hold on to your haunches partners, cause we've got a whole slew of new chapters to welcome into the Meat Week fold!

this year, we'll be joined by a fantastic little town you all know as Boston, home of tea parties, Celtics, and massacres! and, lucky for us, home of Shannon Sweetser, who has bravely taken the helm as the founder and captain of this erudite, historic, hungry city.

from New England we travel down to the Carolinas to find our next new chapter: Charlotte. seeing as both us Admirals have our family roots in ol' NC, this is an especially exciting addition. welcome, Captain Spence "Spank" Taylor!

now, some of you may think Florida is a diverse, culturally-rich (and benjamin-rich) glittering, tropical peninsula. and you're right! unless you've ever been north of Orlando, in which case you know that Florida is Southern. As. Hell. and as such, has produced amazing BBQ culture. so welcome our old pal Frank Moya as the Captain of the Tampa branch!

and of course, what BBQ celebration would be complete without the inclusion of the nation's BBQ Capitol itself: Kansas City! we're not sure how Captain Carlos or first mate John found us, but boy are we glad they did. welcome, gang!

now, we're not ones to get pushy about BBQ, either you wanna put it in your face or you don't. we don't have an evangelical agenda to force Meat Week into the dark corners of the earth. but for years our hearts have been heavy over the lack of a strong representation in our hometown, the very place that formed our love of BBQ: Jacksonville, Florida. so it seemed like divine intervention when we got an unexpected call from an enthusiastic stranger who wanted to head up the Duval chapter with a fury! welcome, and thank you for stepping into our world, Cash Carter! we can't wait to see what new traditions you bring to our beautifully dirty ol' Duval.

well, the sheer amount of exclamations in this post should give you an idea of how excited we are to expand the brotherhood of meat. we extend a greasy hand to all our new pals across the states, and we can't wait to see your shiny faces start showing up in the photos next week.

welcome aboard the S.S. Meat! let us sail forward into uncharted territories...

--the admirals