Reviews Cooking, Food And Wine Book

Product Details

Amazon.com Review
Dinosaur Bar-B-Que kicked into gear in 1983 when John Stage, a Harley-loving biker with a taste for barbecue, took to the road cooking sandwiches on a sawed-in-half 55-gallon drum at "biker gigs" up and down the East Coast. Stage sampled world-class barbecue in Virginia, Texas, North Carolina, and Memphis, soaking up "the Southern barbecue vibe" (and picking up Creole, Asian, and Cuban influences along the way) before setting up shop in Syracuse, New York, in 1988. Dinosaur Bar-B-Que: An American Roadhouse captures the reach-out-and-taste-it smell of slow-cooked barbecue that hits you two blocks away from the "genuine honky-tonk rib joint," where outfront a row of gleaming Harleys stand at attention and inside a sassy, ready-to-bust-your-chops wait staff cuts through the eclectic crowd of bikers, students, suits, and blues lovers (there's live music almost nightly), serving up half-racks of Dinosaur-Style Ribs, Texas Beef Brisket, and Honey Hush Corn Bread.

Between recipes for Drunken Spicy Shameless Shrimp with Brazen Cocktail Sauce and Not Your Mama's Meatloaf are samples of the restaurant's infamous restroom graffiti ("When life gives you lemons... add vodka") and photos of staff tattoos. Stage and coauthor Nancy Radke realize that not all backyard grill masters own smokers, let alone the kind of hickory-log-fueled industrial pits at the Dinosaur (nicknamed "The Coffin" and "The Doghouse"), so they present home cooks with a helpful Techniques of Outdoor Cookin' section that offers advice on how to grill and smoke with wood chips.

And no matter the season, this cookbook will quickly become a dog-eared favorite, as many of the more than 100 recipes are perfect for indoor cooking anytime of the year. Whip up a batch of the all-purpose Mutha Sauce (a versatile starting off point for many of the dishes) and you'll have enough ammunition for a weekend's worth of recipes. If you want to come any closer to living the complete Dinosaur experience at home, you'll need a Harley out front, a cold beer in hand, and Roosevelt Dean and the Spellbinders jammin' in the living room. --Brad Thomas Parsons

From the Publisher
* Features more than 100 flavor-packed recipes from Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, the perennially popular, Syracuse-based, honky-tonk rib joint.

About the Author
In 1983, JOHN STAGE and his partner sawed a 55-gallon drum in half and hit the road, slinging BBQ at biker swap meets, fairs, and festivals. He opened the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que in 1988, and through the years the restaurant has earned acclaim as a world-class barbecue blues joint, known far and wide by bikers, musicians, and even President Clinton. John lives in Liverpool, New York. NANCY RADKE learned how to cook under the watchful eyes of several "grandmothers" in the apartment building where she lived in Rome, Italy. She now lives, writes and-thanks to John-smokes a mean pork butt in Syracuse, New York.

In 1983, JOHN STAGE and his partner sawed a 55-gallon drum in half and hit the road, slinging BBQ at biker swap meets, fairs, and festivals. He opened the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que in Syracuse, New York, in 1988, followed by additional outposts in Rochester and New York City. He lives in New York City.

NANCY RADKE learned how to cook under the watchful eyes of several grandmothers in Rome, Italy. She now lives in Syracuse, New York.

Customer Reviews

best barbque book ever!
I'm not a gourmet cook, but simply love to cook, especially barbeque. This book has amazing, easy to follow recipies which beg to be tried on every week. great cooking advice, easy read, and I have become a great barbequer. If you can read, you can follow these recipies, and have outstanding results.

An all-around great cookbook
I bought this book because a food blogger mentioned it in a post and boy am I glad I did. Every recipe sounds incredible and has given me ideas to keep cooking for months. Meatloaf, chicken, fish, beef - and then the side dishes -- and desserts! It is really an all around great cookbook. I can't wait to start making the recipes.

AWESOME BOOK!
I grew up in central NY state and went to college at Syracuse University in the '90s, when Dinosaur BBQ was already a hugely popular restaurant. I still like to go there every time I'm in town. I bought this book recently and cooked an all-Dino 4th of July feast that was delicious. I cooked the Asparagus, Red pepper & Potato salad, bbq chicken (I used skinless, boneless breasts) and their most DELICIOUS bbq baked beans. The beans were a lot of work but completely worth it! (I found the Zatarain's mustard in Gelson's & used their brand of italian turkey sausage to cut the fat). I must admit I used the pre-made Dino sauces that you can purchase in the stores back in NYS, and I don't plan on every making my own sauces from scratch, but I think it's great they provide the full recipes! I did prepare my own spice rubs, though, and it was simple (though I found the red rub for the chicken a bit too salty). There are still plenty of recipes I plan on trying, and many look extremely simple, though the smoked meats look like a lot of work. I doubt I'll attempt my own pulled pork, for instance, which is my FAVORITE item at the restaurant. Visiting Dinosaur in person is definitely a must for any fans out there, since their meats are slow-cooked and the best ever, but in lieu of that, this book is pretty good!