Saturday 2 October 2010

pork chops

i realise equating food with higher philosophical ideals can be problematic - freedom fries or mecca cola, anyone?

but to me, pork chops = freedom.

i mean, OBVIOUSLY (*eye roll*) in a sardonic/ironic white middle class woolly liberal sense.

but also no. also in an uncool un-intelligent-freedom-fries sort of way.

when i went back to university, i'd been sometimes traveling but mostly working for 12 years, and the opportunity to cook food at home, during the day, was intoxicating. when i had the time, i would often cook myself a pork chop - rubbed in a sluice of garlic, rosemary, salt, pepper and olive oil, with a side of sautéed spinach (in butter of course) and new potatoes, crushed with the back of a fork and swathed in butter and lashings of pork-juices.

i would sit at the table and carefully cut up my chop into 3 parts - fat, heart meat, and bone. then i'd settle in, open the newspaper, and munch my way through first the heart meat - tea towel at the ready to swipe fingers and reduce grease marks on the edges of the paper - alternated by scoops of mashed potatoes and spinach - and then, paper down out of respect at this point, full attention to the bone, slurping out all the best bits. the fat cut up for the birds.

i loved those lunches - the first i'd cooked alone, just for me, in years and years. to eat at the table with my fingers, reading a paper - delicious.

tonight n & s are playing at a pub down the road. i'm getting over a cold and i'm working all this weekend and next as well - a 21 day stretch. i've begged off. instead i've spent the evening talking to my mom in canada, and getting to bed early.

and cooking and eating a fat pork chop with a side of spinach and crushed potatoes.

freedom chops

No comments: