By October. Darkness settling. SAD lamp on. Sertraline steady. The annual deployment of defenses against the Alaskan winter, the fortifications that I build every fall and maintain until March. The building is easier now — five and a half years of practice, of knowing what works (routine, cooking, therapy, light, the coastal trail on mornings when the trail is still visible), of trusting the process even when the process feels like a prison of self-care that I can't stop performing without consequences.
The blog milestone: I started drafting a cookbook proposal. Not writing it — drafting it. The distinction matters. Writing implies commitment. Drafting implies exploration. The draft is an outline, a list of recipes, a tentative structure for a book that might become real or might remain a draft, and the might is where I live right now, in the space between dreaming and doing, the space that Dr. Reeves calls "readiness approaching" and I call "not sure yet."
The proposal includes: Lourdes's recipes (with her permission, which she gave with the caveat "make sure you use Datu Puti"), Reynaldo's recipes (with his absence, which makes every recipe a memorial), my Alaska adaptations (moose adobo, salmon sinigang, king crab lumpia), and the pandemic recipes (the midnight adobo, the isolation cooking, the food that kept me alive when alive was the only goal). The proposal is a life. The proposal is my life, measured in garlic and vinegar and the meals that held me upright.
I made lechon kawali — the crispy pork belly, the celebration dish. Not because the proposal is finished (it isn't) but because the starting of the proposal is its own kind of celebration, the beginning that is harder than the middle, the first step that requires more courage than any step that follows.
I didn’t have lechon kawali ingredients on hand that night—no full pork belly in the freezer, no time for the long simmer and the hot oil—but I had pork chops, and I had onions, and sometimes the spirit of a celebration dish lives in what you actually cook rather than what you meant to cook. The proposal outline was open on my laptop, Lourdes’s name already in the acknowledgments, Reynaldo’s recipes already in the index, and I needed something that sizzled in a pan and filled the apartment with the smell of something real. Pork chops with onions: humble, honest, the kind of meal that says you started something today without making a fuss about it.
Pork Chops with Onions
Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 25 minutes | Total Time: 35 minutes | Servings: 4
Ingredients
- 4 bone-in pork chops (about 3/4 inch thick)
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 2 large yellow onions, thinly sliced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1/2 cup low-sodium chicken broth
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
- Fresh parsley, chopped, for garnish (optional)
Instructions
- Season the pork. Pat pork chops dry with paper towels. Season both sides evenly with salt, pepper, and garlic powder.
- Sear the chops. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add pork chops and sear 3–4 minutes per side until golden brown. Transfer to a plate and set aside.
- Cook the onions. Reduce heat to medium. Add sliced onions to the same skillet and cook, stirring occasionally, for 8–10 minutes until softened and beginning to caramelize. Add minced garlic and cook 1 minute more.
- Build the sauce. Pour in chicken broth, soy sauce, and brown sugar. Stir to combine, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan.
- Return the chops. Nestle the seared pork chops back into the skillet among the onions. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and cook 8–10 minutes until pork reaches an internal temperature of 145°F.
- Finish and serve. Remove from heat. Stir in butter until melted and sauce is glossy. Garnish with parsley if desired. Serve chops topped generously with the onion sauce.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 320 | Protein: 28g | Fat: 18g | Carbs: 9g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 520mg