inch boning knife, no matter how large the animal.

"I'd never seen an 800-pound half of a cow before," Evan said of the intensive Fleisher's course, during which he and Marcie learned basic anatomy and worked on beef, lamb and chicken. The latter they killed themselves.