Good morning. It’s been a week and I’m still jazzed by the memory of the broiled pork chop I ate at Park Side in Corona, Queens, with its caramelized, salty crust set against sweet vinegar peppers. The flavors set me on a path for this weekend, to adapt my own recipe for pork chops in cherry pepper sauce (above) for either the grill or my broiler, depending on weather and mood.
Featured Recipe
Pork Chops in Cherry Pepper Sauce
What I’ll do: Make the sauce, massage the meat with a little neutral oil and a lot of salt, then get it over or under a flame until it almost chars, flipping it a few times to develop some bark. After letting it rest, but not for too long, I’ll dress it with velvety peppers and serve it, as if I were back at the restaurant, with linguine with clam sauce. (More conservatively, you could go with spaghetti with olive oil and Parmesan.)
There’s no substitute for dessert at The Lemon Ice King of Corona afterward, I’m afraid. But sliced, chilled watermelon won’t make anyone angry. Neither will this stovetop blackberry slump.
Another dish I’d like to make this weekend: Ali Slagle’s Old Bay grilled shrimp. Ali adds a little bit of baking soda to the seasoning, which helps keep the shrimp snappy while they cook, and then tops everything with lemon zest, parsley and garlic. I think that’d be a fine Sunday lunch, in advance of a nap in front of a fan.
Alternatively, maybe this spicy tuna salad with crispy rice? Or a radish sandwich with butter and salt? I could see taking that one out into the world, to eat under a tree.
Then, for Sunday dinner, I’d like to make a not-too-sweet sangria and follow it up with grilled paella, unless I manage to make the drive upstate to Plattsburgh for the Bassmaster Elite tournament on Lake Champlain. (In which case, it’s going to be wings at Buster’s and a long trip home.)
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Now, it’s a far cry from anything to do with beurre blanc or khao soi gai, but I’ve been enjoying the lusciously violent “Warrior” on Max.
Here’s a lovely piece of prose from John Jeremiah Sullivan in Harper’s: a long, long paragraph about plumbing, “Man Called Fran.”
I’ve slowly become attached to David Coggins’s idiosyncratic newsletter, “The Contender,” on Substack. See what you think.
Finally, my colleague Jon Pareles turned me on to the Canadian singer-songwriter Ora Cogan’s latest track, “Katie Cruel.” Listen to that while you’re cooking. And I’ll see you on Sunday.