DEIDRE COOKS

Pork Chops:

i was cooking pork chops the other night for connor and i. that in itself is humorous enough i'm sure but it gets better. i wasn't sure how long to cook them. i sat scratching my head wondering what to do. does anyone REALLY scratch their head or is it more figurative? sometimes i actually scratch my head just for effect. i digress, i remembered that we had one of those meat thermometer thingy-ma-jiggs (warning, all this technical jargon may throw you off, but try and keep up with me here). it was rumored that the thermometers come w/ instructions telling you what temperature certain kinds of meat are supposed to reach before you can safely consume them. the rumor was right, there were instructions and they said that the pork chops were supposed to reach 165 degrees. they had been in the oven for approximately twenty-five minutes. yes, it took me twenty-five minutes to figure out the intricacies of the meat thermometer...it's a complex tool. i stuck the meat thermometer into the pork almost bursting a blood vessel in my eye from having to push it in so hard. i was unsold on whoever designed this thing, i mean, c'mon why not make the end sharper? to top off my discontent it took the thermometer longer to register the temperature of the meat than it taks for my eighty-seven year old grandmother to get to the store...and she doesn't drive. i watched the thermometer, mouth open, waiting, it finally stopped moving at one hundred degrees. apparently these suckers took a long time to cook. so i kept waiting five minutes and then reinserting the thermometer back into the pork which now resembled swiss cheese because of all the holes i'd poked in them. the porkchops were registering at one hundred and fifteen degrees after they had been in the oven for fifty-five minutes. i hated pork chops. connor walked in and said that it smelled awesome. yes it did. i told him that i'd had two chops in the oven for over fifty minutes but they weren't even close to done yet. he looked perplexed by this piece of information. how did i know they weren't even close to done? well, because i'd been using the 'meat thermometer'. i went to show him the temperature of the meat and when i opened the oven and pulled out the rack exposing the pork chops connor doubled back. 'why do they have so many holes in them?' i explained that it was because of the 'meat thermometer'. which i said with a slight tone of arrogance. that's right, who was domestic? deidre was domestic. deidre's the winner..deidre wins. tee hee. I grabbed my new found tool off the counter and proceeded to search for an untainted spot on the meat. this must be what a heroin addict felt like trying to find a working vein. these are the things i tell myself from time to time to make my life seem a little more exciting. from my peripheral vision i could see connor slowly shaking his head. i turned to him and noticed a grin spreading across his face. he started reaching for my tool, "what are you doing?" he asked as he snagged the thermometer out of my hand. he proceeded to pull the thermometer OUT of it's round large plastic case. check please! "have you been sticking the thermometer inside it's case into the meat?" pause. more pause. "PFFFTT...no." And by 'no' i meant 'yes'. he proceeded to stick the sharp metal point into the pork chop (show off) and we watched the red line shoot up so fast and high that we both ducked a little as if it was going to explode in his hand. The temperature was over 180 degrees. i'm pretty sure I could have roasted an entire pig on a spit in the back yard and it would have been done at that point.