Since almost all restaurants in Maine have stopped offering dine-in options with table service, a great many of us are supporting local restaurant by ordering out to take in. From Eventide, Chaval, Central Provisions to even Applebee’s that now has, like all the rest, curbside pickup.
Take out has its usefulness, just think pickup from an Asian restaurant. But whatever it is you’re having from a restaurant by the time you get it home it’s lost some of its luster. A friend of mine admitted that the dinner prepared for pick up at one of the city’s finest restaurants was merely OK.
To the extreme I read an article in the New York Post the other day describing a New York socialite who’s moved her family to the Hamptons where she spends thousands a day at specialty stores to feed her family. In fact, the food stores in the Hamptons are doing booming business as many New Yorkers have retreated to their zillion dollar vacation mansions on Eastern Long Island to flee from NYC’s dire coronavirus outbreak. They don’t buy one or two of food items but rather a whole meat tray worth of $29.99 per pound steaks.
For most of us cooking and eating in and shopping accordingly is more the norm. I had about 7 days of meals at home and now I must go out to replenish. My stash for the week included a whole chicken made into chicken and dumplings; pork chops (stuffed and baked), chicken breast, pan seared, chopped meat for meat sauce over pasta, all of which presented leftovers for lunch the next day. I still have a chuck roast in the freezer for pot roast, some more pork chops (see recipe here) and a lone bag of PF Chang’s orange chicken for potluck.
REMEMBER WHEN: SHOULDER TO SHOULDER? WE’LL BE BACK
I’m big on desserts, too, and make one daily. I’m sorry to say that I’ve resorted to keep in stock some boxed cake mixes. They’re not bad and I’ll forgo my usual eat-local mandate occasionally. I made a great rum cake using butter yellow cake mix and a box of vanilla pudding, which I turned into a rum-flavored Bundt cake with a spectacular glaze. I have a tin of cultured butter cookies and enjoyed a tart cherry cobbler made with the last batch of sour cherries frozen from last year’s stash from the farmer’s market.
My staples include butter (I have 4 pounds of it from various sources including 2 from Bisson’s and the others from the supermarket). At last visit yesterday, butter stocks are running low at the markets. But I have plenty of flour and sugar, oils, pasta, rice, potatoes and carrots from the Portland Farmer’s Market, bags of spinach from Green Spark Farm and eggs from Alewive’s and Spring Brook farms.
I’m planning on getting haddock pieces for chowder and will use milk for the base with potatoes and salt- pork and onions. It’s a great dinner with good bread or crackers (or maybe corn bread) and good the next day for lunch. Admittedly I’m nervous about going out for these shopping expeditions, but with hand-sanitizer in the car and wiping down shopping carts at the store I’m hoping to stay healthy.
One of my favorite comfort food meals is this preparation of baked pork chops. I found the recipe in the cookbook “Miss Mary Bobo’s Boarding House Cookbook” by Pat Mitchamore The recipes are from an era that we hardly recognize today.
You brown the chops and then put a thick slice of onion and sliced lemon on the chops. If you haven’t tried them yet, the seedless lemons, all natural, are sold at Hannaford. Four in a bag for $1.99. You can juice them with abandon without worrying about the seeds. The chops bake under a sauce of brown sugar, ketchup and whiskey. That and the lemon and onion offer a flavor profile that explodes the limitlessness of umami.
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons cooking oil
- 2 very thick (1 1/2 inches) center cut or rib end pork chops on the bone
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- 1 medium onion peeled and sliced
- 1 lemon sliced into 4 medium thin slices (leave skin on)
- 1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
- 1/3 cup ketchup
- 3 to 4 tablespoons whiskey
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a large cast-iron skillet brown the chops in the oil over medium heat. Season the chops generously with salt and pepper.
- When browned put the chops in a shallow baking dish (Creuset gratin dish is perfect)
- Place one or two onions and one or two lemon slices on top of the chops.
- Combine the remaining ingredients and spoon over the chops. Cover with foil and bake for 40 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for 30 minutes more or until done, spoon-basting sauce over the chops occasionally.
- Serve with mashed potatoes and sauteed spinach