ChezJJP       food. brooklyn. eat.

There's no better way to shed a tough workweek and Manhattan grime than to plan out a Saturday smoking session in the park or backyard. (Yes, you can do some good smoking in Prospect Park if you claim one of the more lone grills early on in the day.)

Here are the steps:

1. Purchase 12 pounds of spare ribs at $3.49 a pound from Los Paisanos butcher on Smith Street.

2. Purchase hardwood charcoal and hickory wood chips from hardware store across street.

3. Go home and make a rub with a combination of brown sugar, paprika, chili powder, granulated garlic, granulated onion, salt, pepper, pinch of allspice, mustard powder and whatever else you think might work.

4. Slather the ribs with yellow mustard. This will help the rub make more of a crust and will not impart a mustardy flavor in the end product. Season ribs liberally with the rub and make sure you rub it in hard. It aint called a rub for nuthin'. Optionally let sit for up to 24 hours to absorb the rub flavors.

5. Preheat the grill or smoker. You want to give it a good initial blast of heat.  If your smoker hasa  firebox, as does the CharGrill Super Pro below, you want to build the fire pretty hot in the firebox. If using a regular charcoal grill, build the fire on one side of the grill and dont make it too big.

I found big chunks of smoking wood at Whole Foods on Union Square once, but im not sure theyre getting it for the '08 season. What I do also, is keep a champagne bucket  full of water where i soak wood chips in and just use tongs to grab em from the water and put directly in the firebox.

I advocate using a separate oven thermometer placed right where the meat is so you know the temperature you are smoking at.

 6. Keep adding wood and hardwood charcoal at a pretty constant rate for 5 hours. You want to maintain a temperature of 225-250F. Add wood every half hour if you have wood chips and every hour if you have logs.) Try to be soaking as much wood as possible. You'll use approximately a whole bag of wood chips for 4 hours so try and have 2 (they are about 5 bucks and you can find them at Tarzan hardware on 7th Ave or Loew's on 9th street or again, across the street from Los Paisanos or Whole Foods in Mnhttn.

7. At around 5 hours, slather on BBQ sauce of choice and let it bake right into the ribs for about 20 minutes.

8. Remove ribs and let them rest for at least 20 minutes covered in foil or just in an oven on warm setting. Lather on some more BBQ and slice up for your guests! Serve with potato salad, braised collards and mac and cheese.