If you're a hard-core carnivore, Meatopia is pretty much as good as it gets. This year, the event will feature an epic number of chefs - 45 to be exact.  The gluttony will take place on Thursday, July 23rd, at Brooklyn Bridge Park.  This is an all-star line-up of culinary talent and meat-inspired dishes, paired with free-flowing beer.  There will be live music, butchering and even ranching seminars.  Yes, really. 

Chefs include New York's own, April Bloomfield (The Spotted Pig) and Michael White (Marea) as well as Sean Brock of Husk in South Carolina and Naomi Pomeroy from Beast in Portland, Oregon and this season's Top Chef Masters.  And that's just for starters.  It wouldn't be Meatopia without some of the country's best barbecue masters.   If you want to get it on the feast, you can buy your ticket at www.meatopia.org.

We caught up with the founder of Meatopia, Josh Ozersky, to get the scoop on this year's event and get his take on all things meat. 

How do you prepare mentally and physically for such an intense meatfest?
I find that a regimen of roast beef sandwiches, scrapple sliders, and adderall is useful, washed town with gallons of diet iced tea.

What meaty offering are you most excited about?
I'm almost ecstatic over all of my chefs, but I am still trying to convince Ignacio Mattos,
the Uruguyan grill-master, to do a whole calf. It's terrifying though, and not very good.
So he might end up doing whole racks of veal ribs and sweetbreads in the Argentine style.

Are there any chefs who are first-timers to the event?   Old-timers?  
Well we couldn't have Meatopia without Seamus Mullen, who has cooked most of the Meatopias
since the event started. And I don't get up in the morning if Joey Campanaro is not somewhere nearby. Scotty Smith and Robbie Richter are like brothers to me, whether manning pits or not,
so they'll be there. But I went wide this year too, and brought in the great meat chefs from outside
the city, the ones I met travelling for Time. Guys like the Animal boys from LA, and Naomi Pomeroy
and Adam Sappington from Portland, and Chris Hastings from Alabama, and the great Sean Brock.
Those guys have me super turned on.

Have you tasted all forty-five chef dishes already?  
No. Many have never been served before. But I have faith in my chefs and if the dish they suggest sounded like it might be grody, I nixed it. Is Naomi Pomeroy going to forget how to make beef cheeks? Or is Floyd Cardoz going to lose his ability to cook goat? I don't see it happening.

Any idea what will be on the menu for the night?
Oh, do I. We'll be releasing it soon enough....but I can't give it up on the first date!

Are you cooking, smoking or just hosting?
None of the above. It will be a frenzy of troubleshooting, shmoozing, glad-handing, and problem solving. I need to give my all to make this event a success.

Would you rather have great sex or a great piece of meat?
It depends on who it's with! (And what farm.)

If you were a piece of meat, what kind of animal would you be and what cut?
Prime deckle from Rib No. 5.  We all know that. 

Have you ever gone back for seconds or thirds at a Meatopia station?
I ate like five of Franklin Becker's country ribs last year. I just couldn't help myself. Once I'm there I can't stop....I did it at many stations. It's true. Maybe this year I will exercise some self-control.
 
What's your least favorite piece of meat?
Brisket "flat" or second cut. I could go the rest of my life without eating that. It's worthless.
 
Most favorite?
Sizzling, salted lamb fat. No question.
 
What’s the best single thing you ever put in your mouth?
I don't know, Danyelle! That's a tough one. God. I can't answer it. But among the nominees might be Michel Rostang's epigram of lamb, Eric Ripert's escolar with brown butter miso, Michael White's fried testa, the slider at the now-defunct White Diamond of Linden, the pastrami burnt ends at RUB, the egg with the caviar at Jean Georges, White's pigs in blankets with alto puff pastry....God, I don't know!
 
What's your ideal dessert to end the evening or is there no room at all?
Pudding! Always pudding! Kozy-Shack Chocolate pudding. Because, as the man says, "if you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding! How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?" 

This morning the Village Voice and Grub Street delivered the excellent news that the Girl Scouts are ingeniously opening pop-up shops around the city.  Here's what I have to say: Where you girls when I was desperately begging for help locating Thin Mints on Twitter? 

Tweet and you shall receive.  That's the lesson I learned last week when I received a UPS package from a complete stranger.  The package was filled with Girl Scout cookies - six boxes of Thin Mints and two boxes of Tagalongs to be exact.  (What a glorious sight!)  Just to be clear, I've neither met the sender nor is he a girl scout.  From what I gather, he's a foodie who read my "Desperately Seeking Thin Mints" tweet and decided to help a fellow foodie in need.  It was a beautiful thing.

I was a Girl Scout myself, but those days are long gone and I don't know a single girl scout now, though I plan to befriend a few at a pop-up this year to secure boxes for next season.  Just because I don't live in the suburbs where Girl Scouts don't typically travel door-to-door shouldn't mean I have to go without my annual supply.  (Personally, I think the girls should sell them all year round, but that's another issue.)  So I did the only thing I could think of and tweeted for help, suggestions, anyone who could point me in the right direction.  And @i8and8 heard my plea, then ordered and shipped them to me before he even got a check from me.  It was like he believed in some sort of foodie honor system of sorts.  (I sent him the check, of course!)

I really hope their pop-up shops take off, so I don't have to hunt them down every year.  But if you can't find something you're craving, you might try tweeting and see who answers.   It could be as simple as a tip-off about the new sushi burrito truck and its lunchtime location, the best cup of coffee in an unfamiliar city, or in my case, Thin Mints.  God, I love twitter.

You always hear about pregnant woman craving strange food combinations, like pickles and ice cream.  We 've been craving fried pickles and we've discovered quite a few places to get our fix.  

Mara's Homemade
342 East 6th St., btwn. First & Second Aves.
(212)598-1110
One of our favorites are the fried pickles at Mara's Homemade, a small, southern spot in the East Village.  Mara's pickles are dusted in cornmeal and served with a creamy remoulade dipping sauce.  The fried green tomatoes rank pretty high on our greasy fix list, too.

Whiskey Tavern                                        
79 Baxter St., Bayard & Walker Sts.                              
(212)374-9119
An unexpected find in Chinatown, Whiskey Tavern is known as much for its vast whiskey selection as for its pickle offerings.  Supplied by The Pickle Guys, these excellent specimens are cut into spears and breaded in panko before being fried to a golden crisp.   They're served with a thick, herbed sour cream that's almost as tasty as the pickles themselves.  You can even order a shot of whiskey with a pickle back!

SoHo Park                                                   
62 Prince St, btwn. Lafayette & Crosby Sts.                 
(212)219-2129                                                         
This popular clubhouse in Soho offers a number of local beers on tap as well as fried pickles from our very own, Guss' pickles in the Lower East Side.  A basket of Southern Fried Pickles are practically a rite of passage here and  there are plenty of dipping options to choose from.  We recommend you pair your pickles with their feisty sambal ketchup or their garlic aioli.

Southern Hospitality                                     
1460 2nd Ave, btwn. 76th & 77th Aves.                               
(212)249-1001                                                   
The menu at this Upper East Side barbecue spot, is an homage to Southern cooking, like fried catfish and bbq chicken and deep-fried pickle chips, which apparently are a “Memphis classic”.   They're salty, greasy, delightfully crispy and served with a tangy side of ranch dressing.

Brother Jimmy’s                                         
1485 2nd Ave, 77th & 78th Sts.                                      
(212)288-0999                                                  
Frickles are the name of the game at this neighborhood sports bar with locations all over the city.   A mash-up of fried and pickles, Brother Jimmy's frickles come with a potent horseradish sauce that makes this a piquant bar snack that goes well with a dark beer.  You can up the ante further with by adding a little hot sauce. 

BLT Burger                                                                           
470 6th Ave., nr. 11th St.                                          
(212)243-8226                                                   
The servers and the bartenders all wear t-shirts that read, “We are what we eat."   The starter of fried dill pickles is the dish to order at BLT Burger.  They're delicately battered and potently sour at the center, accompanied by a  ranch-chili dipping sauce.

Calling all beachbound foodies: Some of the city's most celebrated chefs will be on hand to celebrate the 2010 Great Chefs Dinner this Sunday, August 8th in Bridgehampton, New York.   The evening will begin at 5 pm with a cocktail party where Craft's Tom Colicchio, Surf Lodge's Sam Talbot, Lure's Josh Capon,  Nick & Toni's Joseph Realmuto will be serving hors d'oeuvres.  At 7pm, there will be a more formal, sit-down dinner prepared by such luminaries as Le Bernardin's Eric Ripert, Laurent Tourondel & Marc Meyer.   All proceeds will benefit Hayground School's Jeff's Kitchen and the Jeff Salaway Scholarship Fund. 


When: Sunday, August 8th
Where: Hayground School
151 Mitchells Lane, Bridgehampton, NY
Tickets: Cocktails at 5-7 pm for $150; Cocktails & Dinner 7-9 pm for $750
Info:  (631)537-7068 or www.greatchefsdinner.com

Joey Campanaro isn't very trendy.  He's a low key, Italian guy who likes to cook things like roast chicken and ricotta cavatelli.  But he took New York by storm with a 28-seat eatery named The Little Owl and his gravy meatball sliders.  Four years later, it's just as hard to get a prime-time reservation at this charmed, Greenwich Village spot.

Now, you can also try Campanaro's sliders at Kenmare, his newest, Nolita venture and collaboration with nightlife impresario, Paul Sevigny.  But that's not really what diners are fawning over.  Oh no, it's the cheddar fries.  These crazy crispy fries are Campanaro's riff on cheese & gravy-smothered "disco fries." (There's a disco ball in the buzzing lounge downstairs.)   Kenmare's golden-brown fries aren't doused, but sprinkled with a phenomenal combination of English farmhouse cheddar, green onions, curry, cayenne, and salt.  The crowning touch is a side of chicken gravy that the chef makes for Thanksgiving, which you'll want to pour on just about everything but dessert. 

Side Dish: This beloved fried creation originated in Canada and is known as poutine.  Disco fries were a New Jersey & New York diner phenomenon of steak fries covered in mozzarella & chicken gravy.  A lot of people confuse disco fries with Elvis fries, but Elvis liked his fries doused in sausage gravy & cheddar.