Parmesan-Crusted Pork Chops

May, and the documentation project has become the summer's primary work. Carrie and I spend every morning at the kitchen table — she with her journal, I with mine — writing down everything we know about Mama's recipes. Not just the ingredients and the steps but the gestures, the sounds, the phrases. "More butter, Naomi." "Don't rush the roux." "The biscuits need a gentle hand." The phrases are the recipes' souls, and the souls are what the cookbook needs, and the needing is the urgency.

Mama has been eating less. The portions shrink weekly, the appetite diminishing with the cognition, the body following the mind into the distance that the disease creates. She eats a few bites of whatever I place before her. She drinks sweet tea. She chews slowly, deliberately, the chewing of a woman who has forgotten how to hurry and who therefore eats with the unhurried attention that Buddhist monks bring to their meals, and the attention is both beautiful and heartbreaking.

James finished his first year of law school and came home for a weekend. He brought Elise. They walked through the house together with the particular ease of a couple who has stopped performing the relationship and started living it, and the living is quieter than the performing and more real. Elise sat with Mama for an hour, holding her hand, talking softly about nothing in particular, and the nothing was everything, because Mama does not need content. She needs presence. And Elise was present.

Robert has been building a bookshelf for the front room — the room with the desk, which is now my writing room, which is now the room where the cookbook is being born. The bookshelf is walnut, matching the desk, designed to hold the reference books I need: MFK Fisher, Edna Lewis, Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor, the Southern food writers who are my teachers and my predecessors and my company at five AM when the kitchen is dark and the coffee is hot and the writing is the loneliest and most necessary thing I do.

I made Mama's chicken and rice — the weeknight staple, the simple one-pot dish that has been in the journal since week one and that will be in the cookbook as the first recipe in the chapter called "Weeknights," because weeknights are where the cooking lives, not holidays, not celebrations, but the ordinary Tuesday when you come home tired and stand at the stove and make something that feeds the people you love, and the feeding is the love, and the love is Tuesday.

The chicken and rice will go in the cookbook, because it belongs to Mama and the journal and the chapter called “Weeknights.” But on the Tuesday I am describing — the actual Tuesday, the one after James and Elise left and Robert came in from the garage with sawdust on his shirt and the house went quiet again — I made pork chops, because they were in the refrigerator and because thirty minutes was all I had and all I needed. These Parmesan-crusted pork chops are the kind of thing you make without thinking, which means you are free to think about everything else: about Mama’s hands, about Elise sitting with her, about the walnut shelf going up in the room where the cookbook is being born. That is what a good weeknight recipe does. It holds the evening so you don’t have to.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 30 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

4 boneless pork chops, about 1 inch thick (approximately 6 oz each)
1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup plain or panko breadcrumbs
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning
1/2 teaspoon salt, plus more for seasoning
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
Fresh parsley, chopped, for serving (optional)

Instructions

Prepare the coating. In a shallow bowl or plate, combine the grated Parmesan, breadcrumbs, garlic powder, Italian seasoning, salt, and black pepper. Stir until evenly mixed. In a second shallow bowl, beat the eggs lightly with a fork.
Season the chops. Pat the pork chops dry with paper towels and season both sides lightly with salt and pepper. Drying them helps the coating adhere and promotes a better crust.
Coat the chops. Working one at a time, dip each pork chop into the beaten egg, letting the excess drip off, then press firmly into the Parmesan breadcrumb mixture to coat both sides evenly. Set on a plate while you heat the pan.
Heat the pan. Warm the olive oil and butter together in a large skillet over medium-high heat. When the butter is melted and the oil shimmers, the pan is ready. Do not rush this step — a properly hot pan is what gives the crust its color.
Cook the chops. Add the coated pork chops to the skillet without crowding. Cook undisturbed for 4 to 5 minutes on the first side, until the crust is deep golden and releases cleanly from the pan. Flip carefully and cook another 4 to 5 minutes, until the internal temperature reaches 145°F on an instant-read thermometer.
Rest and serve. Transfer the chops to a cutting board or plate and let them rest for 3 to 5 minutes before serving. This keeps the meat juicy. Scatter fresh parsley over the top if you like, and serve with a simple vegetable or whatever is in the refrigerator.

Nutrition (per serving)

Parmesan-Crusted Pork Chops — The Ordinary Tuesday That Is the Love