Broiled Pork Chops

First full week of knowing I'm done with construction and not fighting it anymore. There's a difference between knowing a thing and accepting a thing, and the difference is about three weeks of lying on your couch while your wife goes to work and your son brings you groceries and your body tells you the same truth every time you try to stand up too fast. I accept it. I don't like it. But acceptance and liking are not required to be in the same room.

Monday I made soup beans. Betty's soup beans. Monday soup beans, the way it's always been, the way it was in Evarts, the way it will be as long as I'm breathing and have a bag of pintos and a ham hock. Soaked overnight Sunday, cooked all day Monday, low and slow, the pot barely bubbling, the ham hock falling apart by hour four, the kitchen filling with a smell that is not just food but geography. Those beans smell like Harlan County. They smell like the company house and the potbelly stove and Betty humming hymns at the stove at six in the morning. Cornbread in the skillet. Onion sliced raw on the side. I ate at the kitchen table, sitting upright for the first time in a week, and the beans were right. Not close. Right. Betty would have said they'll do, which is the highest praise in our family and I will take it from a ghost.

Called Betty Tuesday evening. She's eighty-two and winter has been hard — her hip bothers her, the propane bill is too high, the driveway iced over twice and the neighbor boy had to salt it. She asked about my back and I told her the truth because you don't lie to Betty Hensley. She was quiet for a minute, then said your daddy worked those mines until the mines were done with him. Don't you let the work be done with you. Find new work. I said what kind of work, Mama. She said the kind that uses your hands and feeds people. I thought about that all night.

Wednesday I sat at the kitchen table with a notebook and wrote down every recipe I could remember. Betty's recipes, Connie's recipes, the things I've learned smoking meat and building fires. I filled eleven pages. My handwriting is slow and careful and ugly as a fence post, but the recipes are there, in ink, and I looked at those eleven pages and thought: maybe Betty's right. Maybe the work isn't over. Maybe it's just changing shape.

Betty’s advice — find work that uses your hands and feeds people — stayed with me through Wednesday night and into Thursday morning, and I kept coming back to pork. The ham hock in those beans, the way it gave everything it had to the pot before it was done — that’s the kind of cooking I want to do more of. Broiled pork chops are about as honest as a recipe gets: a hot broiler, a little seasoning, and the patience to let the heat do what it does. That’s a skill. That’s work. Betty would approve.

Prep Time: 10 min | Cook Time: 12 min | Total Time: 22 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

4 bone-in pork chops, about 3/4 inch thick (roughly 6–8 oz each)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

Instructions

Preheat the broiler. Set your oven to broil on high and position a rack about 4 inches from the heating element. Let it come to full heat — at least 5 minutes.
Season the chops. Pat pork chops dry with a paper towel. Rub both sides with olive oil and Worcestershire sauce, then season evenly with salt, pepper, garlic powder, smoked paprika, and onion powder.
Arrange on a broiler pan. Place chops on a broiler pan or a wire rack set over a foil-lined baking sheet. This keeps them out of their drippings and helps them char rather than steam.
Broil the first side. Slide the pan under the broiler and cook for 5 to 6 minutes, until the surface is browned and beginning to char at the edges.
Flip and finish. Turn the chops with tongs and broil the second side for 4 to 6 minutes, until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part reads 145°F.
Rest before serving. Transfer chops to a plate and let them rest for 3 to 5 minutes before serving. Don’t skip this — it’s what keeps them from drying out on you.

Nutrition (per serving)

Broiled Pork Chops — The Kind of Work That Uses Your Hands