Let’s Talk Pork Chops!

If they’re on the menu, you better get one before I eat ‘em all…

Let’s talk pork chops!

It’s been drawn to my attention that the Monday Mail as of late has been dominated by my obsession with live music.  Guilty as charged.  Maybe.  One Facebook comment even suggests that this was a great restaurant before the addition of live music. I would contest that Jack Fragomeni’s beautiful jazz guitar solos provided unmatched soundtrack to dining here back to nearly our beginning in 1976. I feel food, music, architecture, lighting, landscape should/could all work together…

But, today we’re talking pork chops. Specifically, pork chops from Rick Smith’s farm over on Jockey Street.  Rick’s simplicity in farming is, or should be, an example of so much of what is ‘right’.  So simple it’s brilliant. I’m in awe of what they produce and how they do it every time I stop in, or better yet taste their sausage or pork chops.  Smith’s pigs are fed primarily waste from Shelley’s pie shop and other overages from the farm. For the last year or so Rick has also entrusted the crew here to sort and save waste appropriate for feed. There’s a composition by Pat Metheny titled A Farmer’s Trust (damn..another music reference…) that I think of every night when I drop off a pail at the farm.  It’s a grand idea I think.  Trusting the weather, the crop, the herd, the hands, the health, the prey, the neighbors to all allow for the sustainability of the farm. Rick allowing our crew into that circle of trust is among the more meaningful things I think we’ve accomplished. 

We’re fortunate enough to be offering Smith’s Pork Chops on our feature board currently.  They are just beautiful and burst with the comfort flavors from the pie shop. We’re searing them on a cast iron pan in lard rendered from Smith’s pigs. This week past I smoked some apples (Cortlands, from Smiths Orchard) on apple wood I procured last spring from Smith’s Orchard and made an apple butter to dress the chops.   Serving them with homefries featuring Carrot Barn Baltic Rose potatoes and sweet corn from, you guessed it, Smith’s Orchard.  My advice to you is to get one before I eat them all!