Hungry and out in Brooklyn with my friend Shaky Dave, I finally made it over to the Smoke Joint in Fort Greene, a place he has been encouraging me to visit for quite a while now. We parked illegally, and made our way to the restaurant located on Elliot Street between Lafayette and Fulton.

The restaurant is small and low key, giving off a friendly welcoming vibe as soon as you walk in the door. There is a counter with a chalkboard menu above it on the right, and a smattering of seating on the left. Also, there is a nice cozy looking closed-in front porch area with additional seating. We walked up to the counter and despite a menu of items that looked worth exploring on future visits, I knew what was for dinner this evening, ribs of course! I ordered a half rack ($10) and a square of cornbread ($1). The staff were friendly and fun, and I appreciate that.

The ribs came out in short order, and I lit into them. They made for a satisfying meal but lacked the glory of great barbecue. I have to say, this New York Times review is right on the money as far as the ribs go, and more positively, also about the friendly staff:

…the spare ribs are passable once you’ve paired them with a sauce, but great dry rub pork ribs don’t want for sauce or succulence. Smoke Joint’s ribs need the former, because they’re lacking the latter. I suspect that the pork itself could be a problem. It can be tiring to read about pig breeds on every menu in town, but it’s far more tiring to gnaw on the lackluster flesh of lackluster swine. Then again, a mop sauce might clean up the problem entirely.

Hospitality is something they’ve already got down pat. The staff is chatty and self-effacing; any minor missteps — forgetting to pop the top on a bottle of beer, say — are earnestly apologized for. One night a woman in line ahead of me wondered out loud whether she should get the greens with her dinner. Mr. Grossman, who was working the register, boasted about their quality and jokingly bullied her as he produced a tasting portion for her to snack on while she waited for her order.

The ribs were decent, and certainly affordable for a porky barbecue dinner. I would note that they DID have a mop sauce on them, maybe responding to the NYT review, but it didn’t really help. The tomato based sauce I tried, “jointsmoke,” was quite good, and thankfully so as I used it liberally on the ribs. Also, they have a nice selection of decent beers: Dale’s, Pork Slap, and Ommegang, to name a few. Next time, I will have to try the beef short ribs which both Dave and the New York Times recommend, but that probably won’t make it to this blog. Don’t get me wrong, the Smoke Joint is totally worth a visit, and I will be back when I find myself in the area.

I polished off my half rack of ribs without a problem. I saved the sweet, buttered, grilled cornbread for last and had it for dessert like cake. 6 more ribs down for the Year of the Pig. That makes it a nice even 12 squared, 144 ribs. Thanks to all “yous” piggies!

After a nice afternoon in Charlottesville, our taste for barbecue only whetted by Jinx’s, Mr. Blue, Mr. Red and I high tailed it down to Farmville, VA. We had a gig there that night, and after showing up at the venue, we dropped off our gear and asked if there was a decent barbecue place in town. We were directed to Grady’s BBQ, the ONLY barbecue place in town, but hey, that’s a start.

We found the place with no trouble and followed the signs from the parking lot, past the smokers out front, to the entrance of the building, which I believe was once an ol’ bank.

We walked into a large, empty lobby and spotted the entrance to Grady’s across the way. We walked in and although it was Saturday evening, I was surprised to see that the place was pretty dead. We had a seat and checked out the menu. We ended up ordering a mess of food for all of us to split: A pound of pulled pork, a rack of ribs, plus sides of beans and mac and cheese, which was also served with buns and cole slaw.

Grady’s was a great place, mellow and low key. The young woman working there was very friendly, and the food respectable, although not sublime. The pulled pork was good, but a stark contrast from that we had at Jinx’s in Charlottesville that afternoon. It was shredded much finer and drier. It was good, but benefited from sauce in a way that Jinx’s did not. As for the ribs, again maybe not the best I have ever had, but totally tasty, well done, savory, juicy, nicely smoked ribs. They were advertised as Memphis style with a dry rub.

We ate our fill, and still had to take a box of left overs with us. I was glad that Mr. Blue and Mr. Red seemed pleased as well:

I would like to mention that I had a great time in Farmville, and we were shown a great time by Wes, the proprietor of a new venue called the Mad Hatter where we played that night, for their opening night. We had a great time at the show, and maybe even a better time out on his farm, staying up too late playing music and hanging out with the horses under the stars.

Late at night, after drinking too much corn whiskey, I made a sandwich with the Grady’s leftovers, and it tasted all the sweeter, closer to sublime.

As for the ribulation, I had 5 Grady’s ribs, bringing the count to 138 ribs in the Year of the Pig.

Last weekend was my birthday. Whats 34? That’s a throwaway birthday, but if nothing else, a good day for some ribs. We had some people over to play card games–Canasta, if you can believe that. The day before I bought 4 racks of spare ribs from the supermarket. I trimmed them up, realizing that I have gotten quite a bit better at the trimming, although it is still a little time consuming. I took off the remaining membrane, and some of the pockets of fat. Then when the rain stopped on Saturday afternoon and I was ready to smoke, I took the ribs and brined them in a light salt solution with a ratio of 1/4 cup of salt to 1 quart of water, for 30 minutes. I had read that this would help keep them moist so I thought it was worth a try.

I seasoned the racks based on two recipes from Paul Kirks’ “Championship Barbecue” book, which I like very much. I seasoned two racks with a thick coat of store bought saltless Lemon Pepper, and for the other two racks I chopped up about a tablespoon fresh rosemary and a tablespoon of thyme and ground them together with a head of pressed garlic using a mortar and pestle, til it was a thick garlicly paste. I rubbed the garlic mixture onto the racks. Since it didn’t coat the ribs like the rubs I usually use, I was afraid it wasn’t gonna really impart much flavor. I did my best to really rub the paste into the ribs, and it turns out that the flavor took very well.

I smoked the ribs all told for about five hours, using hickory chunks and some bourbon barrel oak chips. The temperature built up slow, but stayed around 225. About halfway through I turned them over in the rack, and basted them by rubbing butter on them, the more fat the better right?! Here is a picture of them at the halfway point:

After the halfway mark, whenever I opened the smoker (every 30 min or so) I would put a little smear of butter along the top of the racks and I would also spritz them with apple juice to keep them moist.

When the rib meat had drawn back off the tip of the bone by a good quarter inch or so it was time to take them off. I let them sit for about ten minutes and they looked wonderful:

I sliced them up and placed them on a platter to serve. Both recipes proved to be delicious and they were a big hit with everyone, but I especially liked the potent and simple flavor of the garlic and herbs ribs. To be honest, I found them to be the best ribs I had ever made. I wonder if the brining or the butter-basting made the difference, or something else, but I am telling you, these ribs were delicious. I was very happy with the result. These were the best birthday present I could ask for.

As for the ribulation, including that night an subsequent leftovers (yum) I ate ten delicious ribs, bringing the Year of the Pig count to a respectable 133 ribs. And counting. Thank you piggie!

My diet over the last couple months has had no shortage of pork, but it has been sadly short on ribs. I am trying to make up for that this week.

Above is a crappy photo of meat. Sorry about that. The meat in question however is from the Brooklyn barbecue restaurant, Fette Sau. I have already mentioned this place in several posts, including Squidocto’s preview-review about it, but I had yet to try it for myself…until last weekend!

I arrived in Willimsburg around 10 pm not having had a bite to eat since lunch, and headed straight to Fette Sau. The place was hopping with Saturday night Williamsburg hipster types, and a hoofed it right through them to the counter and ordered up a rack of the baby back ribs which are served by the pound and cost around $25. The friendly young woman dropped my rack on the tray and I promptly picked it up and sat it down on one of the long tables, next to the not-that-funny-LCD-screen fireplace. I sat down excitedly and purposefully with my rack of ribs, ready to thoroughly enjoy them.

I planned to take my time with these ribs and savor them. The first bite was promising. They had a nice texture and solid smoky flavor. I have to say, however, I was disappointed. I mean, don’t get me wrong, they are tasty and enjoyable, but nothing to blow your mind. Also, the meat was a little dry and bland compared to say, Texas Hill Country, who’s ribs will blow your mind. Anyway, I got a little bored with these ribs about halfway through the rack, but nevertheless they made a very satisfying tasty meal for a man in desperate need of some ribs. To be fair, I will definitely come back and give the ribs another try. A trip to Fette Sau is certainly still a good time, the place itself has a real nice fun and low-key atmosphere that I dug.

Now, did someone mention Texas Hill Country? Oh yeah, that was me! I made it out to Texas Hill Country again last night, excited to relive my previous experiences with their wonderful pork spareribs. Could it be that they are really as good as I remember? For that I would be willing to put up with their zoo of Manhattanite customers and their inane seating methods, which are frankly just plain irritating. My friend Jay was playing with a Patsy Cline tribute band called the Poor Man’s Roses in the downstairs level (which typically has a good line up of bands), and my friend Ben and I saddled up to the bar to enjoy some ribs, some rye whisky and some music. The band was very good; they do an excellent job of reproducing the sweet, mellow, soulful music of Patsy Cline. As it got later, the crowd began to thin out and we moved over to a table to watch the band, and they even dedicated a nice version of Bill Monroe’s Blue Moon of Kentucky to yours truly, which was very nice, thanks. So, were the ribs as good as I remembered?? Yes, every bit and more so. God bless Texas Hill Country!

Rock on, I finally get to ribulate again! I think I left off at 108 ribs. Now I add 12 from Fette Sau and 3 from Texas Hill Country, which oddly enough, is about an equivalent amount of meat, bringing the grand total for the Year of the Pig to 123. Thank you piggies one and all, and may your ribs find their way to Texas Hill Country!

This afternoon I was thinking fondly about how delicous the food was at Texas Hill Country was last week, and decided that I should swing by there for a follow-up sampling after work. It was hot as all hell out today, and I just wanted to go for a “lite” meal of a couple of ribs and a side or something, and I figured that the by-the-pound model they have would make that possible and very affordable.

It was Tuesday, so I was a little surprised to see that the place was pretty much a zoo when I got there at 8:20 pm. They said there was a 15 minute wait until they would even give us a meal card. We gave them our names but ended up not having to wait very long at all. The friendly hostess came and got me and gave me the run down of the restaurant. I have to say that over all the staff at Hill Country is very friendly, and go out of their way to make you feel welcome, which I like.

The line at the meat counter had died down to just a few people. We got in line and decided on our orders. The line moved like arctic molasses while a doofy guy in front of me heckeld his buddies about their inability to decide on an order and proclaimed his opinion that this place was nothing but a gimmick. He seemed kind of like a wiener:

The doofy guy and his friends moved along, and when I got to the front I ordered 2 pork spare ribs and a leg quarter of the smoked “market” chicken. I headed over to the sides counter and got a small order of the “Texas Caviar” which is basically a cold bean salad made with black-eyed peas.

We went down and grabbed a seat. Again, the ribs did not disappoint. They were pretty much just like I remembered which was what I hoped for: simply loaded with smokey flavor, and delicious. The outside, a little chewy and savory with a touch of sweetness, the inside tender and firm and dripping with flavor. Also, I would like to point out that this rib was freaking ENORMOUS:

I thought that bigger ribs tended to be tough and harder to cook. Obviously not in this case. I am in love…I would love to figure out how to cook a rib like this, but it seems daunting to say the least. It is so good.

Now enough gushing about Hill Country. Yes, the food is awesome, but it is by no means affordable. I guess that is fine for them though, cause they are packing the place in every night with a bunch of expense-account weilding Manhattan-ites. My 2 ribs were almost $10. Yes they were big, but 2 ribs for $10, that is pricey. I also got a small leg quarter of chicken (delicious and more affordable, almost $4) and a side of the Texas Caviar, which was fine, but just a small cup of bean salad for another $4. So, 2 ribs, 1 small piece chicken and some beans ended up costing almost $20. That is definitely Manhattan pricing, but then again, it’s in Manhattan. I realize I was spoiled by my first trip there when they picked up the tab for the band…I guess I just gotta hope we get another gig there!

Even though they should probably count as more three, we can add on two more ribs for the Year of the Pig. That brings the count to 108 ribs, or 3 pigs 18. Thank you the pigs!

This past Monday, I was getting ready to head out to M Shanghai’s regular monthly gig (every first Monday of the month) at the Rodeo bar, when I checked my email and found that our gig had been cancelled. The Rodeo bar has been having some kind of trouble with a city inspector, and so they had to shut down that night. I read on in my email and found out that the same guy that books the Rodeo Bar also books the new barbecue restaurant that I have been dying to try, Texas Hill Country, and he offered to let us have our show there instead, as long as we “promised not to defect” from the Rodeo bar. I was very excited, and promptly headed out the door, to make sure I got some time before the gig to check out the food, which I have heard very good things about.

In case you haven’t heard, the long awaited Texas Hill Country opened a few weeks ago in New York City, conveniently located for me, only a couple of blocks from the PATH station in Chelsea, on 26th Street. The idea of this place is to duplicate a Lockheart Texas Style barbecue joint in Manhattan. It seems they have spared no expense, even trucking up loads of native Post Oak, which only grows in Texas, for smoking. The space itself lookes great, and still has a nice relaxed atmosphere. The downstairs area, where they have music is a nice big venue filled with long wooden tables, and I thought the sound in the room was quite good too.

I was most excited to learn that Hill Country feeds the bands and picks up all the beer, which is sadly not always the case in New York. They handed me a meal card, which you can take to individul stations or to the bar. You order what you want and they mark it on the card, and you pay when you leave. It seems like their system can get kind of chaotic when they are busy, especially with the seating, but I had no problem. I got in line for the barbecue, which is all served by the pound. The menu includes Brisket, Beef Shoulder, Prime Rib, Beef Ribs, Pork Spare Ribs, Pork Chops, Kreuz Sausage (pronounced “krites”), Market Chicken, and Game Hen. It all looked good I must say, but I ended up sampling the Moist Brisket, the Pork Spare Ribs, the Kreuz Sausage, the Beef Ribs, the Coleslaw, the Deviled Eggs, Baked Beans, and Potato Salad. I was impressed with everything I tasted, except for the Beef rib, which was completely dry and frankly terrible. I have to assume it was a fluke based on the quality of everything else. If it wasn’t free, I would have taken it back for sure. Everything else I had was excellent and above par.

As for the Spare Ribs, absolutely delicious: juicy and firm, smoky with a spicy, chewy exterior and a very attractive red smoke ring all around the meat. They were unreal, and come highly recommended! It may not be pork, but for the record, the brisket and sides were all delicious. I liked the coleslaw very much, and all of the other sides that I didn’t try looked really good too. There is a lot more on the menu I want to try, and I will be back, trust me. Probably many times.

A word about sauce: Don’t drown your food. Their bottled sauce is even called “If You Gotta Have It.” I stuck my finger in some of it and tasted it. It made no impression, but then, I was really concentrating on the barbecue. This style of barbecue is typically sauce-free, and that is how I would recommend trying it!

I sure hope we get to play there again, cause that was a really great night for me: playing music, wonderful (free) food and free drinks, plus a really great atmosphere and very friendly staff. Hill Country might be my new favorite NYC venue to play in, and I could see myself becoming a regular there. I am a defector!

To keep up the count, I had 2 spare ribs at Hill Country, pushing the Year of the Pig count up to 106 ribs. Thanks to all pigs involved!

A few weeks ago, I got a new smoker because of the sorry inadequacy of my electric smoker. Do not buy one of those. They are lame. If you want a good and still affordable smoker for home use, get the one I got, the Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker, which you should be able to find for around 180 smackers. It comes recommended even by serious Pitmasters, and is capable of kicking out some top notch barbecue. Also, there is a great website obsessively dedicated to its use: The Virtual Weber Bullet which is quite helpful for getting you started and is loaded with clear instructions and lots of pictures. Here is a proud picture of my new Weber Smokey Mountain, happily cohabitating with Phil, the garden gnome:

Over the past two weeks I have fired off the Smokey Mountain a few times to test it out for shorter smoking sessions and have smoked trout and chicken a couple times, with good success. And so it was that yesterday was its maiden voyage for smoking ribs. The night before I had trimmed and generously coated 1 1/2 racks of spare ribs with Magic Dust, covered them with plastic wrap and put them in the fridge. Around 10 am or so I took them out and put them in the rib rack, ready for the smoke.

Then I got the smoker set up and lit a small chimney of charcoal, around 20 briquets. I decided to test out the Virtual Weber Bullet Page’s “Minion Method” which basically means that you start with a small amount of lit briquets on a pile of unlit ones, so that they gradually light the other ones at a slow, long pace, supposedly keeping a very steady, slow burning, low temperature fire.

I have to say compared to my other brief experiences with this smoker so far, this method really made it a breeze to operate at a steady temperature. After lighting a small chimney of charcoal, and loading the coals and meat in the smoker, it was off and running. I tossed 2 or 3 good wet chunks of hickory and a small handful of oak chips on the coals for smoke wood. At the beginning I babysat the smoker and adjusted the bottom vents some, but the temperature quickly stabilized right at what I would think is an ideal temperature of about 220-230 degrees (measured with a candy thermometer at the top vent). And that was that! The ribs were smoking away by around 11 am, and for the next few hours I went about my business. I checked on the smoker every 30 minutes or so, but it needed almost no adjustment, and just kept burning away at the right temperature. After a couple hours, around 1:30, I opened the smoker and turned the racks over in the rib rack and gave them a little spritz of apple juice:

After having the smoker open a while, I noticed that the charcoal did start to flare up from the oxygen, and I had to close the bottom vents all the way to try and keep the temperature down as it flared up, approaching 250. I was expecting to smoke the ribs for around 5-7 hours, so around 3 I opened up the smoker again, to turn them and spritz them again with apple juice. At this point they looked pretty close to done to me so I got my butt in gear making the sauce (see Apple City Barbecue Sauce Recipe from the last post) that I was planning to coat them with for the last 20 or 30 minutes of smoking. This sauce has ground up bacon and apples in it, so that is pretty cool. Everything is better with bacon right? So why not barbecue sauce!? I had cooked up the bacon earlier, and I whipped up the rest of the sauce as fast as I could, and gave the ribs a nice coating to let it set up for a little while. The sauce was quite tasty on its own, trust me, and at that point the ribs had a nice looking coating of Magic Dust that looked even better.

I let them smoke for another 20 or 30 minutes, and then opened up the smoker again. They looked wonderful!

I took them off. I had smoked 1 1/2 racks of trimmed spare ribs on the top grate, and the three large “tip” pieces that I had trimmed off on the bottom grate with some kidney beans.

I let the ribs rest on the cutting board for a little while. It was a lot of meat for me to contemplate since I was home alone with no one to share them with, but this was my first time trying ribs in my new smoker and it was nice to try it without feeling like I needed to feed anyone. I cut up some of the trimmings to put in the beans, and froze the others along with a half rack of ribs, to see how they hold up for freezing…

Of course, I didn’t hesitate to slice off a couple ribs for an early dinner, and sat in the back yard and tried them. My first impression was that they looked perfect to me with a nice solid but not charred outside. The inside showed a nice red smoke ring around the edge of the meat, the first time I have really gotten that in ribs that I have cooked. And how did they taste? Fine. Very, very fine. I was giddy about it really. The meat was juicy and succulent. The sauce and the magic dust rub gave it a nice spicy robust flavor that was delicious and went very well with the juicy, smoky pork flavor of the rib meat. The texture of the rib meat was firm and meaty, but moist and tender and full of flavor. I am sure there are lots of other ways I can learn to cook ribs equally well, but I really don’t know what I could do to make them much better. I just hope I can reproduce these!

These ribs were basically cooked following the “Apple City Barbecue Grand World Championship Ribs” recipe out of the book Peace, Love and Barbecue: Recipes, Secrets, Tall Tales, and Outright Lies from the Legends of Barbecue which I plugged in the last post. I used the rub and sauce from the recipe, but used different smoking methods and hickory and oak rather than apple wood, which I am sure would also be delicious. I think this rub and sauce are a winning combo, but if I had to give most of the credit to one over the other, I would say the Magic Dust is a real winner. Try it out!

As for the rib count for the Year of the Pig, counting what I had the day I cooked them and for leftovers over the next week plus the half rack that I froze, I had another 14 ribs, putting me well over the 3 pig mark at a 102 ribs. And thank you piggy!

M Shanghai had a gig at Cafe Lena in Saratoga Springs this past weekend and on my way into town I smelled the tell-tale smell of woodsmoke as I passed PJ’s BAR-B-Q. After the gig, I headed straight back to check out PJ’s. I may not be able to say it’s the best barbecue in the world, but that’s fine, this place is a real gem, and worth the stop anytime you are in Saratoga.

PJ’s is a seasonal restaurant open only during the summers in a former A&W Drive-in Restaurant. The Davis family (John PJ, Carolyn and their 2 Kids) opened PJ’s Bar-B-Q in 1984, and the restaurant is a sprawling group of buildings decked out with oddball signs and 1950′s memoribilia, and surrounded by picnic tables. The front area is the kitchen, where the menu board is posted over a window, and you place your order.

Out back, behind the kitchen, are two 20′ charcoal pits where PJ prepares all of the barbecue over charcoal. He says he used 40 tons of briquets in a season! To the right of the kitchen is a funky little dining room plastered with fifties music paraphernalia.

Then, behind the dining room is a spacious yard area with more picnic tables and even a dance floor which was in use by an in-love baby booming couple dancing to the fifties tunes broadcast on the WBBQ airwaves as we sat down to eat our “trifecta” combo platters. That’s right, and I love this part, PJ operates a low power (1-mile radius) AM radio station out of an outbuilding back behind the yard. Looking over the picnic tables we could see doors covered with 1940′s and 50′s radio charts swung open to reveal PJ standing in the small WBBQ studio looking like a king in his castle, queing up some records, and having a fine time of it.

That put me over the edge and all I could think say was, “Wow, this place is awesome!” Looking at the PJs website and his seasonal newsletter the Bar-B-Q Times reveals even more about PJ’s obsession with the 1950′s, check out his “fifties house” shown on HGTV. Also new in 2007, PJ’s is sponsoring Bar-B-Cruise-Ins. If you have a pre-1969 classic car (and as long as you aren’t a burnout) you can call in and reserve a parking space in the lot, and you even get a free BBQ dinner. That rules.

So enough of singing the praises of PJ, how was the Q? We split 2 of the Trifecta combo platters, which had PJ’s “award winning” spare ribs, some beef brisket, and bar-b-q chicken, (served with Cole slaw, curly-Q fries, and a cornbread muffin).

The ribs themselves were good and tasty, but not great and earth shattering. They had nice texture, a little spice, and a charred but flavorful exterior. And yes, I know it isn’t pig, but the chicken was good and respectable too, moist and tasty. Lastly was the brisket, which was not like any brisket I have ever had. It was dry thin slices more akin to jerky than to what I think of as brisket. It was ok, and would probably make a good sandwich, but isn’t really what I think of as barbecue brisket. I wouldn’t say that this was top notch barbecue, being somewhere between barbecue and grilled meat, but it was still good simple enjoyable fare in a very fun, friendly and pleasant atmosphere, that I would come back to visit many times.

Also, while I am not usually much of a soda person (except when I fall victim to a really good ginger ale) I would like to mention that PJ’s has their own loganberry flavored soda, called Crystal Beach which was pretty good, or at least very enjoyable while I was sitting at my picnic table taking PJ’s in.

PJ’s is a great place, make sure to visit if you are in Saratoga in the summer!

**Oh yeah, and I had 2 ribs at PJ’s bringing up the Ribulation for the Year of the Pig to 88 (2 pig, 28…so close to 3!!).

This past weekend I made my first ever trip to Maine, to attend a wedding in Belfast. Alissa and I jumped at the excuse to get up to Maine, and we had a fantastic weekend enjoying the beautiful Maine coast in mid-June. We were early enough to avoid collision with the Maine tourist hordes, yet we had a beautiful weekend of long, sunny 80 degree days filled with dramatic New England light. Being so close to a National Park, we pushed on a little farther up the coast early on a Friday morning to visit Acadia, and just a couple of miles outside the park, I smelled the smell of burning wood, and turned my head to see an enormous barbecue rig parked on the side of Route 3, in the parking lot of some kind of Church or Tabernacle, right next to the Super Shoes. The sandwich board out front read, “CZY D P1t BBQ” and I knew I couldn’t pass this up. I got a quick OK from Alissa and did a 180, pulling up right next to CZY D’s montrosity of a BBQ pit.

I walked up to CZY D himself and announced that I would be interested in some Ribs. I complimented his rig, and he gave me a quick tour of the smoking chambers loaded with pork shoulders, brisket, ribs, chickens, sausages and BBQ beans. I was kind of in awe of the rig, which was apparently brand new, custom made from somewhere in Texas. He was obviously pretty proud of it. As his first Rib customer of the day, he announced that I would be getting a large (half) rack, which he packed up in a styrofoam box. I was on my way.

It was just before noon and we were again on our way to Acadia, this time with a delicious smell of smoke and ribs filling the cab of the truck. We sped along, headed for the first picnic area of the park, just over the bridge to Mount Desert Island. We got there and pulled into a parking spot. The day was gorgeous with a bright blue sky and we strolled down to the picnic tables looking out toward Frenchman Bay, carrying our box of ribs.

The ribs tasted good, but mainly because we were sitting out at picnic tables in a gorgeous place enjoying the great view and the very pleasant New England weather. The ribs themselves were nothing to write home about. In fact, in other situations, I would call them bad. The meat would barely stay on the bone so that you could hardly seperate the rack into individual ribs without it falling apart into a big meat pile. It was a large meaty rack of spare ribs, including the rib tips. I am fine with the boney and cartilagey rib tips, but these large ribs would probably be difficult to get tender from just smoking. In fact, the very large bones were soft from the cooking like they were boiled forever or pressure cooked. If you weren’t overly careful when biting meat off the bone your teeth could sink right into and through the bone, which when you aren’t expecting the taste of bone in your mouth, is pretty nasty. I would say that the meat itself was actually pretty flavorful, but that didn’t matter much cause the whole rack was drowning in a mass of sweet, sticky barbecue sauce, which was absolutely overwhelming. CZY D has him one fancy rig, but needs some lessons in cooking ribs!

Anyway, I still enjoyed my ribs, sitting there in the sun and planning our day ahead at Acadia, which is a really beautiful National Park. I ate 3 ribs then and one later, watching the sun set from the awesome vantage of Mount Cadillac, making for a total of 86 ribs in the year of the pig. Or, about 2 pigs 26, if you prefer.