Eat This Book!

Wednesday night we celebrated the release of Eat This Book! by Ryan Nerz on the (still enclosed) rooftop of The Delancey, savored cupcakes from Sugar Sweet Sunshine and watched our first professional eating contest. From left, we saw "Crazy Legs" Conti, Eric "Badlands" Booker and Tim "Eater X" Janus eat as many mini cupcakes as possible (without water!) in 2 minutes. At 29 tiny frosted cakes, New York's own (and a crowd favorite) Badlands won, but all watching the competition were amazed as the author, a part-time announcer for the International Foundation Of Competitive Eating (IFOCE) told us about the different techniques.

Stemming from a short piece in the Voice journalist Nerz writes about the history of competitive eating, tracks day to day training of the superstars and his own adventures in hope of gastrointestinal glory.

Eat This Book! (St. Martins, $15) is available now.

Event photo by Brian Van