Super powerful pork chops

The key to cooking on a budget is knowing what to spend money on. Real butter when it counts, cooking when expensive ingredients are on sale, buying seasonal produce and freezing proteins when I buy them in bulk have helped me keep making things I enjoy within my budget. Herbs seem to be my indulgence, even when I have very little because they add so much to simple dishes. Sage shines in this dish and the subtle addition of Rosemary adds some earthy floral tones to the humble pork chop. Pork chops are usually hard to cook well because if they’re thinner, they over cook so quickly. Baking them on top of the apples insures they will still be tender, even when relatively well done. Go head- cook your power back, a sage pork chop at a time.

I think these days many of us are looking for ways to feed our souls on fewer resources, and I am surely in this category. This recipe seems decadent but it takes very few ingredients, all of which you can use in other recipes, and I was in need of some decadence when I made it. Honoring food grounds me, and in this time of uncertainty and sadness I have found comfort in making dishes where my efforts make a difference. Yes, I like my efforts to make some sort of difference and I find myself in the position of heartbreaking honesty where I have come to the conclusion my efforts have no impact on how soon some things come to an inevitable conclusion. In my frustration over not having control over the world or even people. I am in good company, especially in this past year, with people who have felt powerless to alleviate suffering of others, sad over the losses or mistreatment of people they see on their phones and televisions who they have not ever met but grieve for anyway, and frustrated over how they can achieve their goals in a time where technology seems to empower people to be mean instead of be successful. I offer this lesson I have learned - if you find yourself feeling powerless, taking back a little bit of your power can move mountains in your heart if you are even closer to despair than you feel like you should be. Within the confines of my lean budget, I take back my power every time I write something honest, every time I cook something with soul and every time, in the privacy of my living room, I try to master things I am good at and learn things I’m not. As a result I have grown as a painter/designer, I have years worth of food blogs, I have grown as a yogi-loving Pilates teacher and I have almost mastered Cumbia (with the help of free online dance videos).

This dish was affordable luxury and I filed away another “checkmark” in my win column. With my food, in my kitchen, I can control how my efforts pay off and it has been some consolation. I encourage you to try finding little powerful moments and you can similarly find empowerment in your kitchen, even if cooking isn’t your thing. Actually, if I am being rigorously honest, cooking has been a huge consolation and the fear of not having money to induce this outlet is real for me, especially as a person who has experienced scarcity at times in the past. Prior to this pandemic I had been in a job search for quite some time and it has been so discouraging it started to make me feel bad about myself and question how I have handled some of my personal tragedies and the personal tragedies of others I have witnessed…even though I don’t want to. The efforts I talked about earlier, have helped me find a little power and I take an almost gleeful satisfaction in finding these “powerful moments” in a situation which seems designed to make me doubt everything from my will to my worth. Yes, this is still a blog about pork chops, but it is also a blog about cooking for your soul and how sometimes honoring food can help heal your soul. In this vein, last night I cooked some truly powerful pork chops and I found some subversive satisfaction in knowing I had found some control in a tiny way, in my tiny kitchen.

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