Pizza Pork Chops — When the Week Needs Feeding and the Kitchen Answers

Week 512, and the dark arriving early, the kitchen warm against the cold, the soups simmering, the bread rising. I am 68 years old and the days have a rhythm now — the morning writing, the afternoon visits to Cedarhurst, the evening cooking, the weekly blog post — and the rhythm is the structure, and the structure is the sanity, and the sanity is required because the rest of it, the losing and the loving and the carrying, requires a sane woman at the helm, and I am sane, mostly, except when I cry in the car in the Cedarhurst parking lot, which is not insanity but its opposite: the specific, targeted release of emotion in a contained space, which is the most rational thing I do all week.

First royalty check; deposited for grandchildren; brisket has value. These are the facts of the week, the data points, the things I would put in a report if I were writing a report, which I am not — I am writing a life, and the life includes the facts but is not limited to them, because the life also includes the way the kitchen smells at six in the morning when the coffee is brewing and the challah is rising and the house is quiet and the quiet is both the grief and the peace, simultaneously, and the simultaneous is the condition, the permanent condition of a woman who is 68 and alone and not alone, who is a grandmother and a wife and a writer and a cook and a caregiver and all of these things at once, always at once, braided together like the challah.

I made brisket this week — because it was what the week needed, because the week always needs something and the something is always food, and the food is always the answer, and the answer is always the kitchen, and the kitchen is always mine, and the mine-ness of the kitchen is the one thing that has not changed in sixty-seven years of living, from Sylvia's kitchen on the Grand Concourse to this kitchen in Oceanside where I stand every morning and every evening and many of the hours in between, making the food that is the chain, that is the love, that is the thing I do when I don't know what else to do, which is always, and especially now.

I brought food to Marvin at the usual time. The visit was what visits are now — quiet, steady, the feeding by hand when necessary, the reading aloud always, the holding of the hand that may or may not know it is being held but that is warm and alive and present, which is the definition of love in this particular year: warm and alive and present. He ate what I brought. He received what I gave. The receiving is the relationship. The receiving is the vow. In sickness and in health, in recognition and in forgetting, in the recliner and in the kitchen, the receiving is the marriage, and the marriage continues, one container at a time, one visit at a time, one day at a time, at two o'clock, every day, because the chain does not break.

The brisket I made this week was for Marvin — every container of it carried across town at two o’clock, as always — but on the nights I cook for myself, I need something just as grounding, just as no-nonsense, with the same logic the kitchen has always operated by: make the thing, feed the people, let the food do what the words cannot. These Pizza Pork Chops have been in my rotation for years precisely because they ask nothing of you except that you show up, which some weeks is the whole point.

Pizza Pork Chops

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 40 minutes | Total Time: 50 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 4 bone-in pork chops (about 3/4 inch thick)
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 cup marinara or pizza sauce
• 1/2 cup sliced pepperoni
• 1/2 cup sliced green bell pepper
• 1/4 cup sliced black olives
• 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
• 1 tablespoon olive oil

Instructions

1. Preheat and prep. Preheat your oven to 375°F. Lightly grease a 9x13-inch baking dish with the olive oil.
2. Season the chops. Pat the pork chops dry with paper towels. Combine garlic powder, oregano, onion powder, salt, and pepper in a small bowl, then rub the mixture evenly over both sides of each chop.
3. Sear for color. In a large oven-safe skillet over medium-high heat, sear the pork chops for 2 minutes per side until lightly browned. Transfer to the prepared baking dish.
4. Add the toppings. Spoon marinara sauce generously over each chop. Layer on the pepperoni, bell pepper slices, and black olives, distributing evenly.
5. Add the cheese. Sprinkle mozzarella evenly over the topped chops, covering the sauce and toppings completely.
6. Bake. Bake uncovered for 30–35 minutes, until the pork reaches an internal temperature of 145°F and the cheese is melted and beginning to brown at the edges.
7. Rest and serve. Let the chops rest for 5 minutes before serving. Pair with crusty bread or a simple green salad.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 420 | Protein: 38g | Fat: 24g | Carbs: 9g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 820mg