By Clay met with the recruiter. Staff Sergeant Williams came to the house on Wednesday evening — I insisted on the house, not the recruiting office, because if a man wants to recruit my son, he's going to sit in my kitchen and eat my food and look me in the eye while he does it. Connie served sweet tea. I served judgment, though I tried to disguise it as hospitality.
Williams was decent. Respectful. Young — maybe thirty, combat patch on his sleeve, which meant he'd been somewhere. He talked to Clay about the opportunities: the GI Bill (full college tuition after service), job training, discipline, structure, travel. He talked about the Army values: loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service. He didn't talk about getting shot at. I noticed. Connie noticed. We noticed in unison, the way married people notice things.
After Williams left, Clay said "I'm not signing anything yet. I can't until I'm eighteen. I just want to know what's out there." Reasonable. Mature, even. More mature than I was at his age, when my post-high school plan was "go into the mines" and my backup plan was "go into the mines faster." Clay is considering options. That's what education and a world beyond Harlan County gives you: options. I didn't have options. Clay does. The fact that one of those options is the Army doesn't make it wrong. It makes it terrifying, which is different.
To cope with the terror, I cooked. I'm starting to notice a pattern: when Craig is scared, Craig cooks. When Craig is worried, Craig cooks. When Craig doesn't know what to say, Craig makes food and sets it on the table and hopes the food says what he can't. This is not a healthy communication strategy. It is my only communication strategy. It works about forty percent of the time, which is better than my verbal communication, which works about twelve percent of the time.
I made skillet-fried pork chops. Not the bone-in chops I made for Connie on Mother's Day — breaded pork chops, the kind Betty made on Wednesdays. Boneless chops pounded thin, dredged in flour, dipped in egg, dredged in flour again, fried in a cast iron skillet with half an inch of oil. Three minutes per side. Golden crust. Juicy inside. Served with mashed potatoes and gravy made from the pan drippings — flour, milk, salt, pepper, stirred in the same skillet after the chops come out.
We ate at the kitchen table — the same table where the recruiter sat two hours earlier — and nobody mentioned the Army and everybody thought about the Army and the pork chops were good and the gravy was right and sometimes that's all you can do: put food on the table and trust that the table is strong enough to hold the weight of what's being felt but not being said.
The pork chops were for that Wednesday — for Staff Sergeant Williams and the silence after he left and the weight of a conversation that didn’t finish. But this recipe is for the nights that follow: the ordinary Tuesday when Clay is just your kid again, sitting across from you, and you want to put something golden and good on the table without it meaning anything heavier than dinner. Baked chicken nuggets are what Betty might have called “a peace meal” — the kind of breaded, crispy comfort that doesn’t ask anything of you except that you show up and eat together. That’s enough. Most nights, that’s everything.
Healthy Chicken Nuggets {Baked}
Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 35 minutes | Servings: 4
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
- 2 large eggs, beaten
- 1 cup panko breadcrumbs
- 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp smoked paprika
- 1/2 tsp onion powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp black pepper
- Olive oil cooking spray
Instructions
- Preheat and prep. Preheat your oven to 425°F. Line a large rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper and set a wire rack on top. Lightly coat the rack with cooking spray.
- Set up your dredging station. Place the flour in a shallow bowl. Beat the eggs in a second shallow bowl. In a third bowl, combine the panko, Parmesan, garlic powder, smoked paprika, onion powder, salt, and pepper and stir to mix evenly.
- Bread the chicken. Working one piece at a time, dredge each chicken piece in the flour and shake off the excess. Dip in the beaten egg, letting any extra drip off. Press firmly into the panko mixture, coating all sides. Place on the prepared wire rack.
- Spray and bake. Lightly spray the tops of the breaded nuggets with cooking spray — this is what gives them that golden, fried-looking crust from the oven. Bake for 18 to 22 minutes, flipping once halfway through, until the crust is deep golden and the internal temperature reads 165°F.
- Rest and serve. Let the nuggets rest on the rack for 2 to 3 minutes before serving. They hold their crust better if you don’t pile them immediately. Serve with honey mustard, ranch, or just plain — they don’t need much help.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 320 | Protein: 40g | Fat: 7g | Carbs: 19g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 490mg