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!