Cornflake Pork Chops
4-6 thin pork chops (sometimes packaged as "breakfast chops"-- or you can slice or pound pork tenderloin into 1/2-inch thickness)
1 C. lightly crushed cornflake cereal (don't pulverize it to powder-- there should still be recognizable pieces of flake)
2-3 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 C. flour
Oil for cooking
salt and pepper to taste
Put the crushed cornflakes, flour, and eggs individually (i.e. not mixed with each other) into three pie pans or deep plates. Heat the oil in a skillet over medium heat. Salt and pepper the chops on each side. Dredge them in: the flour, the egg, and the cornflakes. Fry them in the skillet on both sides until they are a light golden brown. It's important not to overheat your oil initially, because ideally your coating should be crisp and brown and your chop fully cooked at the same time. Too hot: burnt on the outside, raw on the inside. Too cool: soggy on the outside, done on the inside. For most stoves, the "medium" setting, whatever that is, is just right. Basically, your chops should sizzle and fry without an excessive amount of popping, snapping, or volume. Drain your chops on whatever it is that you like to drain things. Serve hot! They are pretty good leftover, too.
I don't know if you've noticed by now, but a lot of times an Italian's idea of the ideal thing to do with meat is to fry it. This comes in a close second to stewing it in a sauce and serving it over pasta. This is a modern, but very Italian-themed, take on the first option. It comes straight out of Grandmom's kitchen, and has even been adopted by my uncle Ron, whose family deeply appreciates his firm grasp of hearty homestyle cooking.
__________
This is one of my favorite Grandmom memories. Grandmom loves to sit out on her patio and watch the world go by. She likes it even more if someone sits out there with her. Since Grandpop does not like to sit out on the patio, she especially enjoys when I visit and sit out on the patio with her. (Grandpop is inside, enjoying time on the couch with his first love, Bob Barker.)
So, one afternoon between lunch and supper, we sat out. Cars passed, the wind blew, the flowers on the patio sat there-- it was a rare kind of pleasure that doesn't take place as often anymore. I gazed off into the middle distance, which is occupied in Grandmom's neighborhood by a couple of local businesses and large Victorian houses. On the roof of one of these houses alit two large birds. They may have been vultures-- it was too far away for me to be sure. I hadn't yet got over my surprise at seeing two big vultures on the peaked roof of a gingerbread house when they began "doing it." Knocking boots. Or, more appropriately since they were birds, knocking buttholes. I'm serious. Look it up. So vigorously, in fact, that I wasn't sure which would happen first: them getting done and flying their separate ways, or them falling off the roof mid-act.
Grandmom broke me out of my stupefied reverie to say, "Look at that!" I looked over at her. "Over there!" she pointed in the vague general direction of where I had been looking. I immediately began searching around for something else she could have been pointing at. Maybe the small business next door that has been there since the 50's? "No!" Grandmom insisted. "There! Those two birds!" she continued. I looked around at her. "You think they make babies?"
No let me just interject at this point to state that, as far as I know about their relationship, my grandparents adopted my dad and uncle. I think I've only seen them kiss two or three times in my life. We've definitely never had "the talk". So imagine my astound when my Grandmom turns to me and, in her own words, asks me if she thinks those two large birds are having relations. Especially when they are. Over and over again. Loudly.
"Yes," I answered, "I think they are."
4-6 thin pork chops (sometimes packaged as "breakfast chops"-- or you can slice or pound pork tenderloin into 1/2-inch thickness)
1 C. lightly crushed cornflake cereal (don't pulverize it to powder-- there should still be recognizable pieces of flake)
2-3 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 C. flour
Oil for cooking
salt and pepper to taste
Put the crushed cornflakes, flour, and eggs individually (i.e. not mixed with each other) into three pie pans or deep plates. Heat the oil in a skillet over medium heat. Salt and pepper the chops on each side. Dredge them in: the flour, the egg, and the cornflakes. Fry them in the skillet on both sides until they are a light golden brown. It's important not to overheat your oil initially, because ideally your coating should be crisp and brown and your chop fully cooked at the same time. Too hot: burnt on the outside, raw on the inside. Too cool: soggy on the outside, done on the inside. For most stoves, the "medium" setting, whatever that is, is just right. Basically, your chops should sizzle and fry without an excessive amount of popping, snapping, or volume. Drain your chops on whatever it is that you like to drain things. Serve hot! They are pretty good leftover, too.
I don't know if you've noticed by now, but a lot of times an Italian's idea of the ideal thing to do with meat is to fry it. This comes in a close second to stewing it in a sauce and serving it over pasta. This is a modern, but very Italian-themed, take on the first option. It comes straight out of Grandmom's kitchen, and has even been adopted by my uncle Ron, whose family deeply appreciates his firm grasp of hearty homestyle cooking.
__________
This is one of my favorite Grandmom memories. Grandmom loves to sit out on her patio and watch the world go by. She likes it even more if someone sits out there with her. Since Grandpop does not like to sit out on the patio, she especially enjoys when I visit and sit out on the patio with her. (Grandpop is inside, enjoying time on the couch with his first love, Bob Barker.)
So, one afternoon between lunch and supper, we sat out. Cars passed, the wind blew, the flowers on the patio sat there-- it was a rare kind of pleasure that doesn't take place as often anymore. I gazed off into the middle distance, which is occupied in Grandmom's neighborhood by a couple of local businesses and large Victorian houses. On the roof of one of these houses alit two large birds. They may have been vultures-- it was too far away for me to be sure. I hadn't yet got over my surprise at seeing two big vultures on the peaked roof of a gingerbread house when they began "doing it." Knocking boots. Or, more appropriately since they were birds, knocking buttholes. I'm serious. Look it up. So vigorously, in fact, that I wasn't sure which would happen first: them getting done and flying their separate ways, or them falling off the roof mid-act.
Grandmom broke me out of my stupefied reverie to say, "Look at that!" I looked over at her. "Over there!" she pointed in the vague general direction of where I had been looking. I immediately began searching around for something else she could have been pointing at. Maybe the small business next door that has been there since the 50's? "No!" Grandmom insisted. "There! Those two birds!" she continued. I looked around at her. "You think they make babies?"
No let me just interject at this point to state that, as far as I know about their relationship, my grandparents adopted my dad and uncle. I think I've only seen them kiss two or three times in my life. We've definitely never had "the talk". So imagine my astound when my Grandmom turns to me and, in her own words, asks me if she thinks those two large birds are having relations. Especially when they are. Over and over again. Loudly.
"Yes," I answered, "I think they are."
