Sweet-and-Sour Chops

Week 462. Winter 2025. I am 42 years old and standing in my kitchen — the Bench house kitchen, the one that held cancer and divorce and cinnamon rolls — and the stove is on and something is cooking and the house smells like soup and bread and this is my life. This is the life I built.

Tom made his trout on Friday, the way he does every Friday, and the fish was perfect, and the kitchen smelled like lemon and capers, and I sat at the table and ate fish that my partner caught and cooked and served, and the being-served is still a wonder after all these years.

Mason is 14 and navigating middle school with the quiet competence that has always been his way — focused, kind, certain of who he is in a way that took me thirty years to achieve.

Lily is 12 and riding horses with the fearlessness of someone who has never considered the possibility of falling.

I made meatloaf this week. The food continues. The food always continues. It is the thread that connects every week to every other week, every year to every other year, every version of me to every other version — the woman on the kitchen floor, the woman at the chemo recliner, the woman at the grill, the woman at the outdoor table under the string lights. All of them, connected by the food they made with their hands. All of them, me.

Meatloaf felt like the right call this week, but when I went to pull together what we had, I landed on pork chops instead — and honestly, the sweet-and-sour glaze felt more honest than I expected. There’s something about that balance of sharp and sweet that matches how I feel most days now: the hard things are still there, they’re just folded into something that tastes good. I made these on a Tuesday, nothing special about it, and that’s exactly the point.

Prep Time: 10 min | Cook Time: 35 min | Total Time: 45 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

4 bone-in pork loin chops (about 3/4 inch thick)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/2 cup ketchup
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
3 tablespoons brown sugar, packed
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon yellow mustard
1/2 cup diced onion
1/2 cup diced green bell pepper

Instructions

Season the chops. Pat the pork chops dry with paper towels and season both sides evenly with salt and black pepper.
Brown the meat. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the chops and brown for 3–4 minutes per side until golden. Transfer to a plate and set aside.
Saute the vegetables. In the same skillet, reduce heat to medium and add the diced onion and green bell pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 4–5 minutes until softened.
Make the sauce. Stir in the ketchup, apple cider vinegar, brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce, and mustard. Mix well to combine, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan.
Simmer together. Return the browned pork chops to the skillet. Spoon the sauce over the top, cover, and reduce heat to low. Simmer for 20–25 minutes, turning the chops once halfway through, until the pork is cooked through and tender and the sauce has thickened.
Rest and serve. Remove from heat and let rest 3 minutes. Serve chops with sauce spooned over the top alongside mashed potatoes or steamed rice.

Nutrition (per serving)

Sweet-and-Sour Chops — The Food Always Continues