Plum-Good Pork Chops — The Smoker Never Goes Cold

The world shut down. Houston issued stay-at-home orders on Tuesday. Schools closed. Restaurants closed. Non-essential businesses closed. The streets are empty. The parking lots are empty. The restaurant space on Washington Avenue — half-built, half-painted, full of promise — is locked. I'm home. Tyler is home (HCC went online). Emma is home (school went online). Lily is home (school went online). Christine's house has the kids this week but the custody schedule has become fluid because nothing is normal and we're all making it up as we go. Ma is alone in her house in Alief. Seventy-three years old. High blood pressure. Vulnerable. I can't go inside. Linh forbade it — "Bobby, you could be a carrier. You have three kids who go to school and a son who works in public. You do NOT go inside that house." She said it in her doctor voice, the one that doesn't accept arguments. So I drive to Ma's every day. I park in the driveway. I put food on the porch. I call her from the truck. She opens the door after I step back. She takes the food. She waves. She goes inside. We talk through the phone. "How are you, Ma?" "I'm fine. The pho is acceptable." "Are you taking your medication?" "Yes. Stop asking." "I love you, Ma." Silence. "Eat your dinner, Bao." That's love. Through a phone. From a driveway. In a pandemic. I'm cooking more than I've ever cooked. Not for the pop-up, not for the restaurant — for survival. For my kids, who are home all day and need to eat three meals. For Ma, who needs dinner delivered. For the neighbors — Ray and Maria, who are in their seventies and shouldn't be going to the store. I smoked a pork shoulder on Sunday and divided it into eight portions. One for us. One for Ma. One for Ray and Maria. One for Tam. One for Bill and Margaret. One for Hector's family. The rest in the freezer. This is what I do. This is all I can do. I cook and I distribute and I stand in driveways and I wave at people I love through glass. The restaurant is on hold. The dream is on hold. Everything is on hold. But the fire is not on hold. I lit the smoker this morning and the smoke rose into an empty sky and I thought: we've been through worse. Ma's been through worse. The boat was worse. The floor was worse. This is temporary. Everything is temporary except the food and the love and the stubborn refusal to stop cooking. One day at a time. The oldest cliché. The truest sentence. One day at a time.

That Sunday when I broke down the smoked shoulder into eight portions — one for Ma, one for Ray and Maria, one for Tam — I realized the act of cooking for people you can’t touch is still an act of love, maybe more so. When the shoulder ran out mid-week and I needed something I could make fast and still deliver warm to a porch, these Plum-Good Pork Chops became my go-to: the plum glaze is sweet and a little sharp, the kind of flavor that cuts through the numbness of a bad news cycle, and a batch feeds a table or a neighborhood depending on how you slice it.

Plum-Good Pork Chops

Prep Time: 10 min | Cook Time: 25 min | Total Time: 35 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 6 bone-in pork loin chops (about 3/4 inch thick, 7–8 oz each)
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 cup plum jam or plum preserves
• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch mixed with 2 tablespoons cold water (optional, for thicker glaze)

Instructions

1. Season the chops. Pat pork chops dry with paper towels. Combine salt, pepper, and garlic powder and rub evenly over both sides of each chop.
2. Sear. Heat vegetable oil in a large heavy skillet (cast iron works great) over medium-high heat. Add pork chops in a single layer — work in two batches if needed. Sear 3–4 minutes per side until deep golden brown. Transfer to a plate and set aside; they will finish cooking in the sauce.
3. Build the plum glaze. Reduce heat to medium. In the same skillet, add plum jam, soy sauce, apple cider vinegar, minced garlic, ginger, and red pepper flakes. Stir and scrape up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook 2–3 minutes until the jam melts and the sauce begins to bubble.
4. Finish the chops in the glaze. Return pork chops to the skillet, spooning the sauce over each one. Cover loosely and simmer over medium-low heat for 8–10 minutes, turning once halfway, until the internal temperature reaches 145°F. For a thicker glaze, stir the cornstarch slurry into the sauce during the last 2 minutes of cooking.
5. Rest and serve. Remove from heat and let chops rest 3 minutes before serving. Spoon extra glaze over the top. Pairs well with steamed rice or mashed potatoes to catch every bit of that sauce.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 390 | Protein: 34g | Fat: 11g | Carbs: 36g | Fiber: 0g | Sodium: 580mg