Welcome to Steak Zine. For this pocket-sized special issue, Cake Zine is setting off into carnivorous territory. The timing is apt. Just as this publication went to print, the U.S. Department of Agriculture inverted the food pyramid and placed a chunky slab of steak at the tippy top (a decision made by a panel with ties to the meat industry and criticized by many health experts). It’s 2026, Beyond Meat’s stock is down more than 99 percent from its all-time high, domestic meat consumption is on the rise, and the subject of beef has become a cultural flashpoint…so let’s talk about it.
Preorders for Steak Zine are live. It’s currently en route from our printer, and we expect domestic copies to start shipping by mid April. If you join our new print subscription program now, Steak Zine will be the first magazine you receive.
We’ll be celebrating with two events in NYC: a dinner at one of our favorite restaurants on April 21, and a reading/launch party on April 26. More details to come! Insider-level subscribers will be the first to receive ticket information, and both events are sure to sell-out, so consider checking out that tier—it’s at a discount through April 2. In the meantime, the best way to support our independent work is to order a copy of Steak Zine and share it widely.
Like cake, steak is rife with tradition, reinvention, and heated personal contention. It’s fetishized and demonized—an evergreen subject that’s only ballooned as status dining, appetite suppressing drugs, meatfluencers, protein-maxxing, and the climate crisis accelerate. Today, eating steak means weighing the deliciousness of a medium-rare ribeye against its undeniable cost measured in methane and morals.
Nevertheless here we are, serving up a buffet of stories examining what steak has meant—and still means—to the farmers raising it, the butchers preparing it, the chefs cooking it, and the diners ordering (or avoiding) it. Take a trip through Nebraska to trace how historic stockyard closures in the late 1990s have affected those serving up beef in the Beef State. Witness the last days of Acropolis, Portland’s beloved strip club-steakhouse, where eleven-dollar sirloins are accompanied by lap dances. Hear testimony from a lapsed vegetarian whose hunger for foie gras began in the noble name of research as a lab tech at a plant-based food startup. Follow the steak heists prompting retailers to put meat behind lock and key. Examine the enduring escapism of Outback Steakhouse and Fogo de Chão. Enter a fictionalized steakhouse, kaleidoscoped through the roles of maître d’, bartender, server, chef, and guest.
Depending on your appetites, this issue might inspire nausea, hunger, or a potent mix of both. There’s the body horror of cannibalist cinema and molecular gastronomy’s embrace of meat glue, alongside the timeless romance of a steak dinner for two. So slide into a red leather booth, call the kindly old waiter over for a martini, and settle in.
No dessert this time,
Aliza Abarbanel, Tanya Bush, Noah Emrich, and the Cake Zine team
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