Blackberry Sauced Pork Chops — The Kitchen Knows What We Need

The house feels different without Mamma's voice on the phone. Tuesday mornings used to be Mamma calling at 10 AM to ask what I was making. Now Tuesday mornings are quiet. I make coffee. I look at the phone. I do not call her. I cannot call her. I sit and I drink the coffee and Sven (the puppy) tries to climb into my lap and the silence is not unbearable but it is new. Elsa called from Voyageurs. She said the loons came back this week. She said Mamma always loved the loons. She said it had not been the same year without her. I said no. It had not been. We talked for ten minutes. Elsa does not call often. The calls she does make are small and dense, like a hard candy. I save them. I roll them around in my mind for days afterward. Astrid drove up from the Twin Cities for a long weekend. We sat in Mamma's kitchen at Fifth Street (Erik has not sold the house yet; we are not ready). We made meatballs together, in Mamma's kitchen, in Mamma's bowl, on Mamma's stove. We did not say much. We worked side by side the way we worked side by side as girls — at thirteen and ten, at nineteen and sixteen, now at sixty-something and sixty-something. The hands knew. The kitchen knew. The kitchen carried us through. Sven the First died this week. He was fourteen. The vet came to the house. I held him on his bed. He went peacefully — a long sigh, then nothing, his eyes closing slowly. The house is silent in a way I had forgotten existed. The dog has been the soundtrack of every room for fourteen years. The house without him has had to relearn its own acoustics. I cooked Tater tot hotdish this week. Ground beef and onion browned in the cast iron, drained, mixed with cream of mushroom soup (yes, the can; Mamma uses the can; the can is acceptable), green beans, salt, pepper, a pour of milk to loosen. Spread in the casserole dish. Tater tots arranged in concentric rings on top. Forty minutes at 350. The smell is unmistakable. The smell is Minnesota. Thursday at Damiano. I brought a tray of pepparkakor — the second batch from the Christmas freezer, brought back to crispness in a low oven. They were eaten in fifteen minutes. The cookies are not the soup. The cookies are the extra. The extra is the message: you are worth the effort of cookies. Most of the world does not give the people who come to Damiano the message that they are worth the effort of cookies. The cookies are doing political work. I dreamed about Paul last night. The dream was specific: we were at the lake, in the canoe, fishing for trout. He was teaching me the right way to cast (he was always trying to teach me; I never quite got the rhythm; I caught fish anyway, by accident, with embarrassing regularity). In the dream he was patient and present and entirely himself. I woke up at 4 AM. I made coffee. I sat in the kitchen. The dream was a visit. I have learned to receive the visits without reaching for them. They come when they come. It is enough. It has to be. And on a morning like this, with the lake doing what the lake does and the dog at my feet and the bread on the counter and the kitchen warm enough to live in, it is. It is enough.

The hotdish carried me through the week the way hotdish always does — low and slow and without ceremony — but by Thursday I wanted something that felt a little more like effort, a little more like choosing to be here. I had a package of bone-in chops in the refrigerator and a jar of blackberry preserves on the shelf, left over from the summer Astrid and I put up fruit at Mamma’s house, and I thought: this is the kind of meal you make when you are ready to taste something again. Not just feed yourself. Actually taste it. The pan sauce came together in minutes and the color of it — that deep, dark berry red against the seared pork — was almost too pretty for a Thursday alone, but I plated it properly anyway, and I sat at the table, and I ate.

Blackberry Sauced Pork Chops

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

Ingredients

• 4 bone-in pork loin chops, about 3/4 inch thick (6–8 oz each)
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 1 small shallot, minced
• 1/3 cup chicken broth
• 1/3 cup blackberry preserves (or seedless blackberry jam)
• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
• 1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves (or 1/4 teaspoon dried)
• Fresh blackberries, for garnish (optional)

Instructions

1. Season the chops. Pat the pork chops dry with paper towels. Season both sides evenly with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Let them rest at room temperature for 5 minutes while the pan heats.
2. Sear. Heat olive oil in a large cast iron skillet or heavy-bottomed pan over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add the chops and sear without moving them for 4–5 minutes per side, until deep golden brown and the internal temperature reads 145°F. Transfer to a plate and tent loosely with foil.
3. Build the sauce. Reduce heat to medium. Add the butter to the same pan. Once melted, add the minced shallot and cook 1–2 minutes, stirring, until softened. Pour in the chicken broth and scrape up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan.
4. Add the blackberry. Stir in the blackberry preserves, balsamic vinegar, and thyme. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook 3–4 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the sauce thickens slightly and coats a spoon. Taste and adjust salt if needed.
5. Finish and serve. Return the chops to the pan and spoon the sauce over them. Let them warm through for 1 minute. Serve immediately, spooning additional sauce over the top. Garnish with fresh blackberries if desired.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 340 | Protein: 32g | Fat: 13g | Carbs: 22g | Fiber: 0g | Sodium: 480mg