Welcome back to Meatopia. Our new site has just launched, as you can see, and the details of this year’s Meatopia with it. As they did last year, Whole Foods Market is back as our presenting sponsor, and their stirring Best Butcher Contest is the event’s competitive centerpiece.  Our chef roster is, in a word, insane. But then much has changed.  Nine years have passed since the first Meatopia, and although the event is bigger, and so am I, the spirit of the thing is the same. (I’ve even made a point of working up what I think of as the principles of Meatopia, which can be found here.) This year’s iteration returns to the pastoral setting that suits it best, and features what I honestly think is the best lineup I’ve put together to date. But these Meatopia Diary entries aren’t the occasion for grandiloquent ad copy, arguing why you ought to buy a ticket. They’re a way for me to communicate the passion I feel for the chefs who make Meatopia what it is, and the partners who help me put it on. There will be some essays, and some cooking videos, and some farm videos, and all of these entries will be simultatenously posted on Esquire’s Eat Like a Man blog — because they are a partner too.

But I want to start this blog by re-posting one of my favorite Ozersky TV videos ever, of one of our Meatopia chefs this year: the great Adam Perry Lang. I recently write a tribute to Adam over at Rachael Ray.com, the gist of which was that his new grilling book is radical and profound.  I have wanted Adam to cook since Meatopia started, and the fact that he has agreed to do so fill me with something approaching glee. You can infer my feelings from this video:

Adam Perry Lang and the Perfect Prime Rib from Ozersky.TV on Vimeo.

Adam is cooking fleur de sel short ribs, and an incredible “rib roast cooked like a steak” for the Thrillist VIPs. That is a very unpoetic name for a truly visionary dish, one not far in taste or appearance from the meat he cooks in the video above.  How can there be so much great meat in one event? Honestly, there just can’t. Can there?