The year 2004 had just dawned and, as a result of an ill-considered set of New Year’s resolutions, we found ourselves in the throes of an impromptu competition.  After hastily constructing a set of rules, establishing a prize, appointing a Judge, and generally taking leave of our senses, we embarked on a 366-day eating spree to see who – Eric or Guy – could eat more Beef that year. The game ahoof, we photographed every meal. We blogged and bickered and bloviated. We dutifully logged every gram under the Judge’s watchful eye, even while each conspired to conceal and gather intelligence behind the other's back. It was a bloody year indeed, during which we plied our way through an endless sea of Beef in all of its many forms and preparations.

This is a true story.  Two lives, lived a hemisphere apart, lived in parallel divergence.  Eric spent nearly the whole year in Chicago, firmly rooted in his home, his office, his family, and a lot of hours in stand-still traffic; while Guy passed those same days untethered in a whirlwind of round-the-world travel with wife and toddler.  Two lives distinct and separate yet bound together by a common sinewy thread: the ravening, relentless consumption of Beef.

BeefStakes chronicles a year-long food competition - but it's soooooo much more than that. Part extreme sport memoir, part travelogue, one pinch cook-book, and three parts graphic novel (and we really do mean graphic), BeefStakes shows and tells the true story of two friends and long-time competitors fighting and triumphing and plotting and gallivanting and otherwise devouring a path through the weirdest, most certifiable and definitely most delicious year of their lives. In what one can only describe as a blood-spattered, literary smorgasbord of airports and scuba-boats, restaurants, boucheries and abattoirs, crosses and double-crosses, home-grilling and guest houses, pregnancy tests and colonic irrigation, BeefStakes does things that no other book in the history of the written word has ever done nor would ever want to do, and all for the love of Beef. It ain’t pretty, but it’s udderly beautiful.

And now, this book.  In it we have collated all the blogs, the comments, the emails, the IM’s, the private notes and of course the thousands upon thousands of images, into a single comprehensive and linear narrative.  It would appear frenetic were it not so intensely focused in the searing barbecue heat of the fray.

Beyond being graphically dazzling — and it is certainly that — BeefStakes is, quite simply, the last book anyone will ever need.  You can flip to any page and start reading randomly, or go cover-to-cover for the multi-threaded and intricately intertwined narrative arcs.  With so much to chew on, BeefStakes is the ultimate reader's buffet. It’s got laughter and tears, drama and conflict, espionage, pathos, bloodletting, big-picture structure filled with immaculate minutiae, the wisdom of the ages invigorated by the primacy of youth —  all wrapped up into a tidy butcher's bundle. So, whether armed with steak knife, skewer or your own tartare-seeking fingers, we invite you to dig in with the same gusto that inspired our Year of Beef.

Bon appétit!