Mama pulled an old favorite from the love-battered recipe
collection tonight. Pork chops and potatoes take on a character of their
own when boiled together with her savory onions and seasonings. The memories of
warm winter nights spent in gales of family merriment and deep discussion around
the table are called up at every bite. Scroll to the bottom of the post for the recipe!We are pulling up more than a few old standby recipes, along with the lists from years gone by that somehow gain value with age. “Remember the year when…?” jumps out on every scribbled page. I can read my own history in the nearly illegible cards covered in the well-known hand of Grandma or Mama or Aunt.
Long after the well-known steps to a dish are learned like the measured steps of a dance, those pieces of history...a handwritten inheritance…will come out every year to be touched and perused for their own sake.
Thanksgiving was less than two weeks away when I wrote that and
somewhere between then and now the urgency of necessary preparations lit a fire
under me. With a list that grows until ”the eleventh hour"
rather than shrinking, my philosophy is that it never helps to get
markedly excited more than four days prior to an event. Admitting
anticipation of any kind sooner than that yields only a let-down of energy.
(I take full, and probably sole, credit/responsibility for this
“preparation policy” in the Lenz household) The first of these four days
is characteristically spent in ruminating upon and composing the final schedule
in a sort of hazy rush. The third day is swept up in a flurry of dusting
rags, brooms, vacuums and brushes. The second day dissolves in a
cacophony of mixers and clashing dishes in the kitchen while the farm out of
doors undergoes its final overhauling. The fourth day the foundation of
the house remains alone unmoved as all else makes room for the stupendous
dining table the surface of which is instantly requisitioned for extra dishes
and fearfully-soon-to-be-wonderful decorations in motley heaps.
Thanksgiving morning is a run-on sentence. (I know day four looked
an awful-lot like one...but that is only because it serves as a prelude for the
real thing. If run-on sentences disturb you, take the matter up with
Charles Dickens. He seems formidable enough to appeal to.)
The plans for colors and table-settings began in October
with foraging expeditions to the woods and shopping trips to town in search of
appropriate decor and supplies. Amidst the business of those weeks of
early fall we start thinking about the turkey; and a walk through the grocery
store will produce things in our cart that are nowhere on a list. By the
first week of November, the requisite additional supplies of flour and butter,
sweet potatoes and seasonings are stashed away. Already the space in the
extra refrigerator is nearly hallowed ground reserved for feast viands alone.
In this manner the insurmountable Thanksgiving shopping list never
materializes, but goes in and out with the everyday activities of our lives
like a tide. With a habit of opening our door to guests on a weekly or
even daily basis, Thanksgiving becomes a climax of hospitality where the
heaped-up abundance of a year of giving and receiving overflows into our lives
in one short day of merry-giving and good-cheer taking. Yes, there is a
great deal of labor involved...but there is nothing good which is not well
worth working for.
The food itself is a merely a gift of sameness given from
one to another not only because it took a measure of effort, but because it
serves to remind us. Our beings are made to be fluent in aesthetics.
From an early age habitual languages of tradition pour identity and
heritage into us. There is, after all, nothing magical about the
mountains of mashed potatoes, the specially cleaned home, candles or table
adornments, or the third Thursday of November. These are called into
living, breathing and speaking eloquence by the powerful truth that overshadows
the most simple of commonalities.
Five kernels of corn rationed every day through a winter
that nearly obliterated them inspired an intrepid company of men, women and
children to fall on their knees and rise again in thankfulness before the God
who gives life and takes it. Abundance of health and comfort should
inspire no less in us, yet it often fails to do so. Rich hearts can often
complain of poverty in one thing: gratitude. How is it that
"fullness of bread" breeds in the human soul a bitterness and apathy
that abundance of want with a measure of grace rarely brings? It is my
belief that in the receiving of gifts, discontent grows only in the one who
cannot and will not acknowledge the Giver.
So, in recognition of what we cannot repay, from our little
or great we pour out preparations proportionate to the demeanor of our hearts.
Each year can only succeed if it outdoes the last in some way. The
table gathers round itself a broad array of lives, each with his own loan of
life to add to the smaller glow of beauty that reflects the greater glory of
the Table "over the way".
Here we pile in bounty the rich and the ripe, savory and
sweet. Steam-shrouded platters of stacked meat overlook lakes of gravy;
piping hot rolls amass in heaps beside fathomless bowls of creamed and seasoned
vegetables and endless quantities of stuffing. The language of abundance
is expressive and even absurd. It mocks the lackadaisical and pokes fun
at the centrist. If not otherwise, at least at the Thanksgiving table the
lukewarm is worthy of disparagement. Is this acknowledgement of
indebtedness too effusive for some? I hope not. I will dare to say
that we have yet to find the "fullness of joy" that comes from
knowing just how poor we are in gratitude for the wealth we are daily given.
"Thou wilt show me the path of life: in Thy presence is fulness of joy; at Thy right hand are pleasures forevermore." Psalm 16:11
(serves 4)
4 pork chops
2T butter
2 T flour
½ t salt
1/3 c parmesan cheese
¼ t pepper
4c thinly sliced potatoes (you don’t have to peel farm fresh potatoes!)
1 onion thinly sliced
3 beef bouillon cubes
¾ c hot water
1 T lemon juice
Coat chops with flour and brown in butter. Dissolve beef cubes in water. Add lemon juice. Set aside. Combine 2T cheese, salt and pepper and sprinkle on chops. Cover with potato slices and 2 T cheese. Add onion. Pour beef broth over all. Sprinkle with remaining cheese. Cover and simmer 40 minutes or until done. I find it is done in 20 minutes if I precook chops in crock pot (make sure you add drippings to skillet). If you have grocery store pork chops you may want to skim the fat before adding drippings. Also, when we double the recipe we use 4 bouillon cubes and a little more water. You don’t need 6 bouillon cubes.
We like that we can make Skillet Pork Chops fairly quickly…and there are potatoes, onions and pork chops in abundance on the farm this time of year!
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