I know a lot of you have some questions for today’s amazing event….Let us begin!

It’s hot today. Do I really want to go eat hot meat?

Of course you do. What else would you want to do? But it’s not as hot as you think it is. Amstel Light Meatopia, presented by Whole Foods Market is on a pier jutting out into the East River. The water breeze lowers the temperature and makes the day much more bearable. And don’t forget that the event doesn’t start until 5:30 (4:30 for VIP.) As the sun starts to set over the Manhattan skyline, the temperature will go down and all that remains is bliss.

The EventBrite site says sales of tickets have ended. Does this mean it’s sold out?

No. Tickets will be available on site, both cash and credit card. Come down and eat (and drink) your fill!

Can I bring my children, or my own beer?

You can bring your chidren, if they are 11 or older; in fact there is a steep discount for them. The event isn’t safe for small children. Babies can come if you carry them on your person: no strollers. As for beer, it’s Amstel Light or bust! But wait till you see the Beer Garden! It’s awesome.

What’s the deal with the different ticket levels again?

The Meatizen General level gets you all you can eat; the Carnisseur level is all you can eat, all you can drink, and a nice t-shirt; Meat Elite is an exclusive one-hour preview, plus three VIP-only chefs serving dim sum, this amazing quiche, and ossabaw charcuterie. And, better still, food runners to bring you tastes from all over the event  so you don’t have to move.

So I’m not buying a Carnneseur ticket. Will T-shirts be for sale?

In a word, yes. We will have Meatopia T-shirts for sale, along with with a special hot sauce we’ve commissioned from the one and only Dirty Dick. There will also copies of The Hamburger: A History, Esquire’s Eat Like  A Man cookbook — which I highly recommend! — and some other items too.

I love meat, but my girlfriend / boyfriend / life partner / Sith master is a vegetarian. Do I really have to pay for her to come to an event she can’t eat anything at?

Yes. This is Meatopia. Everyone eats meat here. One ticket, 48 chefs, and no vegans need apply.

Is all the meat in Meatopia cruelty-free, at least?

Yes, it is! One of the main reasons we do the event is to promote healthy, all-natural, cruelty-free meat. Whole Foods Market, our presenting sponsor, has rolled out a Five Step Animal Welfare Rating program and all their meat is rated on it. All our other sponsors are doing the right thing likewise, from Chipotle’s revolutionary Food With Integrity program to the all-natural, hormone- and antibiotic-free beef provided by Creekstone Farms. And our small farmers, like The Piggery, Eco-Friendly Foods, and Tamarack Tunis farm all have operations that are above reproach. You can meet the farmers and ask them yourself if you’re not sure. Even our larger producers, like Creekstone and American Homestead Natural Pork are committed to doing the right thing.

I know it’s on the river and everything, but it’s still going to be hot. Is there anything besides beer to drink?

Yes! There will be complimentary iced FIJI waters aplenty, Honey Drop Teas and Juices, and delicious Capogiro Gelato. Fret not on that score.

48 chefs are a lot. Where should I go first? What should be my plan of attack?

I would suggest looking at the map you’ll get and picking out four or five things you are most interested in. You want to eat those while you are still hungry, or only semi-full. The ones I’d be looking for, if it were me, would be Sean Brock and Rodney Scott’s whole Ossabaw hog; Orhan Yegan’s pilaf-stuffed lamb breast; Seersucker’s quail; Naomi Pomeroy’s beef cheek; and Adam Sappington’s stuffed pig’s head. Those are all dishes you can’t get in New York restaurants.

Well, I’ve been in near constant-contact with Pat LaFrieda, even more so than usual. Pat, you see, has taken over the awesome responsibility of cooking an entire 850-lb steer. You’ve surely heard about this. So spectacular is this feat, in fact, that it threatens to overshadow the feats of meaty virtuosity being accomplished by its neighbors. The steer will be cooked in what looks like a box, but which is really a heavy steel cage.  If you want to visualize it, imagine the pen they keep a rodeo bull in before it’s released to wreck havoc on its riders. Now imagine it holding a steer carcass, and going on top of hot coals. That is basically what we are planning.

The Mighty Meat-Box

LaFreida faceman Mark Pastore does some rare manual labor.

The plat du jour.

I say “we.” I had originally thought of this idea as a happening to be done with my friend Mike Cirino, whose feats of guerilla gastonromy have been chronicled in better places than this blog. But once Pat decided he wanted to do it, his dad ran with the idea and took it miles past anything we had originally envisioned. (That isn’t to say that Mike’s idea of a suspended steer on a crane, cooking Argentine style, wouldn’t have been spectacular. It would have been.) But I was nervous about using a radically new mode of cooking on something so precious as a steer carcass; an entire animal would be wasted if this didn’t work out. And at Amstel Light Meatopia, presented by Whole Foods Market, we are very much devoted to not wasting animals.

Tonight I’m going out to the LaFrieda shop in North Bergen to see how the first dress run comes out. Mike Toscano, the talented chef from the meat restaurant in Eataly, Manzo, is going to help with the cooking and we’re going to look at a  bunch of different sauces, seasonings, and “board dressings.” Pat is leaning toward having the meat served on little Martin’s potato rolls, and I’m looking forward to how those taste. I’m worried they will be too filling. There are going to be 48 chefs at this thing. How much can the human stomach hold? A little bread can go a long way…..but how can you say no to a barbecued whole steer on a potato roll? I mean, seriously?

Of course, all this concern will be moot if we can’t get the steer cooked right. We only have one chance to learn from mistakes, and that chance is tonight. This is a massive undertaking. It will require — I kid you not — a literal ton of charcoal. The steer by itself could be the centerpiece of a good event; instead it’s the star culinary attraction of the most ambitious meat event of all time. We need to make sure it comes out right!

One of the cool things (literally) that we are planning for Amstel Light Meatopia, presented by Whole Foods Market is our great dessert sponsor, Capogiro Gelato from Philadelphia. I think this is about the best gelato in the country, and it will be served for free at the event. I had some gelato questions on my mind so I spoke to Lorenzo Merlo, the company’s wholesale manager.

So Lorenzo, what kind of gelato are we going to see at the event?

Well, we were actually talking about that yesterday….I’m thinking some peanut butter, which we make ourselves. Our spicy Mexican chocolate, some lime-cilanto sorbet, raspberry sorbet, peach sorbet or gelato. Last but not least the chocolatto scurro (dark chocolate.) It’s out best-selling flavor.

You’re known for seasonal, fresh flavors, though. Peanut butter isn’t seasonal! Aren’t there going to be some summer fruit gelati? I’ve had those and they’re insane. I want them for Meatopia.

We are hoping to do raspberry and peach. When you depend on seasonal fruit, you can’t really plan ahead. Strawberry, for instance, arrived early but ended abruptly. We should have watermelon, and are doing watermelon and grappa sorbet. Sour cherry sorbet might be there too!

That sounds good!

Really, it’s better in water ice. The great thing is that when we make sorbet, most of it is fruit. Cherry is not the ideal texture; the skins are a problem. The opposite is true of blueberry, which we also might get by saturday.

I know that part of your unique flavor comes from some kind of special milk. What is the deal with that?

We are the only gelato that uses grass-fed milk. It’s ridiculous. It tastes completely different. You have to understand, we’re a certified dairy. We pasteurize and homogenize our own milk. I wish we could use raw milk, the kind you get in Sardinia. But you know what? The milk they have there is not as good as what we have here.

Where can people buy Capogiro here in New York?

We are at Whole Foods. We are at a number of restaurants, like Delicatessen and Gottino and I Soldi. Employees Only carries our product.

They’re in Meatopia!

I know! On the VIP side we are doing mini-cones and dark choocate and hazelnut sandwiches. I wanted to pamper them with something special. sandwiches. I wanted to pamper them with something special. It’s going to be awesome.

Ludo Lefebvre is one of the most sought-after chefs in California — which is pretty amazing, given that he doesn’t have a restaurant. As I noted in Time last year, he’s helping to redefine the way people think of restaurants, thanks largely to his hugely-sucessful LudoBites pop-ups. (Although Ludo doesn’t consider them pop-ups.) It was one of Amstel Light Meatopia, presented by Whole Foods Market’s greatest coups to get Ludo out east here. I didn’t want to wait for him to get out here, so I asked Ludo a few questions in the meantime.

When can we expect to finally get a Ludo Bites in NYC?

We are working on that right now. We will be looking at a few places when we are in town for Meatopia to see if they could be the right place. Our “plan” right now is to come in November or December but we have to find our space first, so hopefully we can finalize when we are in NYC in July.

Do you think this is the wave of the future? We’ve had some successful pop-ups in NYC but it’s been mostly a publicity stunt. Can it work as a real business?

I don’t think of LudoBites as “pop-up” I think of it as a touring restaurant. It is my full time business model and it works great for me. The problem is the term “pop-up” has become so confusing. I agree a lot of publicity stunts and guest chef appearance have been called pop-ups and even though they are all exciting for the culinary world, I don’t know if they are a real business. On the other hand I do think my touring restaurant can work as a business it has for 2 years. It better I have no choice at this point.

Tell me about your dish. What’s the idea of it? Why hanger steak?

I am doing a korean marinated hanger steak with goat cheese and cauliflower paper. Hanger steak really accepts flavor and I love to marinate it in different ways. LA has big Korean population and I learned korean marinade from my friend Elena and I incorporated on the LudoBites menu last year.

I always use hanger steak. It is a really a popular cut of beef in France. I grew up in kitchens using that cut. I use hanger steak at LudoBites more than any other cut of meat. It is the cut I know best. It is also my wife’s favorite.

Whose food are you most interested in sampling at Meatopia?

Robbie Richter. I tried a lot bbq in Raleigh, NC when I was taping Ludo Bites America. I learned some techniques from a couple of the great pit masters, Keith Allen was really amazing. It was different from anything I have ever had before. I think Robbie’s bbq will be a new experience for me and I always like to learn as much as I can. Maybe I can learn some more secrets about American bbq.

Do you use a lot of meat in your cooking? What’s your attitude towards meat’s place in a meal. What are your favorite things to cook?

I do use a lot of meat but I am also trying to be more responsible and balance my meat cooking with vegetables and fish. I want a menu that balances all of the earth’s resources. I love to cook everything, but I am really obsessed with chicken, I could cook and eat it everyday. Roasted, poached, fried, it does not matter I love my chicken.

Where are you looking forward to eating out in New York? And where should we go when we’re in LA?

I am very excited about my dinner reservation at Le Bernardin. It has been a long dream to eat there and we finally got a reservation and will be going when we come to NYC this time.

LA has so much to offer, just like NYC. If someone wants high end food I would say Hatfield’s or Melisse. In the middle of the pack I would definitely suggest people try the new restaurant Picca, but someone should not come to LA without going to some of the great Mexican restaurants here. My favorite right now is La Guelaguetza.

So today is the day I’v been looking forward to. I’ve been going around to everybody, brazenly asserting that Amstel Light Meatopia, sponsored by Whole Foods Market, called Meatopia by the world, was the most ambitious food event ever. I don’t blame America for being skeptical; last year’s picnic was a breezy good time, but was run well, but it was a first time event, put on by two well-meaning boobs in myself and Jimmy Carbone. We had a nice day, everybody took the boat over, and the chefs made great food. It was hot and fun and had a kind of bucolic informality to it. But why is it now $85?

There are some easy answers, all of which bear repeating. We moved the event to a place you can get to without a two hour combined wait. We hired the top event producers in the country to run it with military precision. I brought in twice the number of chefs, for the same amount of guests, and had them cook twice as meat; and we are paying the chefs $1000 each, not a fortune, but a gesture of respect for what they do and who they are, from the bZ Grill gyro guys in Astoria, to the likes of April Bloomfield or Floyd Cardoz or Michael White.  They’re all great cooks, and they deserve recognition of the non-bullshit kind.

But the real answer, the only answer, to why Amstel Light Meatopia, presented by Whole Foods Market, will live up to the hype is its menu. Eater announced it today.  Here’s the link:

http://eater.com/archives/2011/06/27/heres-the-menu-and-lineup-for-meatopia-2011.php

But maybe sit down first!

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Josh Ozersky