Lately I’ve been a little truant about visits to the Union Square Greenmarket: I’ve made dinners, on almost successive nights, using fish and meat not even produced inside our national borders. Although not anathema, it’s something I normally try to avoid.  I do have some weak excuses however.

On Monday it was Spanish sardines, and last night, Wednesday, normally a fish day for us, it was Quebec pork chops. I had wandered over to the Greenmarket around the middle of the day to pick up something with fins for dinner, but when I got there I learned that the ocean fisher people had not been able to make it that day, and that as a consequence, the freshwater guy had sold out early.

Again, as on Monday, I thought of a pasta entrée, but, again, as on Monday, it was not to be. This time I was at Whole Foods Market, essentially to pick up milk, when I came across something new in the meat case, some very fine-looking organic, pork (“Raised in open barns with outdoor access“) from a Quebec producer I had heard of. Largely because I had vegetables more suitable to a fish or meat dinner, I decided once again that the pasta could wait.

• 2 organic pork loin chops (totaling 1.05 lbs) from the French Canadian producer, duBreton, via Whole Foods, thoroughly dried, seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, seared quickly on both sides inside a very hot, heavy enameled cast-iron pan, one small finely-chopped floral-scented orange Habanada pepper (heatless) from Norwich Meadows Farm sprinkled on the top surfaces before half of an organic lemon was squeezed over them, after which the lemon was left on the surface of the pan between the chops, the pan placed in a 425º oven for about 14 minutes (flipped halfway through, the pepper pieces repositioned on the surfaces, the lemon squeezed over the top once again and once again replaced in the pan, the finished dish removed from the oven and arranged on 2 plates, and some red micro sorrel from Two Guys from Woodbridge pushed around inside the pan before the luscious pan juices were spooned over the top of the chops
• two small red new potatoes from Norwich Meadows Farm, boiled in well-salted water, drained, dried in the still-warm glass pot, quartered, rolled in a little olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper, sprinkled with chopped thyme from Keith’s Farm
• red Russian kale from Keith’s Farm, sautéed in olive oil in which one bruised and halved German Hardneck garlic clove from Race Farm had first been allowed to sweat and barely begin to brown, seasoned with salt, pepper, and a dash of more olive oil
• the wine was a California (Santa Ynez) white, Literally Sauvignon Blanc California 2013
• the music was the album, ‘Complete Mozart Edition Vol 36‘, which includes ‘Zaide’ and ‘Schauspieldirektor’